As an art and design student, you can enrich your education with internships offered year-round—in the fall, spring, and summer. During the academic year, interns typically work 12–15 hours per week, while summer allows for full-time opportunities. Whether you're starting as a first-year or finishing after graduation, you can intern when you're ready. Internships help you apply your learning in real-world settings, explore career paths, build skills, expand your network, and potentially earn academic credit and income.
Ames School of Art & Design
Experience that Counts
Art Education Internships:
Graphic Design Internships:
Motion Design Internships:
Studio Art Internships:
Kasia Jankowiak, BFA - Concentration in Graphic Design, minor in Educational Studies
Position: Art Education Internship
How did you find your internship opportunity/opportunities?
I was lucky to find an internship at the Illinois Art Station through the Illinois Wesleyan Hart Career Center with the help of Patrick Zajac.
What kind of work do they do?
The Illinois Art Station is a non-profit organization found in walking distance of Illinois Wesleyan. They offer several programs throughout the week. Some of those programs include Itsy Arts (art classes for younger kids), art classes for homeschooled kids, and Creative Stations on the weekends.
What did you do there?
I worked with younger students as a teacher’s assistant to explore the works of both popular and local artists and would usually have two projects inspired by that day’s artist(s). I assisted the head of education at the Illinois Art Station with the homeschooled student sessions. Creation Stations involved lesson planning for these stations, setting up, assisting and cleaning up these stations. Along with programming I also performed some graphic design related tasks for the Art Station.
Tell us about one of your favorite projects.
I ran the Creation Stations on a day we were hosting Leslie Carrara-Rudolph, the voice of Abby Cadabby from Sesame Street. Watching her perform for the kids was so enjoyable and silly and it was truly wonderful to see someone have so much passion for their career. I ran a drawing station that day and she ended up coming up to me and introducing herself and expressing that the example project I did was amazing. Definitely felt starstruck for the first time in my life!
What did you learn from this experience?
I learned so much about different styles of art teaching and activities. I owe that all to the wonderful teachers I would work with at the Art Station. I also learned about new art mediums and other art festivals and opportunities in the community, the list just goes on.
How did your education at IWU prepare you for this experience?
My experience at Illinois Wesleyan heavily prepared me for this internship. To begin, having a BFA in Art (Graphic Design) and a minor in Educational Studies combined perfectly into this position as an art teacher. Having my artistic experience allowed for me to assist better hands on, while my minor helped with the teaching portion.
How has this experience shaped your understanding or interest in the field?
This experience showed me different opportunities that exist for people going into art education-based careers. When I was faced with the question of “what will I do with my educational studies minor when my main passion is digital art?” After this experience at the Illinois Art Station I have been exposed to just one of many art education-based careers I could potentially be interested in working at in the future. During this experience I got to learn about not just art teaching, but also about non-profit organizations. As someone who comes from a financially difficult background, I understand and would love to help spread the joy of art to those who could use it along with anyone who is interested!
What advice do you have for students interested in this field?
You are never too old to create and play. Learning new techniques and materials along with your students can show them that you are still learning too and that even teachers still have to learn sometimes. Even if you are like me and your main focus is your major, now is the time to try out new things and see what you like. Who knows, maybe that will be your new career path.
Logan Shumaker, BFA 2025 - Concentration in Graphic Design
Position: Graphic Design Internship
How did you find your internship opportunity/opportunities?
I found my internship to be extremely beneficial. I not only learned a lot, but met a lot of great people who wanted to help me and see me succeed.
What kind of work do they do?
DCC Marketing is a WBE that creates campaigns and messages to market and sell products. They work with clients who share the same values and vision by focusing on causes that they are passionate about like sustainability, education and human services.
What did you do there?
I worked on a creative team where I did a variety of tasks. I learned how to resize ads for different mediums. I animated short little video ads for TikTok. I also created a bunch of logos for events.
Tell us about one of your favorite projects.
My favorite project was probably trying to create a logo for Illinois School for the Visually Impaired. The project had so many different challenges and it made me think in ways I had never thought before. During the project I researched the braille alphabet and learned how I could incorporate it into the logo so the children could feel it if they 3D printed it. I came out of that project with a new perspective on design.
What did you learn from this experience?
This internship was able to teach me so much. Before the internship, I had never really worked in InDesign so I got much more familiar with the program. I learned about the different problems that arise when creating graphics for multiple mediums through resizing ads and how to go about the process of solving them. It doesn’t have anything to do with design, but I also got experience working in an office environment.
How did your education at IWU prepare you for this experience?
My education at IWU allowed me to take on projects headfirst without any hesitation of my ability. I knew going into the job that I had never done something like this before, but that I would come out the other side having grown in my abilities and experience.
How has this experience shaped your understanding or interest in this field?
Being able to work on a team gave me a better understanding of how other people within the field approach projects and workout ideas. Whenever I thought I might be in a good place or got stuck, the other creatives would challenge me to try something new.
What advice do you have for students interested in this field?
Be comfortable with getting uncomfortable. Going into the internship, I was nervous that I wasn’t going to be at a good-enough level to actually be of any use to their projects. DCC did great at easing me into the job and giving me projects that I would be able to complete, which then gave me confidence to take on the next challenge.
I would also stress to never stop learning. From the little experience I have in the field I have learned that even the people that you are learning from are learning new things because of how much things change within the field.
Lizzy Palacios, BFA 2023 - Concentration in Graphic Design, minor in Art History
Position: Graphic Design Internship
How did you find your internship opportunity/opportunities?
I expressed my interest in doing an internship for class credit to Julie Johnson, Director of the School of Art & Design, towards the end of my junior year. She worked alongside Patrick Zajac in the Career Center to find me this great opportunity that lasted the entirety of my senior year.
