A design internship is an opportunity for a student in a design program to gain hands-on experience in their field of choice. There are many different kinds of design interns can focus on, such as graphic design, UX design, interior design, and more. The tools that a design intern learns how to use may depend on the kind of internship they have. For example, a graphic design intern may spend a lot of time with Photoshop while a UX design intern needs to know basic coding languages such as HTML.
However, many of a design intern's tasks are similar no matter what kind of design they are focusing on. They shadow professional designers and attend meetings with them to learn about the work. Interns often take on menial tasks like managing social media in addition to their design work.
Most design interns are working towards a bachelor's or master's degree in design or are recent graduates. They do not need many years of professional experience to work as an intern, but a few design projects in their portfolio will make their application stand out. The average salary for a design internship is $46,512 a year, however many internships are unpaid.
Design Internship Overview
Design Internship Careers
There is more than meets the eye when it comes to being a design internship. For example, did you know that they make an average of $18.59 an hour? That's $38,671 a year!
Between 2018 and 2028, the career is expected to grow 3% and produce 8,800 job opportunities across the U.S.
What Does a Design Internship Do
There are certain skills that many design interns have in order to accomplish their responsibilities. By taking a look through resumes, we were able to narrow down the most common skills for a person in this position. We discovered that a lot of resumes listed time-management skills, communication skills and analytical skills.
When it comes to the most important skills required to be a design internship, we found that a lot of resumes listed 21.1% of design interns included graphic design, while 7.8% of resumes included user interface, and 6.3% of resumes included adobe creative suite. Hard skills like these are helpful to have when it comes to performing essential job responsibilities.
When it comes to searching for a job, many search for a key term or phrase. Instead, it might be more helpful to search by industry, as you might be missing jobs that you never thought about in industries that you didn't even think offered positions related to the design internship job title. But what industry to start with? Most design interns actually find jobs in the retail and technology industries.
How To Become a Design Internship
If you're interested in becoming a design internship, one of the first things to consider is how much education you need. We've determined that 73.7% of design interns have a bachelor's degree. In terms of higher education levels, we found that 13.4% of design interns have master's degrees. Even though most design interns have a college degree, it's possible to become one with only a high school degree or GED.
Choosing the right major is always an important step when researching how to become a design internship. When we researched the most common majors for a design internship, we found that they most commonly earn bachelor's degree degrees or master's degree degrees. Other degrees that we often see on design internship resumes include associate degree degrees or high school diploma degrees.
You may find that experience in other jobs will help you become a design internship. In fact, many design internship jobs require experience in a role such as internship. Meanwhile, many design interns also have previous career experience in roles such as sales associate or graphic designer.
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Design Internship Career Paths
As you move along in your career, you may start taking on more responsibilities or notice that you've taken on a leadership role. Using our career map, a design internship can determine their career goals through the career progression. For example, they could start out with a role such as designer, progress to a title such as design engineer and then eventually end up with the title project engineering manager.
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Average Salary for a Design Internship
Best Paying Cities
Recently Added Salaries
Job TitleCompany  | Company | Start Date | Salary |
|---|---|---|---|
Common Sense Media Visual Design Internship Visual Design Internship | Common Sense Media Common Sense Media | 01/29/2021 01/29/2021 | $35,47901/29/2021 $35,479 |
General Motors Global Customer Experience-Design Internship Global Customer Experience-Design Internship | General Motors General Motors | 01/27/2021 01/27/2021 | $54,00001/27/2021 $54,000 |
The Church of Jesus Christ Latter-Day Saints Intern-Design and Construction Standards, Headquarters Facilities Department, SLC Intern-Design and Construction Standards, Headquarters Facilities Department, SLC | The Church of Jesus Christ Latter-Day Saints The Church of Jesus Christ Latter-Day Saints | 01/25/2021 01/25/2021 | $33,39201/25/2021 $33,392 |
Sarasota County Government Careers Utilities Design/Construction Intern (CIP) Utilities Design/Construction Intern (CIP) | Sarasota County Government Careers Sarasota County Government Careers | 01/10/2021 01/10/2021 | $18,78301/10/2021 $18,783 |
The Church of Jesus Christ Latter-Day Saints Intern-Design and Construction Standards, Headquarters Facilities Department, SLC Intern-Design and Construction Standards, Headquarters Facilities Department, SLC | The Church of Jesus Christ Latter-Day Saints The Church of Jesus Christ Latter-Day Saints | 11/24/2020 11/24/2020 | $32,34911/24/2020 $32,349 |
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Design Internship Resumes
Designing and figuring out what to include on your resume can be tough, not to mention time-consuming. That's why we put together a guide that is designed to help you craft the perfect resume for becoming a Design Internship. If you're needing extra inspiration, take a look through our selection of templates that are specific to your job.
Learn How To Write a Design Internship Resume
At Zippia, we went through countless Design Internship resumes and compiled some information about how best to optimize them. Here are some suggestions based on what we found, divided by the individual sections of the resume itself.
View Detailed InformationTop Colleges for Design Internships
1. University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, PA • Private
2. Carnegie Mellon University
Pittsburgh, PA • Private
3. University of Southern California
Los Angeles, CA • Private
4. Northeastern University
Boston, MA • Private
5. New York University
New York, NY • Private
6. Boston University
Boston, MA • Private
7. Harvard University
Cambridge, MA • Private
8. Duke University
Durham, NC • Private
9. George Washington University, The
Washington, DC • Private
10. Pennsylvania State University
University Park, PA • Public
Top Skills For a Design Internship
The skills section on your resume can be almost as important as the experience section, so you want it to be an accurate portrayal of what you can do. Luckily, we've found all of the skills you'll need so even if you don't have these skills yet, you know what you need to work on. Out of all the resumes we looked through, 21.1% of design interns listed graphic design on their resume, but soft skills such as time-management skills and communication skills are important as well.
- Graphic Design, 21.1%
- User Interface, 7.8%
- Adobe Creative Suite, 6.3%
- Layout, 4.7%
- Photoshop, 3.4%
- Other Skills, 56.7% See All Design Internship Skills
Best States For a Design Internship
Some places are better than others when it comes to starting a career as a design internship. The best states for people in this position are Oregon, Nevada, Colorado, and Washington. Design interns make the most in Oregon with an average salary of $50,454. Whereas in Nevada and Colorado, they would average $47,554 and $46,959, respectively. While design interns would only make an average of $46,759 in Washington, you would still make more there than in the rest of the country. We determined these as the best states based on job availability and pay. By finding the median salary, cost of living, and using the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Location Quotient, we narrowed down our list of states to these four.
1. Oregon
$50,454
Avg. Salary
2. Washington
$46,759
Avg. Salary
3. Colorado
$46,959
Avg. Salary
How Do Design Internship Rate Their Jobs?
Top Design Internship Employers
We've made finding a great employer to work for easy by doing the hard work for you. We looked into employers that employ design interns and discovered their number of design internship opportunities and average salary. Through our research, we concluded that Michael Kors was the best, especially with an average salary of $36,874. The Donna Karan Company follows up with an average salary of $35,610, and then comes Anthropologie with an average of $38,921. In addition, we know most people would rather work from home. So instead of having to change careers, we identified the best employers for remote work as a design internship. The employers include Helen of Troy, WarnerMedia, and NBCUniversal