My name is Olivia Johnson, and I am a graphic design major, who’s just entering my junior year at MICA. During the summer of 2014, I completed an internship with Feats Inc, a Baltimore
based events company.
I first heard about Feats through MICA’s Career and Internships Fair in the early spring.
Before the fair, I made sure I was completely prepared, with my digital portfolio
compiled, my resume updated, and my business
cards printed. I also emailed
the designers at Feats before the fair so they already knew my name and had a quick look at my skills and expertise. It also didn’t hurt that I held a work-study
position at MICA’s own Office of Events, which showed that I already had a little experience working within the events industry.
After the Career Fair, I made sure to send a thank you note to Lea and Danielle,
the designers who interviewed me. After a few days, I got a call from Feats, offering me the position!
Danielle Nekimken,
the Creative Director at Feats, was my main supervisor, though Lea Hebert was also responsible for assigning many of my projects.
While interning,
I had a pretty diverse assortment of projects. I spent a great deal of time design a program booklet for the National Academy Foundation’s event in June. I also did a lot of research and designing for the Horseshoe
Casino grand opening
in July and August. When Feats didn’t have many events going on, I mostly worked on internal assignments. The company is going through a brand refreshment, so I helped out with tweaking the letterheads, envelopes, thank you cards, and other print collateral. I am proud of the projects that were actually
used in events, because it made me feel like a valuable
part of the Feats team. Specifically, I enjoyed working
on creating patterns
and 3d materials for the Horseshoe Casino. It’s so amazing experiencing the process of first creating simple mock-ups to sending a design to a fabricator. That’s definitely different
from having to do everything by my own hand while in school.
The most valuable thing I learned while working at Feats was that many clients are relatively
conservative, and it’s more important
to design things around the big picture rather than focusing each small detail at a time. Stepping
away from my personal design taste was a challenge,
but is such an important
thing to be able to do when working with corporate clients.
After experiencing yet another foray into the events industry,
I’m still torn as to whether it’s the direction
I want to be taking my career. I love the excitement
of the industry, but I think that some of the projects
can get a little repetitive, because of how specific of a field it is. That being said, I would still love to continue to design for events, but also have the opportunity to work on different types of projects
as well. Overall, interning for Feats has been an incredible fulfilling experience, and I recommend
the position looking to broaden their design skills and knowledge.