WILD Interns – WILD Stories

Every year WILDDESIGN offices in Germany and China accept many talented and ambitious interns from all around the world. We’re happy to help them make the first steps into their careers path, be it product design or branding. Their fresh perspective and unique experience from their home countries not only make our offices a more vibrant workplace, but also unquestionably enhance our design approach and each project we work on. Our young employees come from every corner of the globe – Colombia, China, Spain, Australia, France, India, to mention just a few.

Our typical internship program usually lasts from 3 up to 6 months. Many of our interns are still studying, and they choose WILDDESIGN to fulfill the internship experience their universities require for graduation. After they accomplish their internship, as citizens of the world, sometimes they decide to continue their design adventure on the other side of the world. Often, they want to stay with us and join our teams in Gelsenkirchen, Munich or Shanghai.

Sometimes, our interns’ paths take more unconventional turns and after finishing their internships in one WILDDESIGN location, they move to another one, like in case of Andrew and Alejandro, who started their adventure with our company in Gelsenkirchen, and now develop their design careers in the Shanghai office. Some of them move back to their home countries and still work with WILDDESIGN on a freelance basis – like Emily writing amazing stories for us from Cincinnati, or Bhagyashri who is now working for us from Mumbai and helps us with her extraordinary graphical and illustration skills in several projects.

We believe in creating equal opportunities matters, therefore our offices offer our interns to stay at our two ‘interns’ apartments’ where they can stay during the entire period of their internship (free of cost). The apartments are conveniently located very near our offices. Interns also receive a small stipend for meals and personal expenses.

Today, we would like to introduce some of our interns and share their stories with you! We asked them about the most valuable skills they had learnt when working at WILDDESIGN, what was the best part about it and crazy memories they had.

Read some of the stories shared by our WILD interns! (and see what they have become by clicking on their name and visiting their Linkedin profile) We are so proud that you started your career at WILDDESIGN!

Carolina Villalobos from Colombia

February to June 2015 / Shanghai / Product Design

Three most valuable skills I have learned or developed during my WILDDESIGN internship:

• To synthesize several ideas from brainstorming sessions into doable solutions before deadlines
• To build strong user scenarios to support the further development of the project
• To integrate my professional strengths into a team work to achieve more efficient and effective outcomes

The best part about my WILDDESIGN internship was:

Feeling like your colleagues are more a family than colleagues itself, having such a multicultural team in which I could share and learn diverse professional skills, designing consumer electronics for one of the most innovative companies in Asia (Xiaomi) and being able to test the prototypes that resulted from the design process. But most of all, having the possibility to work with European design standards for an Asian market that provides the latest technologic resources.

I would recommend the internship at WILDDESIGN to my younger colleagues because: 

It’s a dynamic company that breaths design from corner to corner and offers junior professionals interesting projects to develop their skills.

My best / craziest memory related to the internship at WILDDESIGN:

Leading a brainstorming session where we ended having almost all my colleagues (even from the branding team) in a same room to contribute with a user scenario analysis. At the end on the day, we had covered a wall with hundreds of post-its regarding new concepts for an ongoing project!

Alejandro Lara-Hernandez from Spain

February to July 2013 / Gelsenkirchen / Product Design 

Three most valuable skills I have learned or developed during my WILDDESIGN internship:

• Design process
• Styling and sketching
• 3D modelling focused on manufacturing

 The best part about my WILDDESIGN internship was / were (projects, team, atmosphere, etc.):

I would say team and projects were the best part of the internship. The atmosphere and team were amazing, people were very nice and friendly. They made you feel part of the time from day one, and that was something I very much appreciated. The projects were quite interesting, mainly focused on medical design but some also some industrial equipment and others.

I would recommend the internship at WILDDESIGN to my younger colleagues because: 

WILDDESIGN gives you the opportunity of getting your hands in real world projects, learning from high skilled professional while the office environment is always friendly and relaxed.

My best / craziest memory related to the internship at WILDDESIGN:

Walking from the office to the Red dot awards after party with Marc, Oli and Andrew sharing some beers and getting lost on the way. Finally arriving and having some awesome time with the rest of the team in a very unique environment.

