INTERNSHIP STORIES

 Luxury Fashion Design and Production Intern My internship with Bibhu Mohapatra was a pivotal and eye-opening experience that marked the beginning of my journey in the fashion industry. I made it a daily habit to search "fashion design internship" on LinkedIn, and ensured my cover letter and resume were always ready to go. I sent out countless applications. Then, one day, I received an email from Bibhu Mohapatra. I traveled to NYC for the interview and it turned out to be an incredible experience, and I was thrilled to join his design team. Bibhu Mohapatra design focuses on upscale women's clothes, especially for Couture. They focus on weddings and various other designs in collaboration with the emerging designer. His works are praised for their sophisticated modern design, fine details, and fusion of traditional workmanship with modern aesthetics. I worked directly with the Production Manager and Creative Director, which provided me with an opportunity to collaborate clo...

Design Internship for a Magazine I found out about this internship opportunity on LinkedIn - the person hiring was a former alumni and adjunct professor who reposted the listing on my feed. I had applied at the beginning of the summer. I got an email back from their HR manager and set up a virtual interview where they gauged my personality and work ethic. I passed the first round and was given a second interview with the design team where I got to talk more about my design process and time management skills, which seemed to resonate with the team. I was given another a week later!  AARP is an interest group in the United States focusing on issues affecting those 50 years old and older. Their magazine has the most readers than any other publication in the country, with over 30 million readers as of 2023. Their magazine focuses on everything from lifestyle stories to health reads and political responses. My direct supervisor is the Associate Art Director at AARP who mainly focuses on...

I discovered the opportunity to intern with Empact Art through the MICAnetwork’s E-internship program and the RCCE. After learning about the program, I was excited to apply. I ultimately secured the position by completing a successful interview with the artist. During our conversation, we found our goals and values aligned. This set a strong foundation for my internship. My supervisor, Danyett Tucker, is an artist and a member of the Empact art collective. Empact Art is a 501(c)(3) community-centered public art non-profit. It is dedicated to creating bold, inclusive, and meaningful art experiences and installations. In addition to her work with the collective, Danyett also pursues independent projects. These include puppetry, workshops, and mural painting.  I was Danyett's assistant in whatever she happened to be working on. Over the summer, that meant a huge variety of projects. I helped design flyers for events and sewed curtains for puppet theaters. I also guided community art w...

I was made aware of the opportunity via my professor, who directed me to somebody who was willing to provide an internship opportunity involving the freelance comic industry. After a few email exchanges, I went inside the studio and had a brief chat. It took about one semester after, before I was able to actually get the internship, when I showed him a mini comic I completed. My supervisor is a freelance pre-press technician, who formats comics, books, posters which aren’t print ready. He cleans up formatting issues, or lettering issues and adjusts space in between. During my internship, I had other small jobs, but mainly to scan various files in his inventory, which he plans to use for an archival project. Later, I was assigned to be a flatter for a middle grade DC graphic novel at a base pay rate, which I’m most proud of.  I learned many things such as the inner workings of freelancers in the industry, a new perspective on the lives of such people, their financial experiences, th...

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...

I found this internship from a Google search. I just uploaded my resume and my personal website. I don’t really remember how much time passed, and then I got an email that said they were interested in working with me. For the process, they sent me something that acted as a test that required me to finish a piece of work, almost like an audition. Then, after my work was reviewed, they would send an email back to tell me if they wanted to hire me. After that, they sent me the offer.  They are a non-profit publisher organization. They don’t really have a lot of people, the only two people I knew were our direct supervisor, and another one being the Editor-in-Chief. My direct supervisor would give us work that we needed to complete in time before the deadline. She would also give you help if you were to have any problems as well as suggestions sometimes.  My position was as an illustrator intern. I needed to finish the illustration for their specific work. The work would be an ill...

Illumination Studios is an animation studio which specializes in kid-friendly feature films. Illumination Studios has two locations: Los Angeles and Paris. The Los Angeles studio does the script, voice acting, and marketing. The Paris office focuses on the creation of the film’s visuals. When exchanging emails with a previous teacher, I let her know my family was moving to Paris. She then offered to speak to her connection at Illumination Studios Mac Guff about securing me an interview for an internship. I agreed and after a phone call, a Zoom interview, and an in-person interview, I was all set to help out in the Art Department. Although I can’t say which movie I was involved in because of NDA, I can say that my role was to pitch prop designs, receive edits, and enact them effectively. Essentially, my supervisor would tell me that a villain needs a cane. I would look over the existing character design sheets and color schemes for the character, then research canes. I would draw severa...

