Find graphic design roles
Search for “graphic design intern,” “visual design intern” or “production design intern.” Look at the deliverables: brand assets, print layouts, social graphics, presentations and motion work call for different portfolio choices.
Read the employer’s portfolio instructions before sending a link. Check the role’s location, dates and enrollment requirements, then put your most relevant project first. The event brief below is a fictional practice project you can adapt and label honestly.
Select for the assignment, not the number of projects
BLS describes portfolios as evidence of a designer's creativity and originality. Read whether the vacancy involves brand identity, print layouts, packaging, presentations, digital campaigns or motion work. Put your strongest relevant project first.
Three well-explained projects are a reasonable starting selection when no number is specified, not an employer rule. Follow the application's actual requirements. Remove a weaker piece that does not demonstrate an additional relevant skill.
Sources[1]
Try the design brief
A complete practice brief: a student film evening
This is a fictional event. Design for students choosing how to spend an evening, not for a design jury. The event has 60 seats, free entry, doors at 6:45 p.m. and three 20-minute films beginning at 7:00, 7:25 and 7:50 p.m. Use a clearly fictional venue and a placeholder registration destination in the practice files.
Create an 11 × 17-inch poster, a 1080 × 1350-pixel social announcement and a phone-readable schedule. These sizes are constraints for this exercise, not universal submission requirements. A visitor needs the event, date, location, entry terms and next step; the schedule also needs titles and screening times.
Develop two different visual approaches and choose one. Explain how its hierarchy helps a passing viewer find the essential information. Preserve legibility across formats rather than shrinking the poster unchanged into the phone version.
Build the case study
Use the case study to answer four questions
Show the final work first or alongside a short introduction. Follow it with only the process needed to explain a decision. Ten nearly identical sketches can hide the one choice the reviewer needs to understand.
A compact case-study structure
| Reviewer needs to know | Evidence to include |
|---|---|
| What was the job? | Audience, deliverables and constraints |
| What did you do? | Your responsibilities and the relevant working files or excerpts |
| Why this direction? | One rejected alternative and a reason tied to the brief |
| What did you check? | Actual-size review, format tests and a specific correction |
Review feedback and authorship
Test whether the viewer can find the next action
Ask someone to find the start time, location and registration instruction without hearing your explanation. If the artwork competes with the schedule, change the hierarchy and test again. Record the actual problem and revision instead of inventing a client testimonial.
Check the digital version on a phone and inspect a print-oriented design at its intended size. Show flat artwork as well as a mockup. State which production checks you performed; a visual review is not certification that a printer will accept the files.
Label coursework, speculative designs and team projects accurately. Identify stock assets, templates and other tools when they affect authorship or the application asks. Include confidential client work only with permission.
Prepare your portfolio link
Make the portfolio easy to open and discuss
Test the exact submitted link in a private browser window. Confirm that files open without your personal login and that your contact details are easy to find. Reorder projects for the role rather than sending every employer the same first page.
Ask the design manager what interns normally produce and who gives critique. In the interview, explain the rejected direction and the smallest change that made the final design easier to use. Those are concrete examples of judgment and response to feedback.