My name is Xena Brar and I am a rising sophomore Graphic Design major. During the summer of 2017 I was a design intern for Never Normal Records based in New York City. Throughout high school, i’ve always designed album art, flyers, merchandise and posters for my friend’s bands and loved doing it. I wanted to keep doling this throughout college and while in school I searched on the MICA Jobs and Internships page on Facebook for anything relating to the music industry. I stumbled upon Never Normal and immediately knew I needed to pursue this! I immediately emailed Suzi Analogue, the founder and manager of Never Normal, with my resume, portfolio, and why I wanted this internship. It took a while but she finally emailed me back and told me she loved my work and wanted me to do more of it for her!
Never Normal is a record label that has no “labels” in a sense. They are open to anyone and everyone joining their team and the artists they currently have on the label are diverse and amazing people. Suzi Analogue is my direct supervisor and she was the founder of the label, she created the label at just 16 years old and watched it grow into something she never thought it would grow into!
My role throughout this label was to create flyers, posters, album art, weekly social media posts for the label as a whole and really anything design based that the musicians needed in order to release their music. It was exciting for me because I have creative liberty and was told to design everything in my own style, which really helped me develop and grow as an individual and an artist as well. I am most proud of the flyers I have made as well as my change in style, I never would of experimented with my designs if it wasn't for this internship.
My biggest take away from this internship is the new skill I acquired which is how to work with clients. In past years usually, I have designed or created something and someone would want to use it on their flyer or band t-shirt, I haven't had much experience dealing with clients and making mock-ups, multiple versions etc. But this internship has taught me that and I can take that into the future for my job after college. This internship has also made me realize that I love working with clients and others, I thought I wanted to work on my own but this experience has made me realize that I love working with a team it makes the whole experience a lot more manageable. Im incredibly lucky that Suzi reached out to me, and will forever be grateful for this amazing opportunity.
