So! Part two (Here's part one if you haven't read it yet)!
My internship started a week after school ended and I planned to stay until the week before school started. Four days a week, from 9 to 4. I didn't have any super big plans for summer so my goal was to focus on my personal creative work and learning as much as I can in the "real" design field. The night before my internship I was really excited. It was like the feeling you get before the first day of school...but it wasn't school.
I'd say the biggest thing I learned was working at a faster pace because of tighter turnaround times. The work pace caught me by surprise a little bit at first, but I adjusted quickly and the faster work pace has helped me become more confident in my design decisions. At school, we have a good month, or sometimes the whole semester, to develop and execute our projects. But at 4x3 I'd be given things due in a couple days or within the week. Time becomes precious, of course this is also true with school, but for me there's more of an expectation when designing for actual clients and not audiences in theory.
I'd say another big thing I've learned during this internship is accuracy. At school I make up fake addresses on my projects' business cards or make fake dates and times for invitation assignments. But in the real world, that doesn't happen. Sometimes I'd be asked to update schedules for sports practices and I'd triple check to make sure everything is correct. Don't want someone to turn up at a practice only to hear crickets all because the intern wrote the time wrong!
I would say the slight sacrifice to interning was not having as much time as I wanted to work on my personal art/design work. I'd come home from my internship, nap, eat dinner, hangout, do some freelance work, and before I go to bed I always think, "Man! I could've done some art today!" Personally as an artist I find that doing work for yourself is a breathe of fresh air and I wish I had more time during the summer to do that. But! The very very very nice thing about working for a certain time each day is that when I come home I don't have to worry about homework like at school. I like how my "work life" is separated from my "home life" while at school it feels like my work life is practically my home life haha.
I got so many cool projects out of the work I did at 4x3 from rally towels, pint glasses, trophies, website design, brochures, business cards, letterheads, t-shirts - the list goes on and on. And I've definitely noticed an improvement in my type skills from interning here (I look at my type in the work I did last spring and I'm already like I need to change this, this, and this). I have never designed on such a variety of material which was very new and very fun for me! And to see my work on actual things makes me a bit giddy inside. I've heard that internships tell you whether you're in the right field or not and I'd have to say my internship with 4x3 has made me even more excited for my future as a graphic designer :)
