After finishing my internship, some of my final thoughts on the experience was that it was a rewarding and invaluable work placement. Because it was my first time in a design studio I learnt a lot about the way a studio works, the pace of it, and team dynamics.

My most positive take away from the internship was the fact that I got to learn so many new skills and things that I had never tried before, like studio photography. I learnt from others in the team how to set up lighting, take videos and pictures and then edit them in Photoshop or Camera Raw. I also had the chance to do more on After Effects, like editing videos for social media. It was fun and exciting to get the opportunity to learn new skills.

I also learnt much more about the way a design studio operates, and by observing my colleagues and team, I could see how work should be presented to others in the studio and to clients. I saw how my colleagues would constantly get feedback from the studio founder, working iteratively to always improve. When there was a client meeting sometimes I would be asked to take notes, and I could see how the team would present their work clearly to the client. I was also made more aware of the importance of presentations and client decks in addition to the work itself. How they are put together is important as it determines the way the work is viewed.

One thing that I didn’t enjoy so much about the internship was that a lot of the work I did were for projects that were very long. I never really saw my work as outcomes as a lot of it was either research or for project development. In the end there was not a lot of work that I had to show. Also, most of the work I did was digital, and I would have liked to work on some projects that were print or editorial.