#cmudesign

Intern Fiesta (190619)

Hi, my name is Jay and I am a 2nd year student in Master of Design program. During this summer, I had the opportunity to work for ID8 Innovation Lab Team of Samsung Strategy & Innovation Center (SSIC) as a UX/Product Design Intern. 

SSIC building and views

The internship was 12 weeks long and there were 2 design interns (including me) and 2 engineering interns for our team. I was so excited to spend my summer there because it was my very first time to visit Silicon Valley! I would say that I have learned and enjoyed a lot during the internship, not only about design but also about experiencing new places and new people.

What is ID8 Innovation Lab?

ID8 Innovation Lab is more like a small design agency in a huge company. The team is composed of a small number of designers and engineers who collaborate closely. The team focuses on more exploratory and innovative projects using emerging technologies and proposes design solutions that could be implemented in the next 5 years. 

The main goals of the projects are presenting the concept and working prototypes to other departments, such as Samsung Electronics, clients, or other stakeholders. We do not mainly focus on refining the designs in the pixel levels that is ready to be launched in the market, but rather, we care a lot about the creative-ness and novel-ness. Unlike other design teams, our solution does not limit to one specific platform because our team has capabilities of designing any solutions from physical to digital products. Thus, I could feel more freedom when framing problems and developing concepts. Also, it was exciting to see actual working prototypes that our design team came up with and proposed to engineers.

How was my experience in the team?

I could experience different environments that might have been difficult to experience in other typical design teams. Since there were only a few designers and each of them has their own expertise, such as industrial design, UX design, and visual design, they are all required to independently represent their fields. This environment was a bit challenging for me at the beginning because my mentor and I were the only UX designer in our team so that there were no other people I could rely on about UX part other than him. But at the same time, I could have greater voice as well. For example, I could lead the domain presentation for one of the biggest projects and made key decisions throughout the process of preparing and conducting user interviews and synthesizing the concept after ideation sessions. Delivering a presentation in front of the entire team including CTO and project managers and deciding the project directions required huge responsibilities but it also made me motivated and passionate.

The mentor closely supported me to get used to the team culture and life in South Bay area, by sharing his experiences and giving advice. He helped me improve design expertises such as white boarding or presentation communication skills. 

What did I do other than work?

I learned a lot outside the company as well. SSIC has a well-coordinated internship program. The total number of interns for this summer was around 70, and there were many chances to socialize with others. Most of them have an engineering background, and I could learn new perspectives and lives that I haven’t thought about before. Thanks to the internship program, I could also experience key places in the Bay Area. Especially, we went to Santa Cruz Beach and Great America altogether, where I could not visit by myself. We enjoyed our time there and make great memories with friends. I could learn a lot about lives in the Bay Area and Silicon Valley.

Santa Cruz Beach (190628)

Half Moon Bay Beach (190715)

Great America (190725)

What I should emphasize is the food in cafeteria. There were a variety of options but the Korean and Japanese food were the best. Also, I could order specific menu that I want to eat. For example, I could order a steak with fruits and an egg fry on it.

Hi! My name is Sophia Kim, and I am a rising junior majoring in Communication Design and minoring in Sound Design (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:·ﾟ✧ During the summer, I interned at Capitol Music Group under the Hollywood & Vine Intern Program. I got the opportunity to be part of the Creative Services department during my 9 weeks there.

First: Why I Chose the Music Industry

Coming from Atlanta where it is filled with various music genres and fashion styles, I have always been interested in art and music, especially the history and culture behind hip hop. Once I entered CMU, I noticed the many similarities design and music has. Through the various ways of communicating emotions, design and music gave me the opportunity to fuse those two passions with fashion, art, and culture.

Getting the call from Capitol Music Group, I was very excited to work at an iconic record label that has produced many of my favorite artists’ works (i.e. The Temptations, Banks, BJ the Chicago Kid).

Internship

The Hollywood & Vine Intern Program is not solely focused on design. There are various types of departments: Brand Partnerships & Sync, A&R, Sync, Video, Creative Services, etc. Each department had two interns. I was in the Creative Services department with one other intern, Rachel, who studies neuroscience and advertising.

The Creative Services department helps to shape the visual identity of Capitol’s artists from styling and logos to album packaging and visual campaigns. Through various channels including peer recommendations, preexisting relationships, Instagram, and Behance, the Creative Services department finds and contacts creatives for Capitol’s artists to work with.

To streamline and diversify this process of finding creatives, Rachel and I were tasked with creating a platform that makes connecting these creatives and the Creative Services department within CMG easier. With the help of our mentor, Nicole Frantz who is the head of the Creative Services department, we were able to meet various types of creatives (makeup artists, graphic designers, stylists) and gather research.

With this research, we created an initiative that consists of three parts: generating buzz online through Capitol’s social media platforms, developing a proprietary database, and cultivating relationships through community engagement (conferences and events).

Apart from the main project, I created a zine that focuses on the interns, their projects, the departments they worked in, and why they want to work in the music industry. Also, I designed t-shirts for the 2019 Hollywood & Vine Intern Program.

At the end of the internship, Rachel and I had to present our project in front of the entire company. This required a great amount of practice and prepping for the big day.

My work with Capitol Music Group is under NDA, so I cannot go into detail or show any visuals of the projects (if you want to know more, please don’t hesitate to contact me: [email protected]).

Working at Capitol Music Group

I got to work at the historic round building Capitol Music Group calls its headquarters. Everyone in the building has great amounts of respect and excitement for the rich history Capitol has to offer.

