This blog article is neither sponsored nor requested by the company. It’s my honest opinion.
In November 2021 I started an internship at a very young and promising start-up as Communications-Designer. Though it’s not exactly what I hoped to achieve after my training as Multimedia-Designer, for me it’s a great opportunity to learn and show the world that you don’t need a degree in design to be successful.
It all comes down to dedication, passion, motivation, and a lot of effort. The great thing about working in a start-up and especially at PetLEO, I get the opportunities and projects that bring me further in my career as a creative professional. I’m not only designing social media templates or posts but I’m also involved in the branding process with another Graphic Design intern. Giving feedback to the UI design of the app and I’m going to do some motions graphics and maybe video projects in the next weeks.
PetLEO is developing an app that helps pet owners, doesn’t matter if dog, cat, hamster, or horse … to manage their pet’s health. You can book appointments with vets, even doing medical video chats with them. They write and share pet-related articles and keep you up to date, all about pet health.
Product offers and maps where you can find dog parks, clinics and which is very important, the app shows potential dangers in your area, like poison baits or other dangers. Building a community for pet owners. And enable you to take better care of your pet, and make sure it is happy and healthy.
I have the creative space and freedom to share my opinion, helping the team improve the app while diving deeper into UI design. In a start-up, you wear many hats and I realized that all my online courses are quite handy today.
During my application process, I’ve been told that not being specialized in something and having a wide variety of expertise isn’t always good. Because you won’t be extremely good at one thing when you do a lot of things. This is true from a certain point but working at PetLEO made me think about this statement more critically. Of course, a single person can’t do everything but being versatile and adapting to multiple work scenarios is a big advantage. I realized that my self-education was the perfect training for this working environment. I see the projects not only with the eyes of a graphic designer but also as a photographer and storyteller for example. Looking through multiple lenses on a single project let me see small details and improve the overall outcome.
I’m not specialized in some things I’m doing for the company but I have gained an overview of the matter, which makes me be aware of certain things. This allows me to do some further research on a topic and have a practical aspect to strengthen my skills in that area.
To me, it was such a relief meeting the whole team. They welcomed me like a full member of the company which gives me a feeling of appreciation and trust. I can speak my mind and they give their best giving me tasks that I’m passionate about most, which isn’t always easy but their intentions are great.
From all the interns that are currently working for PetLEO, I’m the only self-taught, without a master’s or Bachelor’s degree or matriculation at a university.
I’m pretty sure that I’m the only one who’s putting that much pressure on me. The team and the colleagues I work with always treat me well and integrate me so nicely. It’s so much fun and great work and team spirit. Everyone is working so hard to achieve our common goal.
I’m so grateful for starting my new career at PetLEO and I’m looking forward to what’s about to come in the future. Feel free to check out the PetLEO app when you’re a pet parent.
Self-educated creative problem solver and entrepreneur. Writing about personal development, self-education, photography & filmmaking.