What kind of work do they do?
Connect Transit is the official public transportation system for Bloomington-Normal. It consists of many different departments including Bus Drivers, Dispatchers, Admin, and Customer Service. I was hired as an intern for the marketing department, which is in charge of public relations, selling advertising, maintaining public image, and pretty much anything regarding the company’s relationship to the public. Suffice it to say, this was a great opportunity for me to get a first taste at maintaining and promoting brand identity through design.
What did you do there?
Most of what I did at Connect Transit was design advertising, as well as communications both within the company and public outreach. I also got the opportunity to set up and attend marketing events, which, while not directly design related, did give me a great deal of experience in marketing that has come in really handy on my resume.
Tell us about one of your favorite projects.
By far my favorite projects were the designs I had the opportunity to make for a couple of their vehicles. During the time I was there, I designed the wraps for two buses that you might still see roaming the streets of Bloomington/Normal. Although I graduated before being able to see through this project, I did aid in the beginning stages of designing vehicle wraps for their newly implemented Microtransit system. These projects were so great in the sense that I got to flex my creative muscles and make use of the tools Illinois Wesleyan provided during my time there to actually see major projects like this through.
What did you learn from this experience?
I learned so much with Connect Transit. Besides the exposure this internship gave me to the marketing/design world, it was also just a great first taste of the experience of working in an office environment and becoming familiar with professional procedures. I also got a better idea of myself and the way that I work, which will make it much easier for me post graduation.
How did your education at IWU prepare you for this experience?
The School of Art & Design taught me rules of design, technique, and gave me an opportunity to explore visual mediums outside of graphic design that I love!
How has this experience shaped your understanding or interest in this field?
This experience made it so much easier to know where to start once I graduated. With the opportunity to use my design skills for brand marketing, I feel much more confident about knowing where to look and knowing what I already had a knack for in the broad design realm come post-graduation.
Luisa Jhong Chung, BA 2023 double major in Graphic Design and Business
Positions: Shiro Oni Art Studio (Japan) and Graphic Design Internship
As an international student from Peru, pursuing a double major in Graphic Design and
Business, I hoped to fit at least one 
internship into my schedule during my time at Illinois Wesleyan. Fortunately, I was
able to complete two internships that were complementary to my academic interests.
My first internship was offered through IWU’s Freeman Asia Program, an internship
opportunity that sends approximately thirty IWU student interns to Asian countries
over the summer.
My placement was at Shiro Oni, an art studio and art residency program, located in Onishi, Japan. They provide a space for artists to develop and showcase their craft and artistic expression while experiencing a new culture. As an intern, I focused on printed advertising, as well as digital content creation and web design management. In addition to work, we had time to travel and meet amazing people in Onishi.
My second internship was with the Small Business Development Center (SBDC). The SBDC offers free guidance and advice to new small businesses and entrepreneurs looking to start and/or expand their business(es). One of my favorite projects was developing the brand and logo for an online business in Bloomington-Normal. Consulting with the client was a very insightful experience. Listening and understanding the specific needs of the client made the design process a much more personalized and impactful experience for me. In addition, this project took the duration of about four months so it was very special to me to see it take form.
Both internship experiences involved work relating to my majors and gave me a glimpse into the real-world of marketing and design. Ultimately, these experiences helped to shape my interest in branding and packaging.
My education at IWU was very informative and helpful to me during my internship experiences. Being at a liberal arts institution, I have been exposed to many interdisciplinary perspectives through my diverse set of coursework. The combination of art classes (visual culture, graphic design image/narrative/typography, and advanced web design) and business classes (organizational management, strategy and policy, and consumer behavior) gave me the necessary tools to confidently go into my internships.
Hieu Vu, BA, 2019 - Concentration in Graphic Design
Position: Motion Design Internship
Summer 2018, I completed an internship at 90 Degrees West, a studio that produces
video, advertisements, television 
spots, and web ads for companies and organizations. I found the internship by posting
my show reel on a subreddit for the position of motion designer and inquired about
summer internships. One of the designers from 90 Degrees West viewed my post and contacted
me to setup an interview and visit the studio a few days later.
I worked as part of the motion design team, which consists of two other designers. I was fortunate to be involved in several projects from start to finish, allowing me to see the whole process of video production. I was able to attend client calls, create storyboards for the brief, style framing, animation and editing. We created a new campaign for ValleyHealth, a health organization in St. Louis, and the project brief allowed for some creativity, but also specific design expertise. The team worked late several evenings and that experience allowed me to build good friendships with the other designers. This internship helped me gain real-world knowledge that I could not have received in the classroom. The other two designers had 10 years of experience in motion and video. They taught me important things about software and it was interesting to see their creative vision for the projects we were working on.
My education at IWU helped me to hone my craft and creative problem solving skills. The design classes have taught me how to present my work in a professional way. My graphic design professors helped me tremendously in applying for this internship and preparing for the interview. This internship experience has completely cemented my interest in motion design and I am motivated to enter the industry after graduation! My understanding has expanded beyond making good-looking work to understanding the value of communicating with clients, taking feedback seriously and continuing to learn new software beyond what I am comfortable with. Get an Internship! It’s an experience that will completely change your outlook. Also, don’t be afraid to share your work and reach out to companies. You never know where your next job will come from.
Internship Programs
The Hart Career Center coordinates the centralized campus internship program and maintains Handshake, an updated online database of internships and post-graduate jobs. IWU students also have access to Internships.com, a large internship database with over 13,000 listings.
J. Kline - Interim Dean of Fine and Performing Arts
Department - Provost And Dean Of Faculty