An Intern’s Experience – Ambre Lormeau

In June this year we were joined by Ambre Lormeau, who came over from Paris for a 20 week internship at Split. In her final week we asked her to create a blog post for us about her experiences – the good, the bad, the ugly… 

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Starting an internship is always a little daunting, especially when it’s abroad and if, like me, you are not confident in your English. You ask yourself a lot of questions. Before my arrival, I exchanged a lot of emails with the Split team, which reassured me. Finally, April arrived, and I went to England.

My arrival was less than glorious. In fact, just as I arrived I kicked over Inch’s – the infamous studio dog – bowl of water, but no one seemed bothered. Phew! I thought, my first impression of them was correct.

The studio is made up four members (five if you count Inch): Oli, the Creative Director and my internship advisor, who has a much bigger gift for graphic design than for singing, but who is always there with a friendly ear. Tom, the Senior Designer, who has a wonderful sense of humour and excellent musical taste (Everything is Awesome from Lego movie a particular favourite!). Josh, the Studio Manager, who was always ready to help (it was him who help me to find my flat and I am still grateful), and Sara, the in-house photographer, who perhaps doesn’t realise how much she helped me through her kindness during my internship.

Monday the 14th, first day, first job. I was asked to create poster, badges, banners… all based around a logo and branding, which had already been created by the studio. As a first job it was great, especially as the design was so good and it was easy to adapt it to what I needed to do. I thought to myself – this is great, I won’t just be serving coffee! (I never had to serve a drop in the end.)

And the projects kept coming, always more or less linked to the arts: music, theatre, photography. As time went on I was given more responsibilities. What I appreciated the most was the exchange of ideas and I felt listened to. If I had questions about the software they took the time to explain things to me, and they gave me time to get to grips with it. Very quickly I felt integrated into the studio.

With regards to graphic design, we were quite similar and curious about each others’ knowledge and culture. I also found that we all shared a taste for beautiful materials, and chose stock meticulously. This is also important for me, I love touching materials, feeling and manipulating them. I also appreciated the care they took with their work. I felt like it wasn’t too far from my professors and their advice.

If I had to say anything negative, it would be that people don’t stop to eat lunch. I think that it is better to leave your computer and eat somewhere else, and also think that eating together can strengthen the bond between team members. But perhaps that is just a French custom! Personally I learned a lot during my internship.

It is a big thing to leave your own country to learn new habits and set new benchmarks… and I also discovered very amazing cakes from That Old Chestnut. (Bonus!)

Professionally I have been very enriched by this experience. I hope that the trust that they placed in me will help me to develop in my job. Even if it sounds a bit much, this internship has changed my life, or at least changed my point of view about many things.

I hope that this blog post will help to answer any questions that Split’s future interns may have, and also help students who might like to go abroad.

– Ambre Lormeau.

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All images by Ambre Lormeau: 

Ambre is currently studying on her final year of a masters degree in Paris. Check out her work here: ambrelormeau.tumblr.com – it’s good!