I am a graphic design intern who works very closely with the marketing team through the Division of Student Affairs. Our team works with many popular parts of campus like health and wellness, university housing, campus rec, and more. We make many posters, promotions, Instagram stories, social media campaigns, and more for them. Some projects I have worked on include posters, social media posts, and signs. I have learned a lot about layouts, grids, colors, fonts, contrasts, readability, and other things that as a viewer we do not usually think twice about. Attention to detail has become a second nature to me.
This summer has been unconventional for everybody across the world with COVID-19 being present. So, we are entirely online, just like classes, instead of in person. While we only group Zoom once a week, often we Zoom one on one or in small groups usually once a day which makes it feel a little more natural and lets us catch up and bound ideas around. This is a vital part of the week because without these meetings you really feel like you are just part of another class, or doing projects for a grade. When you get to see and chat with the people you work closely with it changes the energy and helps you complete things and get a feel for the project’s standards. One challenge that I have had to face was not getting instant feedback because everything is online. There is always the process of save, export, type email, attach file, and send the email. Next, waiting for them to receive it, analyzing the project, making changes, saving again, typing their changes/advice/anything else, and sending it back. This means that if you need a simple thing like a font preference or color change, or line weight, you still have to go through that whole process for them to respond with a “the second poster looks better”. In a traditional office, this would not be an issue, you could just call them over to look and it would take 15 seconds rather than 15 minutes. These small details may not sound like much, but many small details make a huge difference, so this feedback is needed. We still find ways to make it work and get things done in a timely fashion.
The most memorable part of my internship is most definitely the people in the team that I work with. They are always willing to chat out the projects and help with anything, personal or work related, for example my supervisor and I redid my resume. The team actually cares about its interns and we all feel really included and comfortable. This is why I would 100 percent recommend this internship to any marketing or graphic design student who wants or needs an internship while at FSU. I found and inquired about this internship on a whim and I really enjoy it and all of my time with DSA.