INTERNSHIP STORIES

Animation Internship at a Studio I found out about this internship through my friend who started working there before me, and she had recommended this internship to me because we are both majoring in animation. I secured it by applying through their website, and I had a short interview with the head of the studio where we agreed I would start working this fall.  Animation Libation Studios is a small animation-focused studio that is currently working on producing a couple TV shows, and amongst each team there are character, background, and prop designers, animators, and story boarders. My direct supervisor was in charge of overseeing all of the productions on the show, and meets weekly with each team to check up and give feedback on our progress, as well as keep us up to speed on what we need to work on to meet our schedule deadlines. My responsibilities involved mostly background art, with some prop design. The TV show I am working on is called Champions of Eternity, which is an a...

My journey with AARP began when I was actively searching for internships in publication design. I discovered the opportunity through a faculty member who taught designing for a diverse and mature audience. I secured the internship after a competitive application process, which included a phone call and an interview that tested my design sensibilities and understanding of AARP's audience. My primary responsibilities included working on layouts for the upcoming issues of AARP's magazine, creating branding assets, assisting in preparing presentations, and providing support for social media campaigns. I was deeply involved in the conceptualization to final production stages of several key layouts, which taught me the intricacies of publication design in a real-world setting. I am most proud of a layout design I created for a feature article in the magazine. I’m eager to see the response of the readers. The most important thing I learned was the significance of empathetic design – c...

Polychrome is an online design studio. The studio creates trend reports and fully repetitive patterns. I found out about this opportunity through an interview the founder did for a fashion podcast. I checked out their design studio and applied. My direct supervisor was the founder of the studio. While working there, I helped with researching fashion trends through fashion websites like Vogue. I pinned pictures to Pinterest boards for different future trends and helped with creating photo mock-ups for pre-existing patterns. Another responsibility I had was creating patterns with Photoshop and Illustrator. I feel proud of my skills in Photoshop and Illustrator, I learned many good digital tricks through this internship experience. My biggest take-away was learning how to keep everything labeled and organized; though I think I still have room for improvement. I feel one important thing about doing pattern design is staying productive, and that needs a well-planned out workflow. I also lea...

I learned about this Creative Capital Shanghai (CC) from a MICA alum.  CC is a brand advertising company and now it is collaborating with Altavia, a  French advertising firm. My direct supervisor was the creative department manager. I participated in design idea generating, presentation designing and even designed a project  independently. I learned how to present my work more professionally. When I was in school, I only  needed to think about my own feelings about the design, but when I work, I have to think about how  everyone feels about the design, not just from the designer's point of view. I am most proud of my time management and multi-stream working schedule. I learned  about managing my time with various projects going on, and I think designing culturally is the most  important thing I have learned. I am also more familiar with Adobe Suites. This internship experience has given me a better understanding of what people at a b...

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. ...