Top Art Internships

Top Art Internships. Photo: dobfre. Flickr (CC)People become artists because they are creative and want to have fulfilling careers doing what they most enjoy.

This means it’s sometimes hard to make artists believe they need to follow the conventions of skill-based careers, like going to school and interning. But developing your talent in a structured setting, with the help of experienced professionals and teachers, can be useful to any artist and can help you avoid potential career traps.

Here are a few real-world internships to get you thinking:

Graphic Design and Illustration

Graphic designers and illustrators create art for print and web publications as well as for companies producing goods like greeting cards, and calendars. Clients of illustrators look for top talent when deciding whom to hire and the first place they look is in the artist’s portfolio. A good way to develop your portfolio is to have a challenging internship with experts who will help develop your skills. 

Up-and-coming illustrators and graphic designers can work as product design interns at media or ad companies. Usually, you work with a team of creative people in product development. This might include product testing, concept development, and building prototypes. Often, senior workers will introduce you to the business side of the company (like manufacturing), which supports the content/graphics side. Through personal projects, you'll have the chance to come up with designs, which are evaluated by personnel by the end of your tenure

To get an internship with an advertiser like The Creative Group or a big box retailer like Target, you'll need sketching and creative software skills Adobe Photoshop/Illustrator. The Academy of Art offers a top placement program.

Photography

Photographers make images for galleries, print and web publications, and private events like weddings. Clients range from individuals to multi-national corporations. Photographers can sell their photos on multiple platforms like the web or local portrait studios, but since so many others are doing the same thing, it can be hard to stand out. That’s why developing skills in apprenticeships is key.

Two good internships for photographers are as copyright assistants and re-touchers.

Copyright assistants manage photo permissions and licenses from freelance artists and help catalogue processing invoices. They also review intellectual property rules. These skills are important because most pros are freelancers and run their own small business.

Retouchers, on the other hand, deal with in-demand digital tools. They scan, print and learn to spot/retouch images for publication.

Getting these internships requires experience with databases, spreadsheets, cataloguing and knowledge of the latest software. Advertising staffer Creative Circle offers placement for retouchers, and many of the top fashion web destinations, like Gap or Nine West, offer internships as well.

Animation

The animation industry is growing, with companies in film, television, gaming, and the web clamoring for skilled workers. Usually, animation work requires collaboration between different types of artists, opening up jobs for animators creating different parts of productions, like layout, storyboard, and backgrounds.

Budding animation internships are usually offered by movie and TV studios during the summer, and consist of extensive on-the-job experience. CGI Training internships are especially sought. They involve assisting other animators working with 3D computer graphics technology to design characters and creating storyboards. To gain a spot, you must demonstrate the ability to quickly create and explain a wide array of animation concepts. You also need to know Photoshop, 3d Max Studio, and Maya. CSS and other web programming languages are also recommended.

The most well-known animation houses in the U.S. offer computer graphics or 3D animation internships. Pixar in Emeryville, Lucasfilm in San Francisco, and many more in Los Angeles, like Dreamworks, have openings.

For more on animation careers, see www.filmschools.com/careers-jobs/animator.html.

Interior Design/Architecture

Interior designers and architects work to create technical solutions to improve individual environments. Research and analysis are two of the most important facets of these jobs and it’s easy to see why there’s a bigger emphasis on school degrees here. Not knowing what to research could be the difference between a well-designed building and another that appears unfinished, unbalanced or worse, unsafe.

Interior design internships usually focus on the research side of the equation.

Interns might interview clients, develop marketing programs, design publication materials, and help with test illustrations and concept designs, as well as work on 3D modeling and sales. The subjects they might work on might include anything from urban planning to furniture design.

Huffman Koos Furniture, Meryl Toback Interiors, and the The Dream Builder Company all offer competitive internship programs and the Academy of Art, among other schools, offers good advice to place you inside.

 

Photo: dobfre, Flickr (CC)