Intern at Envision
- Rosa Nguyen
... Is Envision’s slogan. Nor was it unthinkable to get an internship at one of the largest advertising agencies of the Nordic countries; Envision. For me, finding an internship place was painless. Through his business, my father got me a freelance job with one of his clients, who happens to have an incredibly large network. After I had performed different graphic assignments for this client, he knew what my competencies were. That’s why it was easy for him to introduce me to an Art Director from Envision, whom he went to high school with.
Internship at Envision
On a Monday morning at 9 am, I appeared in front of Envision in Århus like a blank InDesign document. I was very excited and in a way also a bit nervous. I had checked out envision.dk, their website, down to the last mouse click, and I got the impression that this was a very professional company with good, competent employees. There was a lot for me to live up to.
My excitement rose along with the elevator... all the way up to the second floor I was well received and my first day started with a tour of the house. I met the 110 employees whose names were virtually forgotten after they had shook my hand. On the top sixth floor I was going to spend the next month with the other young art directors and copywriters. And would you believe it, on that very first day I got my own desk, computer, telephone and... “rony@envision.dk” my own company email address. Yes sir. I was welcomed.
The first week felt like a day and a half. A lot had happened, but it all went so fast.
The only female
I sat with one Creative Director, 4 Art Directors, 2 Copywriters and 1 Webmaster, all of them male. I suppose you can imagine the rest when a new, 22-year-old female intern appears. 7 men had lined up to welcome me to the top floor. The atmosphere was always lively with loud music, cartwheels here and there, stuffed toy wrestling matches... things I never thought I’d see in a professional advertising agency, but rather in a youth centre. There was one joke after the other and youtube links were shared resulting in joint laughter throughout the building.
Envision is a great and youthful workplace. The music wasn’t just quiet and calm in the background, oh no, it was turned up very loud to make everyone nod their heads to the beat and tap their feet.
There were also quiet moments with only the sound of small, trembling mouse clicks, rhythmical typing on keyboards and swishing sketch lines being drawn the sound of intense working.
“Heeey?... What happened to the music?” - Someone would yell. Well, that was it for those 5 peaceful minutes. The music worked magic and helped improve the employees’ already perpetual good moods. Despite the really stressful and intense days with many tasks that would be taken in on an ongoing basis, the staff kept that good mood and also displayed a great deal of sincerity alongside their happy, childish and creative sides.
Mostly, I sat at my desk, but they also had a tradition that if one person was looking another over the shoulder, the six others would also be standing there 27 seconds later. Especially if it looked like it might be really funny or cool. Everyone was interested in each other's work and would offer praise and constructive criticism.
Føtex and Fårup Sommerland amusement park
Envision’s greatest client is the chain of Føtex supermarkets, which has one of the best looking layouts and the best-quality catalogue among Danish supermarkets. That led to some Føtex posters here and there that my managers were very eager for me to try my strength on. It may not sound like the most prestigious task, but actually it is harder than you’d think, so I was happy to take the challenge.
One day, when I was designing a poster for Føtex, a lady approached me and said: “We sent your design proposals to the CEO of Fårup Sommerland amusement park and actually he was very surprised in a good way and said he would get back to us.” It was a small logo assignment for Fårup Sommerland that I was given alongside my Føtex posters. For a month, Envision had made design proposals for a logo for the new ride “Lynet” in Fårup Sommerland, but nothing had seemed to please the CEO. I didn’t realise that it was an important assignment, and I solved the task rather quickly. But it actually ended with their wanting to go in my direction and continue to build on my proposals. I think that was pretty amazing.
Film advertisements
I also got an insight into film advertisements quite soon. The Creative Director was very eager for me to see, try and join in on everything.
I was allowed to go to a meeting at M2 Film in Århus Filmby where movies are shot. It was a meeting with the Danish director Thomas Villum Jensen and producer Mads Munk. It was pretty amazing that I would sit in on a meeting and hear about the new advertisement for a film which was to be shown shortly after. The subjects were the manuscript, casting, the budget, the location and other practical things.
We were 6 people in a fancy glass meeting room hovering in the middle of a large building. Only a beautiful glass staircase led to the glass meeting room and food and beverages were brought to us along this staircase. It was really beautiful and pure luxury.
Say Cheese!
My internship was concluded with a presentation of a "Say Cheese" campaign for the launch of the new Cheesy Bites for Pizza Hut. We started out by having lunch with our client, Pizza Hut, at a Pizza Hut restaurant. Thus, with a solid pizza foundation in our bellies, we came back to Envision with the client to present the new campaign. It was incredibly exciting and at the same time also a bit stressful for me. This was the time when I was going to show one of Envision’s clients what I could do.
The copywriter started out by presenting the texts and I gave supplemental information and took over by presenting the graphics. I explained and argued for the things I had done. They liked the idea. Mission accomplished. Notes to make small adjustments here and there were jotted down, but otherwise we had the assignment. If all went well, we would be seeing some “Say Cheese” campaigns on the streets later that year.
Say Bye!
It was Friday, and naturally I would finish off with a Friday bar where I said a proper, not “goodbye”, but “see you later” to everyone there. The idea that it was over made me sigh deeply and heavily. The excitement that was increasing before was now slowly decreasing with the elevator ride from the sixth to the first floor. It was 6 o’clock. I left Envision with a huge Envision shopping bag. It contained my 8 posters from the presentation, loads of new experiences, a pile of happy memories, 7 really good acquaintances, 1 month of job experience, 1 great internship, 1 month of Envision.
