10 tips for succeeding at and making the most of your visuals internship

With the school year winding down to a close, an internship can be a productive and fun way to learn more about the design industry while making valuable contacts.

“The best interns approach an internship for what it has the potential to be: an audition for a full-time job.”

–Jon Benedict, Creative Director of The Washington Post Express

If you’ve got a visuals internship this summer, here are 10 tips from five professionals who have worked with interns in their respective companies and in various capacities: Jon Benedict, creative director of The Washington Post Express; Tracy Collins, director of Gannett’s Phoenix Design Studio; Josh Penrod, presentation director of The Star Tribune; Solana Pyne, executive producer at Quartz; and Kelsey Scherer, design director of Vox Media Storytelling Studio.

1. Have a good attitude

“An unfortunate trait I’ve seen is a bad attitude or they seem disinterested in learning. Those are undesirable qualities at any stage of your career.”
– Jon Benedict

2. You’re not there to show off

“(A mistake former interns have made is) not listening to feedback. It seemed that they were there to only show what they already know, not to learn and adapt what they already know to new challenges. That’s a fine line. We knew what they could do before we hired them, which is why we hired them. We wanted to see how they could apply those things to different content and opportunities, on deadline, collaborating with different editors, writers and co-workers.”
–Tracy Collins

3. Speak up

“Interns who are too timid or too embarrassed to ask questions of those around them — whether it’s about workflow, tools, design or the art of visual storytelling — will not make it very far in their internship with us. Nor should they expect to eventually flourish in any other newsroom.”
– Josh Penrod

4. You’ll probably do a little bit of everything

“They reported, shot and edited their own pieces, worked in the field with Quartz journalists, helped with more routine tasks like optimizing our YouTube page or subtitling a video for Facebook.”
–Solana Pyne

5. Seek and embrace critique

“The best interns are humble enough to take positive feedback in stride, but they’re at their best when they really try to lean into understanding what doesn’t work about their design. They also spend lots of time asking questions about, deconstructing or trying to reverse engineer their newsroom’s top design work.”
– Josh Penrod

6. Know when to ask for help

“This doesn’t speak to any interns I’ve worked with, but something I’ve observed from people who are newer in any field is that they tend to be reluctant to ask for help. We really want to encourage everyone on our team to ask questions openly and honestly before getting stuck on a problem.”
– Kelsey Scherer

7. Do your research about the company’s content

“I expect interns to be very familiar with our video and non-video journalism. Come with questions for staff about work they’ve done. Work on ideas and don’t be afraid to keep pitching even when your ideas are rejected — that’s how you learn.”
–Solana Pyne

8. Be proactive about learning digital skills

“Having a strong fundamental print background doesn’t mean a design student will never be able to break into the digital world. However, it’s important to have projects showing you can execute on the digital side of things. Understanding how print design fundamentals you may have learned in school can translate to the digital space is a big plus. If you don’t have much digital experience, you should be able to speak to what your print background will bring to the table for an internship.”
–Kelsey Scherer

9. Get to know the people you’re working with

“Try to schedule coffee with a different staffer each week of your internship. Really do your homework in advance of that chat to understand what talents or experiences may make that person uniquely qualified to share insights that can help you in a way that no one else has.
– Josh Penrod

10. It’s a learning experience—take advantage of it

“I always tell interns that what they get out of their experience is in direct correlation to what they put into it. If you sit back and put 10 percent of initiative into it, you’re going to get 10 percent of the experience. We didn’t hire you to sit quietly in the corner.”
— Tracy Collins