Rebecca’s Internship
“What I loved most about this internship was its versatility. I got to be a designer, a social media manager, an educational content producer and a video editor amongst other roles. I was asked at the beginning what skills I wanted to develop most, and then they tailored the programme accordingly so I could get professional experience in these areas. I felt valued in the team, and have really enjoyed my time working here”
— Rebecca, BMus Graduate from the University of Birmingham
Picture shows three K’antu Ensemble interns: Emma (left), Lizzie (middle) and Rebecca (right)
What did I do?
1. Design Tasks
My main role was digital designer as this is the area I was most interested in. A typical task involved being given written copy and transforming it into an eye-catching flyer for an event or to act as promotional content for prospective clients. The artistic director gave me a lot of creative freedom, but I also had to keep the target audience in mind and cater material towards this. This improved my communication and marketing skills. Other creative tasks included animating the K’antu Ensemble logo for future promotional videos, as well as re-designing their company website! I became very familiar with Adobe software and Squarespace, which I am sure will prove useful in my future endeavours.
2. Creating Educational Content for Future Events and Projects
One day, the brief I was given was to find a way to make a Shakespearean ruff out of paper for their upcoming Everything to Everybody project! I was not expecting that task but I had a lot of fun! I collaborated with the other interns to create a video tutorial, visual guide and cost-effective list of materials for this. I also helped to research and create educational content about different musics from around the world, which will be used in K’antu Ensemble’s Commonwealth Games project.
3. General administrative tasks
I did some general office admin, like researching potential schools in Birmingham which K’antu Ensemble could partner with in the future, and compiled their social media handles in a spreadsheet. I also learnt a lot about how an arts organisation and the arts and culture sector works. One of the other interns was particularly interested in learning about fundraising applications, so the artistic director dedicated an afternoon to showing us how these worked, which was very interesting.
4. Producing and Analysing Social Media Content
I created a series of content on Canva for K’antu Ensemble’s Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. We had meetings where we analysed the page insights, and learnt about the benefits of hashtags and how to make content more accessible. This helped me to understand more about social media marketing strategies. I gained an insight into what was successfully received and what got minimal views and engagements.
