Above: Virginia stands in front of her Night of the Arts 2016 award-winning portrait of her mother. The painting, which now hangs in her father’s house, references a photograph of her mother from before she passed away some years ago.
Meet Virginia Tambe — Proponent for global teleportation, appreciator of politically significant rap, and dancer with a soft spot for classy old farmhouses… A.K.A. our current Peppershock design intern!
Virginia is a senior at Northwest Nazarene University, studying graphic design and marketing. Right now she is in full swing preparing for her senior show in April. But despite how crazy things must be for her, in the office she’s all calm concentration. Being friends with some of our other recent interns, Virginia had a bit of an inside scoop before starting with us. Still, before officially starting at Peppershock, she allowed me to quiz her on her thoughts, expectations and honest to goodness fears of starting her first internship in college. So far, she has met every challenge and impressed us with her illustrative skills! Read her candid thoughts below.
How did you discover graphic design and what made you interested in pursuing it?
I first got a job when I was a sophomore in high school and was looking for a job just to earn some money. And my dad had a connection with a person who ran a sort of graphic design screen printing place. What they do is hire teens and give them professional experience. That’s really how I got into it. Ever since then I’ve learned some basic skills like Photoshop, Illustrator and I’ve always liked art a lot. So it just kind of worked out well. My first big job was making a board of information about somebody who had lived in Salmon and had made big impressions. And they had just passed away but there was somewhat of a memorial site for them. And they wanted this board of info about their life and what they accomplished. I kind of did that by myself but my boss would come look at it and tell me what to change. I also did a lot of posters and brochures and screen printed a lot of t-shirt designs, and kind of learned that whole process. And then I worked on a few logos too. I definitely do most of my work through computers now. I’ve done a little bit of screen printing at NNU, but mostly digital things and trying to incorporate illustrations of my own and hand done things into my work. But I really like digital things cause there’s so much you can do with it and so many directions you can go.
What are you expecting the internship to be like in general?
I expect that I’ll get to do a few projects, probably, and gain experience with working as a team. I’m sure there’ll be some simple things that I can help out with. When I worked at Art of Design we did work as a team a lot. There would be a couple of other teens my age who would be working on the same project, so I have a little experience with that.
What skills do you expect to use most?
I expect that I’ll be practicing computer skills mostly. Illustrator probably. Maybe I could do some hand-done things if needed. Especially like decorating windows.
What do you hope to gain from the internship?
I hope that I can become faster on working on computers. I haven’t really done much with video. I don’t know if that’s part of what I would be doing, but that would be really interesting to learn more about. I’d love to be able to make connections.
Left: A collaborative branding project for the 2017 WAPAC District Assembly.
Right: One of Virginia’s recent designs projects.
What are you most nervous about?
I’m nervous about there being a design I don’t have time to finish. If I don’t have enough time to get it down or it takes me too long. That’s my main concern.