Bhagyashri Tamboli from India

August 2014 to January 2015 / Gelsenkirchen / Graphic Design & Branding

Three most valuable skills I have learned or developed during my WILDDESIGN internship:

• Design Strategy
• Working on medical design projects
• Multidisciplinary approach to design

The best part about my WILDDESIGN internship was / were (projects, team, atmosphere, etc.):

The overall enthusiastic atmosphere and getting to work with highly professional and experienced team.

I would recommend the internship at WILDDESIGN to my younger colleagues because: 

It’s a great start and learning experience.

My best / craziest memory related to the internship at WILDDESIGN:

My last day at the studio where the team got me a cake and drinks plus a sweet farewell photograph.

Julia Regnath from Germany

February to July 2015 / Gelsenkirchen / Product Design

Three most valuable skills I have learned or developed during my WILDDESIGN internship:

• Teamwork!
• Working under pressure
• Finding out what the customer actually wants

The best part about my WILDDESIGN internship was / were (projects, team, atmosphere, etc.):

Working in such a nice team, where you actually enjoy the time together. Also living in the WG was a great experience, because it made things a lot easier and we had so much fun together 🙂 And MYLO!

I would recommend the internship at WILDDESIGN to my younger colleagues because: 

You are not just “the intern” but a valuable part of the team. Your ideas count, your opinion counts. And you get to work on lots of different projects and tasks.

Andrew Berno from Australia

February to July 2013 / Gelsenkirchen / Product Design

Three most valuable skills I have learned or developed during my WILDDESIGN internship:

• When you can, or if it’s feasible, keep iterating – sometimes you do loops that prove your thinking, sometimes you get a jackpot idea
• The obvious double-check – then check again
• Especially after long projects, it’s that last 10% which really counts – it’s also mentally the toughest part and the part that can make something look unfinished or look really special.

The best part about my WILDDESIGN internship was / were (projects, team, atmosphere, etc.):

The ability to move across the globe to further gain knowledge in a profession I was passionate about. Within time, hard work and initiative I was able to help assist the team with their designs and was employed full time. And now it’s nice to know that the team helped deliver a solid solution design to our client that was recently recognized in our industry and I was a part of that.

My best / craziest memory related to the internship at WILDDESIGN:

Haha! Too many to tell, none of them appropriate but some of the stories still getting told. All are a little crazy.

 

Elias from Germany

March to April 2015 / Shanghai / Business Development

Three most valuable skills I have learned or developed during my WILDDESIGN internship:

• Teamwork
• SEO
• Website Analysis

The best part about my WILDDESIGN internship was / were (projects, team, atmosphere, etc.):

The people and the friendly atmosphere and Andrew’s sense of humour.

I would recommend the internship at WILDDESIGN to my younger colleagues because: 

It’s fun and there are many experienced designers to help you.

My best / craziest memory related to the internship at WILDDESIGN:

Bridge hanging… 

Maxime Le Ruyet from France

March to July 2015 / Shanghai / Product Design

Three most valuable skills I have learned or developed during my WILDDESIGN internship:

• CAD
• industrial process
• company organization

 The best part about my WILDDESIGN internship was / were (projects, team, atmosphere, etc.):

I enjoyed the good design karma inside the Shanghai office! Team mates were easy going about company related work and always ready to share tips, events and much more out of the office.

I would recommend the internship at WILDDESIGN to my younger colleagues because: 

The awesome multicultural team here.

My best / craziest memory related to the internship at WILDDESIGN:

During a late night working with two former interns, Caro and Steven. We had a big nervous breakdown which lead us to a crazy dancing session alone in the office.

Maxime contributed to our blog and write an amazing piece on 5 Common Mistakes Made by Junior Designers >>>>

As you can see, it’s never boring to be an intern at WILDDESIGN. Most of them stay in touch many years after completing their internship throught Facebook, and platforms dedicated to them like The Designpraktikanten.WG, a fanpage where they share interesting information from the daily life of WILD interns.

Interested in joining us on the WILD Adventure as a Product or Graphic Design Intern? Take a look at our careers  page and don’t hesitate to apply today!

Join Us >>>>

Take a look at our Team page and meet our current interns!

WILDDESIGN Global Team >>>>

 

Originally written by Miriam Dabrowa, 01. June 2016. Last updated 23. April 2023