Third year Wintec design student, Alice Leonard, is an intern at  Area Design. Alice is developing design for Wintec's annual Spark International Festival of Music, Media, Arts and Design under the guidance of the design agency.

What has been valuable from this experience, what have you learnt, what have been the highlights?

 It's been really good seeing how things work in the real world and how designs translate across different media. To see how the design process goes step by step, has been really insightful.

I'm learning a lot of technical things. About the importance of consistency and about the finer details of working with type.

Highlights have been that we've been using a really cool colour palate and shapes, it's made designing more playful. I’m working alongside Alan, Anna and Dave, who have been really patient and welcoming.

How long is your internship for and how many hours a week does it involve?

I started with a couple of days a week before semester one finished, once I was on holiday I started working weekdays, mostly 8 or 9am starts to 5pm. I'm going to keep going until we've finished everything for Spark. 

Why did you want to do this role? What was the appeal?

I always wanted to do an internship as part of my degree, mainly to get good insight into the everyday work that happens in the industry and to give me an idea of what to expect when I get my first design job. 

The opportunity to do the Spark internship had been mentioned a few times by Wintec tutors, I had seen all of the Spark advertising at Wintec each year and I always thought it would be cool be part of but didn't expect it would actually be me working on it this year. 

I feel really lucky that I have had the opportunity to work on Spark and alongside the team at Area Design and I'm excited to keep on improving.

About Spark

Spark International Festival of Music, Media, Arts and Design at Wintec promises a dynamic experience of creative visionaries from New Zealand and around the globe.

The four-day creative festival from 6-9 August for Wintec students, alumni and members of the wider community is free and open to all students, Wintec alumni and the public.

Attendees are encouraged to listen to a variety of industry speakers chosen for their work in multidisciplinary areas, ask questions, experiment and put their learnings into practice in a series of hands-on workshops.

Spark grew out of a student-led exhibition in the mid-1990s and was initiated in 1998 by Wintec Media Arts staff who pooled their resources to enable small in-class interactions with speakers from industry.

Spark celebrates 20 years of existence this year which festival director Megan Lyon says is a milestone worthy of celebration and an opportunity to examine Wintec’s commitment to creativity. 

The festival is free and open to all. Registration is essential for workshops on Spark’s website.

Follow #WintecSpark on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.