If you want to get into the field of Graphic design, it can sometimes be difficult to find work right away coming out of school. Interning can be an excellent way of getting your start in this highly competitive field.
Building Connections
By interning at a professional graphic design company, you can build connections with those in the field. By networking in this way, you can open the door for new opportunities and build a base of connections that will serve to provide you a platform for future business. A reliable network will enable you to advance in a field that relies greatly on references, referrals and reputation.
Building Essential Skills
There are certain skills that are needed in the professional world of graphic design that many schools simply do not prepare you for. Often, graphic design schools will focus heavily on the training that is essential from the design perspective, but will fall short of helping you foster the necessary skills on the business side of things, which are essential to making it out here in the real world of graphic design.
Building Resiliency
Interning under a professional company will help you develop a thick skin to critique. In order to be successful in the field of graphic design, you must learn to keep a detached relationship to your work. By investing too much of yourself worth in any one piece, you become susceptible to poor judgment. Objectivity is required in order to make it in this world. Knowledge of the craft is one thing, but there are a whole host of other skills that must be honed in order to be highly effective and efficient in your graphic design career path.
Give 100%
When interning at the professional graphic design company, don’t take this as a time to slack off or rest on your laurels. Put in 100% of the effort and work as if you were actually working for money. Not only will this ensure that you receive an excellent reference from the company in the future, but you also may pave the way for an opportunity if a position in the company suddenly becomes available. Use this opportunity to make yourself indispensable to the company. Go above and beyond the call of your intern duties. Look for ways you can give an extra hand of help. Seek out opportunities to shine and outperform beyond what is expected of you so that the company begins to rely on you. They will see you as an incredible asset to their firm and will come to really value your presence there. Make friends and prove that you are worth hiring.