WIX Design Playground

I had my first internship in the US this summer, and it turned out to be one of the best experiences in my design learning. Instead of being like an internship, Wix Design Playground is more like an academy of website design and project management. It is affiliated to Wix.com, who attribute their expertise and powers to help and educate the young designers. 

I learned the information about this program through the MICA Career Fair. Vuong, the head of Wix Design Playground, visited MICA and had a brief interview with me. Afterward, I had one more online interview with another program leader before I was accepted. This 7-hour a day, 5-day a week for 3 months program is actually a little bit

heavy for the summer, however, I enjoy the intensity and am very satisfied with what I

acquired.

During the 3-month program, we are given diverse resources to develop our own interests and careers such as lectures, workshops, and one-on-one instruction. In the meantime, we have gained a lot of professional knowledge and experiences through real-world projects, for example, making a marketing landing page for One World Book, and designing the front-to-end website for non-profit organizations. In the end, we are also re-building our own portfolio in an online space under the mentorship of the Wix team.

I learned by practicing every aspect of a high-end website design project including

UI/UX, production, styling, content writing, code & content management, and

client & project management. More importantly, the people I met in the program are the most valuable takeaway for me. Both my fellow group members and mentors are passionate about what we do, which creates a positive and supportive environment to learn and to improve. It further facilitates us to explore our potential and more possibilities for creative performances.

I feel more confident in my abilities as a designer as well as getting clearer ideas about my future career path. It reminds me of what I stepped into the design industry for and provides me a very good reference for my career development.

SONY Music

I got this internship through a family friend who used to work at Sony. She put me in contact with Sony Music Canada director of the office I worked at then he linked me to my supervisor. 

I am very proud of the new skills I learned such as improving my Photoshop skills and learning how to make GIFs. I have also learned how to network and create professional relationships. 

I was responsible for designing GIFs for artists, create playlist album covers, helped with some artists websites. I was also asked to help film for GIFs, videos, and for photography artists. 

This internship helped clarify my career goal and helped me realize that I want to work

more in the music and entertainment industry, but still as a graphic designer.

Google UX Design

I applied to Google’s UX design internship online through their application portal. My New York office offer was finalized in early April. Although the hiring process is quite opaque, I assume that I stood out in the candidate pool because of the diverse design projects I worked on outside of class and my in-depth progress for my design challenge. During my interviews, I also spoke confidently and engagingly about my designs.

I lead the development of two UX projects for Google Docs and proposed new solutions that make it easier for users to work in Docs. Being the first to work on a new problem space at Google, I wasn’t given specific design instructions. Instead, I took it into my own hands to research the problem area and discover useful data to identify previously unthoughtful design directions. I also actively prepared and set up user studies to test my ideas and learn more about user behavior. Throughout the process, I kept my design on track through collaborative meetings with PMs, UX managers, and other designers. I’m proud of striking the balance between working independently and collaboratively and taking active steps to solve an intricate design challenge.

I have grown so much as a designer and person from this internship. My biggest take-aways are:

1. Don’t be afraid to talk with designers and other professionals about life, work, and everything else in between. At Google, I arranged countless coffee chats, lunches, and 1-on-1s with Googlers that I had never met before. Everyone I met had diverse expertise and plenty of inspiration, ideas, guidance to offer.

2. Learn to see and craft stories around your designs. The work you make never lives in a vacuum. I often thought of design as artifacts: type on a page, image, colors in an illustration, webpage on a screen. At Google, I learned to acutely examine UX design not just as interfaces but as products that people use in their daily life. By evaluating user journeys, I recognized how these digital touch points aren’t just static screens but react and depend on settings, actions, and conditions beyond the product itself.

I solidified my interest in designing for tech. I connected with designers of various seniority,

experience, and specialty. I plan to work in Tech for at least a couple of years before moving onto other fields.

Pentagram

Working at Pentagram Design has been a dream internship and a dream summer. Not only was it an amazing experience to be working at Pentagram, but I couldn’t have asked for a better, more fun team to work in!

