My First Internship: Starting at a startup!
Hello, fellow owls and anybody just stopping through! My name is Isis, I’m a senior here at Temple pursuing an advertising major with an art direction concentration. This semester I was able to land my first internship! I had the pleasure of interning with a tech startup named Fital which I discovered on LinkedIn.
I worked as a graphic design intern at Fital, and this position wasn’t new to me, but the environment was and I think this was the most valuable part of my experience. I’ve worked as a graphic designer in previous work studies, but I was never kept on my toes like at Fital.
When I joined the team, Fital hadn’t even been launched or revealed to the public yet, and I watched the business grow from the very start. I was used to working in environments where the same protocols had been followed for years and my designs had to follow a strict style guide. As a startup, Fital had brand colors and assets, but its creative direction was still developing, so I was given an amount of creative control I wasn’t used to. Having this control taught me how to “edit” and learn when to stop adding unnecessary elements to a design. When I submitted my designs for review and was told to remove or rework certain elements, this is how I learned the correct balance of fun and functionality for the brand.
Things are constantly changing at startup companies, which I’ve heard or seen on TV but never experienced firsthand. I’ve heard the same thing about advertising agencies, but never experienced this in any marketing department I’d been on.
At Fital, we tried different branding and art styles each week for the first three weeks to see how they felt for the brand, and how they might hit customers differently. For these weeks, I’d create different versions of the same social post in different creative styles and discuss them at our weekly meeting. I feel like this prepared me for what I’ll actually experience when I start working at an advertising agency soon: regular revisions of designs for a client, working to find the right visual identity for a client, quick turnaround of design assets, graciously accepting criticism, etc.
I had a lovely experience interning at Fital, everyone was so kind! The team that I worked with always made sure I had what I needed, and helped wherever they could. I appreciate the support and guidance from my manager, and the CEO for personally welcoming me to Fital. My time there has allowed me to build on my design skills, people skills, time management, ideation, and execution skills.
Hi Isis, thanks for sharing your experience! I too have worked as a graphic design intern, and also for a startup, so your post is reminiscent of my experiences in the past. I am reminded specially with your discussion of revisions and creating multiple versions of a design for a company/client. I also can relate to watching a business grow from the start. I worked at a company called Ethos Materials that had at the time not launched yet, and I also worked for Monarch Yoga, a very new company at the time that I watched have a skyrocket of success. Was there anything else specific that surprised you about working for a startup?
Congratulations, Isis, on securing your first internship at Fital! Your experience as a graphic design intern in a startup environment is truly captivating. Working with Fital from its pre-launch phase provided you with a unique opportunity to witness and contribute to its growth. The creative freedom you enjoyed in shaping Fital’s visual identity, experimenting with various branding styles, and receiving real-time feedback during weekly meetings is commendable!
I really enjoyed reading about your internship at Fital! I myself was recently an advertising major with an art direction concentration, and just switched to account management. I personally struggled with the art direction courses, but am so glad that you were able to benefit from them!! I think that graphic design is really fascinating and was interested to learn how different working at a start up really is. It’s really cool that you got to experiment with the brand graphics, and expand your own talents.