Hometown: Warren, MI
Major and class standing: Experience Architecture, Senior
LinkedIn: Marochelle Moreno
Where you interned: Red Calabash; Cape Town, South Africa
What was your internship title and role/responsibilities?
As a UX Design Intern, I redesigned the current Red Calabash website and developed it into WordPress, conducted UX/UI Analysis and competitive analysis of other digital design agency websites, and collaborated with the founder to create a revamped style guide for the redesigned website, including a new typography, color palette, and aesthetic in line with current trends in web design.
How did you obtain your internship? What resources did you utilize to secure your internship?
I submitted my resume, detailing my past work experiences related to web and UX design, as well as the link to my portfolio website, which includes my case studies detailing the process used for my past UX Design projects. In my first meeting with Sam, we went over my portfolio website, as she said it was the main thing that caused her to add me on as an intern due to the attention to detail detail and thought process I use in my work redesigning the website for the Kindervelt of Cincinnati Children’s Hospital nonprofit as a part of a team of designers
What did your daily routine include?
Much of my work was done independently, and due to the time difference between michigan and South Africa, as well as the technical difficulties that came up whenever we tried to zoom, I was left to plan out and delegate almost all of my work for Red Calabash by myself and based off my prior experiences
Your favorite experience from the internship?
Honestly looking for design inspiration. Not only did I get to exercise my creativity, but I also got to further develop my visual design skills and develop and aptitude as to what is good visual design, what works well and what doesn’t, and understand why things would look a but ‘off’ or ugly
What was your least favorite part of the internship?
The fact that technical difficulties such as wifi and hardware issues wold push back meeting where I’d plan on presenting my designs to sam. Also Sam being busy with many other clients for the first month, leaving me to do the initial research phase by myself and based off the initial emailing what competitors to look at
What skills did you learn and/or build upon during your internship?
Project management, professional communication, planning and delegating what steps to do next to break down the overall project of redesigning an entire company website into smaller, more feasible chunks of work to do, finding design resources that would speed up my workflow and developing a process for finding specific design inspiration
What did you learn about the industry or your career path as a result of the internship? What are your future plans?
Frankly, I learned more about how design agencies work and how they work on a project-by-project basis with clients. While I didn’t get to another component of my internship Sam and I planned for due to time constraints- working with an actual client- I did get exposure to client work and started considering the idea of freelancing for clients due to my experience there
What advice do you have for other students seeking out internship opportunities?
Don’t limit yourself ton just MSU and the MSU environment. Place more importance on developing your skills from outside, non-MSU related experiences rather than just from your classes alone. For people wanting to go into UX specifically, I recommend looking into Develop for Good, the program I did, and joining design specific professional communities like Design Buddies in Discord.
