Category: Internship

During my internship, I’ve had the chance to work closely with my mentor who has become a role model and mentor for me. From the beginning, she was approachable and always willing to provide feedback and guidance, which made me feel comfortable asking questions. She works as a senior designer in our team as well. She won’t take criticism personally and she always has a smiley face on camera. I admire her strong mentality and her ability to balance creativity with a strong sense of professionalism, which is something I hope to develop myself.

Accepting criticism has been a major part of my growth in this internship. Sometimes I get feedback that challenges my original ideas and it can be hard not to take them personally. However, I’ve started to see that constructive criticism is not about my skills as a designer but about improving the final product. It is part of my job, they are not judging me as a person but judging my work professionally. I’ve learned to view feedback as a tool for growth and as something that can help me become a better designer in the long run.

I’m learning how to balance creativity with the practical needs of each project. I could be as experimental as I wanted in school, but I need to consider factors like budget, time, and client expectations in work. Sometimes I have to simplify a design because it needs to be printed in black and white instead of colors; Sometimes my idea is too abstract that it doesn’t match the brand’s aesthetic; Sometimes it’s too complicated to be understood and it needs to be literal. This has taught me that being a designer isn’t just about creating beautiful visuals—it’s also about making choices that are practical and cost-effective.

As a designer, I always have to explain my design choices and present my work to the team. At first, I felt nervous and unsure of how to communicate my ideas because I always felt like my work was not good enough to show others. “What if other people judge me? What if they think it looks so bad? What if they think my idea is too boring to show?” However, I’ve gained confidence and started to feel more comfortable talking about my designs and explaining why I made certain choices. This experience is helping me become better at presenting my work and standing behind my ideas which will be important in my future career.

One thing I’ve been focused on is understanding the importance of brand consistency. Every project needs to align with the brand style, such as colors, fonts, and layout choices. There’s one project that the client offered some past examples as reference. I was drafting something new for the project, but my mentor reminded me that the client might want to stick with the layout that they had in the past examples. The client ended up choosing the same layout they had before for the final work.

It reminds me to think about the bigger picture and to ensure my designs fit the brand’s identity. This is something I hadn’t thought much about before, but now I see how crucial it is for building a recognizable brand. Learning to maintain this consistency in all designs has helped me appreciate the strategic side of graphic design.

Meeting deadlines is a priority in the company, and I’ve had to improve my time management skills to keep up with the workload. It’s hard to adjust the work process as a person who procrastinates a lot, but I’ve learned to break down larger tasks into smaller steps and set mini-deadlines for myself. For example, if I have a week to complete a design, I’ll set daily goals to make sure I’m progressing steadily. This has made me become more efficient and keeps me from feeling overwhelmed. I’ve also realized that meeting deadlines isn’t just about speed but staying organized and planning ahead.

Getting feedback has been one of the most valuable and important parts of my internship. Other than feedback from the client, my mentor also gives me constructive feedback on my designs, pointing out things I could improve or directions that I could try. Sometimes I have to do several times of revisions which is a bit repetitive, but it helps me to develop patience and attention to detail. I am also learning that revision is a normal part of the design process in a professional setting since we need to create a project that suits our client’s needs.

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Since our team works remotely, collaboration is a bit different from what I’m used to. We rely on email, messaging apps, and Zoom meetings to communicate, and I’ve had to get used to explaining my ideas and getting feedback through these channels. Instead of an immediate response, sometimes it’s challenging to get feedback back a few hours later, and it’s difficult to understand feedback without seeing the person in front of me but I’ve been improving at interpreting written feedback and asking follow-up questions when needed. I’ve learned how important clear communication is, especially when working remotely, and I’m gaining confidence in collaborating in a virtual environment.

I’ve been learning how to adjust my design style to fit the company’s brand and the client’s preferences. At school, I was free to explore different styles and experiment, but here, I need to follow specific guidelines or match the tone the client is looking for. For example, one client wanted a minimalistic style with lots of white space, which is different from my usual approach. It is challenging but also a great way to expand my abilities and become more diverse as a designer. This has taught me that design isn’t just about what I like but meeting the client’s needs.

Even though my main role is as a designer, part of my job involves doing some clerical tasks that help keep the team organized. For instance, I’m responsible for organizing and naming files properly, keeping track of client feedback, and managing schedules to make sure everything stays on track. These may not seem directly related to design, but I’m finding that they are important because being organized with files and feedback makes it easier to refer back to client requests and avoid mistakes in future revisions. This experience has also taught me that in a small team, everyone needs to pitch in to help things run smoothly, and this might mean doing a bit of admin work. Now, I see that time management and organization are as important as design skills, and these are skills I’ll need to develop further, especially if I ever want to work as a freelancer or manage my own projects in the future.