This summer, I was fortunate to serve as a brand and creative services intern at the Cleveland Metroparks. The parks system has received the National Gold Medal for “best in the nation.” It includes 18 reservations or parks, golf courses, and a zoo as well as several other properties. Their mission is to protect nature, connect communities and inspire conservation in our world. I became aware of the internship opportunity after spending a day with the Metropark's Marketing Team as part of a high school senior project. I applied for a creative services internship role later in the fall and after several interviews and sharing my portfolio, I landed the job. My supervisor was the Director of Brand and Advertising at the Cleveland Metroparks. As a brand and creative services intern, I was assigned a series of impactful projects. I leveraged my graphic design and illustration skills to develop actionable concepts for the Metropark’s 2024 Calendar, 2024 Eclipse merchandise, commemorativ...

During the spring semester, my illustration professor had our class attend an artist presentation of an artist who mentioned that she runs a small publishing press called Anchovy Press. I followed Anchovy Press’s page on Instagram that day and eventually when I was looking for internships, I reached out and luckily for me they were able to take me on. That artist (and my supervisor) is the founder of Anchovy Press and runs it with their co-founder. In their words, Anchovy Press is “ an independent publishing company based in Baltimore, Maryland, dedicated to storytelling that centers BIPOC experiences.” They publish children's books and family friendly zines.  One product they offer is the Zine Subscription Box for children. I was tasked with creating the activity for one of these boxes. I created a paper doll which was in some way related to food. Throughout the internship, this grew into two paper doll projects which specifically focus on wild harvestables from Maryland. Inside ...

For my internship, I worked at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. My main project centered around helping out with an Astro-Animation Exhibition, but throughout my ten weeks I also got to work as a graphics support artist. I had multiple mentors for the exhibition and for my graphics support work. This summer, I worked on researching and prototyping potential animation related activities for the exhibition as well as many other graphics projects, including photography assistance, photo processing, logo design, and creating an illustrated poster.  I found out about this internship in my Astro-Animation class last semester taught by my mentors. They were already familiar with my work from other classes I had taken with them and so I applied for the position, went through a short interview process and got hired from there. One of the exhibition mentors is an astrophysicist at NASA Goddard and so I was given a desk in-person in the office of my graphics support mentors. Despite tech...

I first met Cinema Chef Productions at the MICA Internship and Career Fair, where the creative director first interviewed me. There, I presented a portfolio of my work and gave out my business card. After that, I received many follow up emails and a phone interview before I secured my position as an environmental concept artist and illustrator. Cinema Chef Productions is a small production company looking to make a name for themselves through their new animated show, Cypher Drive. My responsibilities were to create environmental concepts and then illustrate backgrounds for an animated short. I was also occasionally given the task of illustrating key frame concepts or splash art for characters. I’m most proud of the environments I’ve textured and colored throughout the internship, I feel as if my concept of color theory and texturing has grown a great deal. Throughout my internship I learned  the 3D program Sketch Up,  how to texture and paint over 3D models, and how...

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...

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 illu...

During my Sophomore year at MICA, I came across an opportunity to work with NPR as the in house illustrator. Back then, they selected 1 illustrator out of a pool of 280 applicants. I was rejected. Towards the end of the semester, I received an email about the possibility of working with NPR's Next Generation Radio on a project in Baltimore. I immediately said yes but was rejected again. Nevertheless, he suggested that I email him if I would be interested in the project in the future. During the Spring semester this year, I emailed him again which he immediately responded. He offered me the opportunity to work as the project illustrator for the next four consecutive projects. What I learned from this experience was to highlight emails from job opportunities we were interested in, and always email back with an updated portfolio. The organization I worked in was an NPR sponsored journalism project called Next Generation Radio. We traveled across the United States to train and...

My name is Sophie Fisher, I am a Senior Illustration major with a Book Arts concentration. This summer I had the amazing opportunity to intern with the Newark Print Shop , a grass roots non-profit printmaking studio based in Newark, NJ, a vibrant urban city close to Manhattan. Its facilities are open to an entire community of artists, and according to their mission statement, has “the focus on supporting the fine art of printmaking by providing an affordable and accessible workspace for everyone, as well educational programming through classes and workshops.” As the summer approached and I was searching for internship opportunities, I recalled my connection to Lisa Conrad, the Executive Director and founder. She had previously worked as a teacher when I was a senior in high school. I attended Print Club back in 2015, a weekly Wednesday night gathering, where artists of all levels pay a small admission to access to the screen-printing facilities and equipment for...