Designing for a StartUp
It was nearly two years ago that a fellow classmate of mine discovered a team in Philadelphia that was looking to form a tech startup. Little did I know that my classmate would later name that startup and peak my interest enough to apply to work for them! This semester, I was fortunate enough to apply and earn an internship with the fastly growing StartUp called Curalate. Within this organization, our team works to build and improve upon the completely original and beautifully designed analytics platform for the visual web. Launching a little over a year ago, Curalate has grown into an immensely powerful tool that brands are seeking out to measure, engage, promote and publish their visual content to social mediums such as Pinterest and Instagram.
My job has been primarily design based. I work directly under their wonderfully talented Lead Designer, Melissa Morris Ivone, who until I joined, not only Designed the entire platform herself but also supported the entire Curalate Team with any design needs there may be (which is a lot for one person!) Over the course of the past five months I have learned so many new things, I’ve adapted to designing in a wonderfully creative environment where being fun, bright and entertaining is always encouraged. I have been lucky to get a taste of many aspects of our company, designing primarily all of the graphics for our blog over the course of my internship, working on sales presentations, designing t-shirts for customer support, mocking up visuals for prospective clients and also designing our platforms User Guide. These projects have taught me a TON about quality design and finishing projects in a timely manner. As my first and last design internship, I am so glad I chose Curalate, because they were so generous to take me in and always have a project for me to work on. In addition, the dynamic that my team has with one another is one that I have never been fortunate enough to experience in any of my prior internships, and for that I am so grateful I got to experience it. I can not wait to see what other exciting projects I get to tackle before my last day in June and greatly look forward to seizing these last two months to the best of my ability. I highly recommend Curalate for any prospective interns as well as any visual based brands – not only is the team amazing, but the product we have is truely extraordinary!
