Sometimes as interns it can feel as though we’re working on something without understanding what the final product will look like, particularly when we’re only in the office one or two times a week. On the twentieth day of my internship, I got to do something a bit different to the content creation I’m used to. It was time to get out of the office.
One of the consultancy’s specialties is creating exhibition booths for clients to use at trade shows and industry conferences. They had designed a special ISOframe exhibition stand for a client in the construction industry. It was made of nine one-metre panels which used magnets to attach to a frame, creating a big poster. The benefits are that it packs down well for easy storage, is easy to set up and can be reused many times. While I hadn’t specifically worked on this project, I had been creating product brochures for this client, and was interested in how this booth display worked.
My supervisor and I drove to the printers to see how it looked before the client picked it up. While she was being shown how to set it up, another staff member showed me around the warehouse. Printing isn’t something I knew a lot about, so it was fantastic to see all the products they could create — they could print on anything from cardboard cut-outs, to metal, windows, linoleum floorboards, wallpaper, stickers and many other things. They told me anything we can think of, they can print on. I learnt a lot through this and it reinforced that there’s almost no limit to how creative we can be when coming up with campaign ideas for clients.
This experience highlighted the value of doing an internship for me. While I’ve enjoyed my degree and learnt a lot throughout it, nothing beats getting practical experience in the industry. During my internship I’ve gained a lot of confidence and worked hard at improving my writing skills. Many clients come from technical backgrounds such as the mining, freighting and construction industries. I knew nothing about these industries before I started, but I’ve learnt that I’m good at researching these companies to create different types of content for them.
This journey has been so valuable for me that I’ve decided to stay on and continue developing my skills, so I’m as employable as possible when graduation rolls around.