My Summer 2024 Internship Experience at JK Creative
My name is Ryan Hargrave and I am currently a senior Graphic Design major at York College of Pennsylvania planning to graduate in December of 2024 with a BFA in Graphic Design. As a senior heading into my last semester of college, I wanted to gain some real world experience in the graphic design industry, so that I could be more prepared for what comes next in my career as a designer. The Graphic Design program at York College requires students to do a summer internship for 120 credit hours, so this requirement ultimately aligned with my goals of gaining real world experience. I originally heard about JK Creative’s summer internship program through a personal recommendation made by my professor to me, back in late April. After looking at the internship program description I was immediately interested in the position. Learning opportunities listed such as brand & marketing strategies, logo & branding design, web design, print & digital collateral, and social media design were all areas in graphic design that I wanted to enhance my knowledge in. After interviewing with Michaela and Julie, and getting the summer internship position at JK Creative, I knew that this was going to be an exciting new chapter in my professional career.
Throughout my 3 months interning at JK Creative, I worked on many different types of projects for many different types of clients that JK Creative has. I worked on projects for The American Cancer Society, Citeline, Waterfront Alliance, COPT Defense Properties, and JK Creative internally. Each client project was different in its own way, and I was able to learn a lot from each project. For The American Cancer Society “Cattle Barons Ball”, I worked on projects relating to social media and ad/print design. For Citeline, Waterfront Alliance, and COPT Defense Properties I was able to work on projects relating to print media, advertising, and branding. For JK Creative’s internal projects I learned a lot about personal branding and social media design. My favorite client project that I got to work on this summer interning at JK Creative was The American Cancer Society’s Cattle Baron's Ball. This project had multiple different aspects of graphic design that I was able to get involved in and learn so much from. I was able to learn about print/digital ads and resizing to fit specific media, social media planning & media aesthetics, and overall graphic design on social media platforms. Overall this was my favorite project because of how involved I was in it and how much I was able to learn about successfully designing, planning, and managing social media aspects for a big event. The JK Creative team was extremely helpful, encouraging, and insightful throughout my entire internship process. Team members Michaela and Julie helped me everyday become a better designer. Whether that was through helpful tips and tricks, critical feedback, or explanation of projects, clients, software, etc…, they made sure I was getting an immersed experience in the graphic design industry. I really enjoyed the overall small graphic design company experience at JK Creative. While working at JK Creative you can really tell how much everybody cares about each other, the clients, and the work that they produce. Working with JK Creative, you can tell they strive to give their clients the best work in a timely manner with the best results. I truly admire what Julie and the team do everyday at JK Creative and absolutely love the work environment they have created.
Before starting this summer internship at JK Creative I had a pretty good understanding of how Adobe InDesign, Illustrator, and Photoshop worked because of what my educational courses at York College taught me, but there were definitely a lot more things I learned about the software and about the graphic design industry as a whole through this internship experience. For most of the projects I worked on I used Adobe InDesign. I learned a lot about how to use certain tools to my advantage in InDesign, some examples being document/page set up for certain media files (social, print, & digital media), character and paragraph styles, quick key commands, and quick photo editing (size, resolution, color etc…). These design techniques and skills overall helped me produce better quality work and become a better designer. I also learned a lot about file and print management as well. I learned how to correctly name/label final files for print and review, as well as organize them into specific organized document folders (All to industry standards). I learned how to prepare documents for print using JK Creative’s specific print prep guide. Document aspects like spelling, image size & color, document color, bleed & margin sizes, body copy review (widows, orphans, and rags), and text spacing all needed to be reviewed before it's sent off. This helped me understand what I need to look for and check before submitting a document to a printer. I was also able to shadow and learn about client meetings and client interactions. This gave me great insight into how graphic design agencies and graphic designers do business with other outside companies and people. Through this experience, I learned how to be professional and how to communicate effectively with outside companies and clientele.
While working at JK Creative I found myself in some situations where I faced challenges. Something I struggled with while interning at JK Creative was the aspect of paying attention to small details. For some projects, I missed certain details and specs relating to the project. Sometimes files were named wrong, specs were missing, or I rushed through a project because I was worried about a deadline. My mentors Julie and Micheala brought this to my attention through critical feedback of my work, and I was able to take in this feedback, and change the way I worked. After hearing their feedback, I was able to self reflect on my work and refocus on each project. I was able to slow down my pace to where I was able to focus more on the smaller details relating to the specs and design of each project. This critical feedback opened my eyes to something I didn't even realize was a problem at first. I was able to overcome this challenge by self reflecting on myself and my work and by changing the way I did things. I know going forward that I will definitely pay more attention to the finer details and specs of each project that I work on, to produce the best quality work possible. I am truly grateful that Julie and Micheala brought this to my attention because without their feedback, I wouldn't have changed for the better. This challenge and their feedback overall helped me become a better designer.
This summer internship at JK Creative has definitely helped and prepared me to become a professional in the graphic design industry. I have gained insight into how a small graphic design agency runs on a day to day basis interning at JK Creative. I have learned about file management, client relations, and project design. Before starting this internship I had no previous experience working in the graphic design industry, but after this experience at JK Creative I can easily say that I have gained much needed experience moving forward in my career as a designer. I now know what is expected of me by my supervisors and by the clients I do work for. JK Creative provided the experience I was looking for from the beginning, and has met my expectations from the start. Throughout my 3 months working for JK Creative I would definitely say I was able to learn a lot about brand & marketing strategies, logo & branding design, web design, print & digital collateral, and social media design through many different types of projects for many different types of clients. These areas of graphic design were areas that I definitely wanted to learn more about, and through this internship experience I would say that I know more about each one then I did before I started. The main thing that I would take away from this whole experience is the aspect of learning how the graphic design industry operates. Seeing how JK Creative communicates with their clients and how it is reciprocated into the work that they do is truly something to admire and to learn from, and I’ll always remember it.
All in all, this summer internship at JK Creative is something I’ll never forget and will always learn from and look back on. With all of its ups and downs, this was truly the experience I needed to start my professional career as a graphic designer. For future designers trying to get into the industry, one piece of advice that I have for you is don't be afraid to make mistakes. Mistakes will happen all the time, it's ultimately how you correct those mistakes and how you move forward that will ultimately determine what kind of designer you are. I want to thank Micheala Mullinix and Julie Kostic for giving me this opportunity to learn from industry professionals and for helping me become the best designer I can be. Thank you JK Creative for an amazing experience.