Why you should be a Sponge intern
A guest post by Sponge intern Zenith Phillips
Can you remember that initial thing that drove you to make the decision to work towards a career in the creative industry? Was it flipping through magazine advertisements thinking to yourself how cool it would be to make them? Or seeing a massively Photoshopped advertisement and wanting to learn how to do it? You have an interest so now you just go to school then get a job, right? Unfortunately, everything in the creative industry is competitive and that includes the glorious step between student and professional ‘the internship’.
My professors told me as a graphic designer I will learn 60% on the job, through my experience I would say 65%-70%. The purpose of an internship is to get your knowledge at 100% to assist you in becoming a professional. Landing a good internship is difficult and competitive. Difficult because you want to find placement where you will get attention, first hand assistance from successful people in the industry. Competitive because everyone wants attention from the best.
My main focus when searching for an internship was ‘who is willing to get me to 100%?’ that’s when I discovered the work experience program at The Sponge. During my time at The Sponge I have learned… I have learned a lot and it would take me hours and hours to write everything out so you should really just come in and learn for yourself. This internship is not easy, your work needs to meet The Sponge standards. Your entire process gets creative direction from both the director of creativity and senior director so you defiantly get good portfolio pieces! You will learn to love the words ‘looks good, give me 5 more!’and understand how much of a process design is. Aside from mentoring you to create amazing design that works, The Sponge will teach you anything you want to know whether it be technical or how a graphic design business works.
If you want a rewarding internship with amazing creative direction from people who are design and marketing masters, awesome BBQ’s every Friday and work you will be proud to put in your portfolio, I suggest you apply for The Sponge work experience program.
Written by Zenith Phillips
Currently interning @ The Sponge Sydney
Visit The Sponge website
Luke Faccini on 23 Jul 2010 at 4:09 pm #
Nicely written Zee!
Whitney on 28 Jul 2010 at 3:05 pm #
Totally true, I sometimes wonder if getting the job is harder than the actual job its self.
Corley on 06 Aug 2010 at 2:44 pm #
“looks good, give me 5 more”
i understand completely
The Sponge Blog: Evolve – embrace brand evolution. » What do Branding and Zee have in common? on 18 Aug 2010 at 11:37 am #
[...] lovely intern named Zee (Zenith) who has proven herself quite good at learning our process, you can read her guest post in this blog. Zee has done well with our rigorous Internship curriculum and we are thinking of employing her, [...]