World's Greatest Internship

You should select me because

I guess this is the moment you realize you’ve been low key trying to sell yourself this whole time. Now enters the real deal. Why would someone want this hot mess of thoughts? I’ve been brutally honest with you and tried to give you a peek at how my brain works. I’m slightly quieter in real life, more selective, I promise.Getting down to business, my current design army knife is equipped mostly with graphic experience, animation/motion graphics, 3D modelling and photography skills, plus a slight understanding of code, which still has to and is being nourished. But I’ll accept any challenges you might throw at me with eagerness to learn and improve.Because I’m always trying to burst my little thought bubble, I’ve moved from my hometown of Porto, Portugal to London for a Foundation course, then to Eindhoven for my degree. On the journey, I collected an Erasmus semester in Paris, which then extended to an internship assisting with the design of an inspiring exhibition. I’ve heard some crazy stories and visited some very cool museums along the way. From this corner of the world, this is the perspective I have to share - but I would rejoice at the opportunity to expand it.Thank you!

1. Why are you interested in wgi?

Remember how I mentioned change? It’s what gets my creative juices flowing. That new city smell, but especially that new people smell. It might sound like I’m talking about sweaty subway rides, but I actually mean the power of new inputs and points of view. The possibility of learning from people who have had completely different paths than mine. Our bubble has to be burst once in a while, and what better way than the World’s (emphasis on world) Greatest Internship? 6 months, 3 cities, an incredible amount of strangers.

2. What are you looking to gain from an experience such as WGI?

New perspectives and realities, new challenges, shifts in thinking, collaborations for the future. These are some of the first thoughts that come to mind. Could this experience also be a way for finding my specialisation? Or even finding that it’s possible to never specialise at all? I’ve always been encouraged to think that anything is possible, but some serious research into the current cutting edge working environment certainly can’t hurt. Fake news are everywhere, after all. I did say I enjoy speculation - I can predict this being a scenario where all that I have (and all that I don’t have yet) is squeezed out of me. And I’m so excited to find out what that can be.

3. What would be your goals after completing WGI if you were selected?

Oh, plans for the future. For someone who's working with future scenario prototyping at the moment, it's incredible how I can completely freeze when distant relatives at Christmas dinner ask me for my own 5/15/50 year plan. Let's start small, if I was given this opportunity, I would be then returning to the final semester of my bachelor's degree - the dreaded but also very luring, graduation project. I'm hoping that an experience of this magnitude would deliver me with a new set of skills and mostly fresh ideas that could take the project to the next level. After that, I'm genuinely ready for life's curveballs. I'll go where the best opportunities lie - wherever there are problems to solve. This slightly uncertain journey to get there excites me. But would there be a better start than WGI?

4. How did you hear about wgi?

Not very glamorous, but someone from my university posted about it on a facebook group. It was love at first sight, though.

5. Share an example of a time you were most motivated and a time you were most demotivated.

I really weirdly love restrictions. Briefs, human-centered thinking. I'm the most driven when posed with clear challenges, with a grip on the everyday. Combine that with collaboration and you have my ideal working scenario - where great ideas can really grow through brainstorming. I really think I was made for practical design thinking but inevitably, across my academic journey, there have been moments closer to artistic production. I've found out I don't do that well when I hear: "Just do whatever you want" - no brief, full creative freedom, very personal approach. Not my most motivating starting point. But there's always ways to turn it around isn't it? Oh, no restrictions? Mind if I make some up?

6. In your opinion, what creates a great culture at a company?

The books on their bookshelves. A feeling of collectiveness. Laughing at least twice a day.

7. What brands and companies do you admire and why?

I could have a never ending list of studios and people who's work I admire and inspire me everyday. Narrowing down is not easy, but you've already been reading me ramble non-stop. If there was someone who's lately made me question the way things can be done is Matt Pyke with his studio Universal Everything - a sort of global network of floating talent. He started out alone, in his attic with great ambitions - yet soon realised he could produce much better work if instead of spending hours learning a new skill he could just find someone who's already an expert in it. And this is how he runs his studio, across oceans, using the advancements in communication to their full potential. A studio that shrinks and expands for each project's needs and has no borders. I really relate to this adaptability - finding the right team for the right project - elevating it to it's full potential through collaboration.

8. What do you do to stay sharp and improve your craft?

Unlike Matt Pyke, I'm not yet at a stage where I can delegate my work and that's for now, a good thing. I push myself not to include feasibility restrictions when developing an idea and always considering learning a new program or skill if that can really help bring the message across. It's a new skill for my swiss army knife which can be used anytime. Plus, having a clear reason to learn it proves to be much more effective than aimlessly watching tutorials. There's really nothing to loose. Apart from time. The one tricky restriction to rule them all.

9. What’s your favorite quote?

Fairly recently, I cracked a fortune cookie that wisely proclaimed: "A ship in harbour is safe, but that’s not why ships are built." First though: Wow, I really need to hurry up with my WGI application.

10. If you could solve one problem in the world what would it be?

Maria Nery

Not very glamorous, but someone from my university posted about it on a facebook group. It was love at first sight, though.

The books on their bookshelves. A feeling of collectiveness. Laughing at least twice a day.

Fairly recently, I cracked a fortune cookie that wisely proclaimed: "A ship in harbour is safe, but that’s not why ships are built." First though: Wow, I really need to hurry up with my WGI application.