Team Oberman does a lot of work in the entertainment industry. I was lucky to be a part of the team that was working on the identity of Space Jam staring LeBron James. My logo made it to the top two and it was an intense ride perfecting it for the final presentation. I was lucky that the director and the producer saw the logo. It is a great learning experience I will always remember. I learnt so much in those three weeks, collaborated with the team and kept on pushing myself. My mentors were incredibly helpful too.

Other than this major project, I worked on the identity for Words of Art, a card game for art lovers made by Scholastic for Agnes Gund’s art collection. That was a completely different experience and a lovely one too. I also worked on the extended identity for Fisher Price which involved advertisements, videos, and bumpers. 

Other brands I worked on were Lovevery, a kid’s brand that does different products. I worked on Jopwell strategy, it is an upcoming brand for job hunting and making connections aimed towards people of color. I also worked on Dock 72 Ferry schedule, an icon for League of Legends, storyboarding for Film Independent Spirit Awards, etc. All in all it was an incredible experience.

Pittsburgh Center for the Arts and Media

This summer, I interned for the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts and Media (PCA&M) an organization dedicated to the promotion of the arts. This non-profit hosts an exhibition space that showcases anywhere from one to three exhibitions at a time, in addition to a school that offers a wide array of classes to both children and adults. The school offers a variety of classes, including ceramics, metalworking, screen printing, photography, and more.

While researching internship opportunities in Pittsburgh, I came upon a posting for an Exhibitions Intern. I was unaware that the posting was from 2016, however, I was able to get in contact with the Gallery Programs Manager who was enthusiastic about my interest. After some correspondence and a phone interview, I was offered a position as an Exhibitions Intern. I was supervised by the Creative Director.

The focus of my internship was on preparing and assisting with the upcoming exhibition, which featured seven solo shows from regional artists. My responsibilities were broad, as my work overlapped three departments: Exhibitions, Marketing, and Education. 

I visited each artist’s studio where I assisted the Marketing Manager in shooting promotional materials. We photographed and interviewed each artist, and I helped set up and take down of filming equipment. I coordinated with the artists to schedule an artists’ talk and a workshop. Leading up to the show's opening, I assisted in the de-install of the prior show. I then assisted the artists during the installation of their shows. The opening reception concluded my time at the PCA&M, and it was a fitting end to see the seven weeks of hard work come together into a full exhibition.

The greatest takeaway from this experience were the connections I made with the staff at the PCA&M as well as the exhibiting artists. Through conversations about their work, I was offered an overwhelming amount of advice and some realities about working in the arts.

The best piece of advice I was given from multiple sources was to simply be open to opportunities, even the ones that I never previously envisioned. For many of the people I met with worked a variety of jobs in different fields which proved to be extremely rewarding. In regards to technical and professional skills, I left with a strong foundation in exhibition prep from patching walls to hanging art to lighting. I was also able to experience working in a professional environment, learning how to carry myself not only around my coworkers but also the exhibiting artists.

Overall, this internship has been a rewarding experience that allowed me to explore the various roles that are necessary to organizing and promoting exhibitions. My time at the PCA&M clarified for me that I am more interested in gallery operations, like promotion and exhibition preparation, rather than in curation. I much prefer the hands on nature of this work as opposed to more administrative duties.

Hyperakt

During my internship this summer at Hyperakt, a design studio in Brooklyn, I got the amazing opportunity to work with a passionate group of designers, strategists and developers.

The great part about Hyperakt is that they believe in the power of design for good. All the work that is done was for clients who are working towards social justice. The highlight of my internship was working on developing a brand identity for Donors Choose, a crowdfunding platform for public school teachers. My concept went onto become the final option and the entire team worked together to build a whole world around that identity. It was a huge learning experience for me to see the trajectory of the idea grow from a simple sketch through multiple renditions to the final shape it took.

Other than that, I worked on developing options for other brands like MTV Social Impact Squad, WeWork Veterans in Residence. I also worked on creating illustrations and graphics for Zealous, a conference for public defenders as well as iconography for

brand languages that have already been established. Team critiques and feedbacks were so valuable and learnt so much by creating presentations to pitch ideas to the client.

It was a pleasure being part of a team that values empathy as well as hard work.