During the early months of 2019, I worked as a Design Intern at Tether, an advertising and branding agency in Seattle. Having the opportunity to live in Seattle and work for this company was such an incredible experience.
As soon as I arrived, there was no time to waste. In the first week, I was put on a team to organize a presentation for a company that I can’t name for now that currently owns all of Toys R Us’ leftover assets. This company was hoping to relaunch some new version of Toys R Us with a fresh take and perspective. My job was to take what the copywriter of the group made and put it into a Keynote presentation. Since the idea for this new store was to have interactive stations for children to play with products, I wanted to make the deck into a choose-your-own-adventure story, providing options for how the store could be structed, and then letting the viewer see the results. I also made all the Illustrator designs for the store layout. By the end of the week, our deck was assembled and sent off.
While working as a Design Intern, I was also part of the Tether Social team. It consisted of 3 other individuals in charge of creating content for Tether’s social media platforms, as well as sometimes creating content for some of Tether’s clients. It was great bouncing ideas around with the team. The second week of my internship, the Grammys were coming up, so I had the idea to capitalize on the Grammy buzz while emphasizing Tether’s hometown pride for Seattle. I made this graphic, highlighting the history of Seattle musicians’ Grammy nominations and wins. It divides into ten segments, and as a single post on Instagram, you can scroll through all ten squares as a single, panoramic image. Unfortunately, everyone else on the team was involved with a major pitch and the Tether Social responsibilities were put on the backburner. Without the rest of the team to approve my infographic, it well to the wayside, but I’m still pretty proud of it.
One of the major projects during my internship was designing Christmas packaging for Ross Stores. My specific job revolved around designing hangtags, packaging for table runners, and header cards for lightbulbs. I would use the assets they provided to put together designs, then show them to the head of the Ross project for feedback. He’d take them to his contact at Ross, who would give him feedback, which would then get passed on to me. I’d make edits, and the process would start again.
For International Women’s Day, the Tether Social team had the whole agency participate in our Instagram story. People would submit a brief summary telling us about their favorite creative women and industry professionals, which we would then turn into Instagram stories. In the weeks leading up to this, a designer created the initial design, and my job was to find photos, insert them into the template, and then make minor edits to each of them to create some variety.
Throughout the internship, I was making social media content for the Chief Creative Officer (and my uncle) Stanley Hainsworth. I had free reign to make whatever I wanted and these are a few of the results.
This internship was my first time working a full-time job at an ad agency and it’s an experience I’ll always remember. I’m credibly grateful for the opportunity and the kindness and support from the Tether family.
