Designers Don’t Just Design

My name is Emily, a senior advertising major in the art direction track and art minor. I’ve been interning with Two Paperdolls Design House for 7 months now! I’ve been on a massive learning curve since I started, and I’ve found that there are things that school truly cannot teach you. Internships are so valuable for this reason. Working in the world of design is an amazing experience and I’m so grateful for this experience.

Throughout the past seven months I’ve worked on a LOT of projects, big and small. Something I realized along the way was how much research I was doing. Before I start a new project, or am helping someone in the middle of one, I am constantly googling every little thing. It is so important to know what the client does and what the market is like in their field. Depending on the size of the company, they might expect you to know their past logos and branding, what they actually do, and what companies are similar.

For example, every month, for a catering company that also owns a ton of cafes and restaurants, I create marketing materials that vary based on what month it is. Each month I create an advertisement cube and flyers to match. This comes out to be 6+ designs with information on it. The client gives a quick idea of what themes they want that month, and the rest is up to me. I end up researching for a few hours before I create my designs, and to my benefit, I’m actually learning things! They may be completely random and possibly irrelevant, but I’ve learned more in this one internship than I have in the past two years of school.

The idea is that designers don’t just draw on the computer all day, we are creating, researching and learning.