Throughout the internship, we had speaker series with various executives and department heads. It was interesting to listen to each of the speakers’ life stories and the different tasks each department takes on.

At the end of the internship, there was this week long event called Capitol Congress. The first day was the interns presentations, which took place in Studio A and B (these studios are places where Frank Sinatra and Nat King Cole recorded). The second day was an all day event at Hollywood’s ArcLight Theater where Capitol recognizes the various sub-labels’ and artists’ accomplishments. Many guests came to the event and spoke, such as the founder of the Motown record label Berry Gordy, the founders of Quality Control Music Pee and Coach K, and the founder of S.M. Entertainment Lee Soo-Man. For me, I was in complete shock to see these people in person, especially the founders of the record labels/entertainment companies that I have known throughout my life.

The third and fourth days were team bonding days, which helped me meet people in various types of departments and locations.

Reflection

Overall, this internship has taught me a lot, starting from teamwork to getting myself out of my comfort zone. In the beginning of the internship, I was somewhat nervous by the fact that I was the only intern who studies design and that I wouldn’t have a design community to rely on. However, I became friends with one other intern Nikol who studies business and design. We were able to help each other although we were in different departments. I realized that a design community wasn’t the only community I needed, but I found people who I could rely on and learn from throughout my time at Capitol, such as the Innovation department interns Rachel G and Jakeob who built an app using code, the CFO of Capitol Music Group Geoffrey Harris who I talked to about design thinking.

This internship was a great introduction to what industry life is like and how I can apply my knowledge to this type of industry. I am so grateful that I got this opportunity to apply what I have learned at school to conversations in the office and out of the office. Also, I am glad that I got to meet all the people I have met, and through that, I got to build unforgettable friendships.

o(╥﹏╥)o

Hi! I’m Andrea, and I’m a design sophomore currently pursuing the products and environments tracks! This past summer, I spent ten weeks interning at Beyond Design; a product design and development firm in my hometown (and the best city on Earth), Chicago. Even though I didn’t feel too much pressure to find an internship the summer after my first year, I felt like the small team at Beyond would be a great way to dip my toes into the product design realm and see if it could better inform my track choices for sophomore year.

Before going into my main takeaways from my summer, here is a little bit about Beyond:

It’s a very small team (around six full time employees) consisting of two industrial designers, a UIUX designer, an engineer, and a marketing/account manager.

As a product development firm (as opposed to a strictly product design firm), there is really no limit to the types of products or projects that Beyond works on. It can be anything from household appliances to toys to apps.

It has a BEAUTIFUL studio and courtyard located in the Ravenswood neighborhood of Chicago.

The Beyond Design team has always prided itself on a learning culture for interns, so this summer, I was with four other interns (mostly in engineering or design-adjacent fields).

About the internship

Although I can’t go into too many specifics on the actual projects I worked on at Beyond, I can say that as an intern, I definitely got to do a little bit of everything. One day I could be making a presentation or pitch deck for a client, while the next I could be making concept sketches or low-fidelity prototypes. While it could be overwhelming to jump from project to project and not always be able to carry a project to completion, it also helped me become faster and sharper when it comes to idea generation, as well as allowing me to participate in many different stages of the design process.

In fact, I kind of progressed through the internship in a similar manner that a project progresses from start to finish. I started off doing a lot of the preliminary research that goes into the early phases of a project, including client pitch decks, moodboards, and market landscapes, but as the weeks went on, I moved more into the idea generation (sketching and modeling) phases of projects, with the final week being an entirely self-directed research presentation.

Highlights and takeaways

Overall, I’ve thought a lot about what my main takeaways were (both good and bad) from my internship and this is what I came up with:

Sometimes an inexperienced perspective is a very useful one: I think at the beginning of the internship I was somewhat scared to interject my ideas because I didn’t have the experience to back them. However, as I gained confidence and began to question certain things or push the bounds of the projects more and more, I realized that my less restricted or inhibited ideas (while sometimes unfeasible) could actually be helpful for the leads to break out of the “normal” way of doing things.

Absorb everything: I think it was important for me to have designers to look up to and learn from, but also to have experienced certain things I didn’t agree with (whether that be a design choice or something with regards to the management of the company) because in the end, all of those things ended up being good learning experiences, helping me create a reference point for myself for future jobs.

Have a good understanding of a company’s design identity: This might be something that was very specific to me, but while working I did find that there were many times when my design preferences or style did not align very well with those of the company and while I kind of adapted my style as best I could, I didn’t realize how difficult that type of compromise can be. So that might be something I still have to work on, or it could also mean that in future job searches, I should be sure to identify the kind of design philosophy that interests me the most.

Small teams have their pros and cons: After working at Beyond, I noticed a lot of things about working on a small team that I had never considered before. I would say that the one-on-one attention and the overall working environment, especially as an intern, is a lot better at a smaller company, but at the same time, there are less opinions being taken into account which could sometimes make compromising harder.

Two outlets of our project Design in Times of Crisis are featured on “Climactic: Post Normal Design”, running at the Miller Gallery at the CMU in Pittsburgh (USA) from November 4th to December 11th, 2016.

The first is "Oniria", a participatory/collaborative inquiry on the future of birth control, enacted in the shape of a technology without the object.

Incorporating Feedback

From the consensus group meeting, we got a lot of positive feedback. One of the points that someone brought up was the issue of safety - how can we design a space that discourages crime? We realized that our current design had a lot of “hiding places,” or visual barriers that could be a host to criminal activity.