My design internship at Tundra: 5 key lessons

I'd just finished uni and taken a few months to breathe before diving into the industry. In April 2024, I joined Tundra as a Digital Design Intern - excited, a little nervous, and honestly not sure if I was ready. Looking back, I don't think you're ever fully ready, and that's okay. What matters is that you show up curious, ask the right questions, and let the environment around you do the rest.

Three months later, I was offered a full-time role as a Junior Digital Designer. Here's what I learned along the way.

Real work comes with real responsibility

I still remember walking into my first morning meeting and feeling my heart rate spike. Everyone looked like they knew exactly what they were doing - because they did. It was the first moment it really sank in that this was different to anything I’d experienced before.

Within my first few weeks, I was already working on email designs and marketing banners for Nike. I remember opening my inbox and seeing one of my designs sitting there. Live, real, sent out to the world for the first time. It was scary and exciting all at once. My own work, my own creation, seen by thousands of people. Something shifted in that moment. This wasn’t a university brief with a grade attached. Real people were seeing my work, and that came with a real sense of responsibility. Embracing that, rather than shying away from it, was one of the most important shifts I made, and it changed how I approached everything after.

Great work is in the details

That sense of responsibility quickly made me realise how much the small things matter.

I remember helping with exports for a Nike 2024 Paris Olympics campaign. Making sure every file was named correctly, sitting in the right folder, built to the right spec. On paper it sounds straightforward. But knowing those assets were going out on OOH displays all over Melbourne made me want to get every single detail right. Tundra holds a consistently high standard of work, and you feel that from early on. Even the tasks that seem minor are an opportunity. Doing them carefully is how you build an eye for detail - and that foundation stays with you no matter where your career takes you.

Just ask the question

Taking the work seriously also meant being honest about what I didn’t know, and asking for help more than I naturally would. As an introvert, that didn’t come easily at first.

I spent the first little while trying to figure things out quietly on my own. It didn’t take long to realise that was the wrong approach. The benefit of being an intern in a creative studio like Tundra is that you have mentors all around you, and the quickest way to learn is to use that. Ask questions - not just ‘how do I do this in Figma’ but the bigger ones too. ‘Why did you make that design decision?’ ‘How would you approach this brief?’ ‘What would you do differently?’.

What surprised me most was how different everyone's answers were to the same question. Multiple perspectives, all of them valid. It taught me there's rarely one right way to solve a design problem, and that's something you simply can't get from googling.

Feedback isn’t personal

Once you start asking questions, feedback naturally follows, and learning how to receive it is its own skill.

Early on, whenever work came back with notes I’d immediately feel like I’d done something wrong. It took a while to shake that mindset. Nobody expects an intern to nail everything, what matters is that you’re learning and genuinely trying to improve. So that’s what I focused on. The shift for me was realising the work isn’t really about you. You’re creating it for a client, and there’s a standard to meet. Feedback isn’t one person picking apart your work, it’s the team working together to get it where it needs to be. Someone leaves a note and suddenly you see something you'd completely missed. Everyone brings different strengths, and when you're open to it, you pick up something from every person you work with.

And the progress was real, but it didn’t come without countless rounds of feedback and a lot of trial and error. After a while I started keeping a checklist for myself - things I’d missed before, details I wanted to make sure I didn’t overlook again. It was a small thing, but it kept me honest. Gradually, I noticed I was ticking off more and more without even thinking about it. So when an email design finally came back with no feedback at all, it felt like something I’d genuinely worked towards through consistent effort. A small win, but a meaningful one.

Look beyond your own discipline

By the time the work started to feel more natural, I began noticing something I hadn’t expected - how much there was to learn from the people around me beyond just the other designers.

Looking back, every lesson came from the same place, a willingness to stay open. Open to responsibility, open to unglamorous work, open to other people's perspectives, open to feedback. That mindset is what made the difference. And it's what led me to this last lesson.

At uni, you’re mostly surrounded by people studying the same thing. A studio is completely different. At Tundra I was sitting alongside developers and producers, people who are deep experts in fields I’d barely thought about before. Watching how producers communicate with clients, how they manage expectations, frame deliverables, keep projects moving gave me a completely different perspective on what great work actually looks like end to end. Talking to a developer changed how I thought about the way I set up my Figma files - the layers, the structure, how the design is organised. Things I hadn’t really considered before suddenly mattered. You start to see how design connects to everything else, and it makes you better at it.

Don’t just stick to the people doing the same job as you. Branch out, ask questions, and let it push your thinking in directions you wouldn't find on your own.

Looking back, growth didn’t come from any single moment or project. It came from showing up every day with an open mind and a genuine willingness to learn - from the work, from the feedback, and from the people around me. That’s something I'll carry with me throughout my career.

If you’re considering an internship at Tundra, I hope this gives you an honest picture of what to expect. It’s a place where you’re genuinely supported to grow, and I'm glad I took the chance.