During my year-long internship with a university language and cultural center in Barcelona, Spain, I worked across branding, graphic design, illustration, social media, and digital communication. Designing for a large international community, I helped develop a stronger visual identity by redesigning the center's logo and integrating its illustrated character mascot across communications. My primary project was redesigning the center's entire website, where I modernized its UI/UX, improved content hierarchy, and restructured information to make resources intuitive and accessible for prospective students and interns. Working directly with program directors, I also expanded the center's social media presence by photographing and filming language-exchange events and classes to create Instagram Reels and carousel posts. In addition, I designed promotional materials and event posters in both Catalan and Spanish, exploring how visual communication structures and culturally nuanced humor could resonate with a multilingual audience.
This internship showed me how much goes into communication beyond creating something that looks visually appealing. Working within an international institution taught me how professional marketing teams operate and how branding consistency, audience perception, and organizational identity connect. Redesigning a website for an institutional purpose taught me to prioritize user interaction, layout, and information hierarchy, while creating campaigns in Catalan and Spanish pushed me to understand how culture and language shape humor and visual messaging. Navigating a professional environment far from home made me far more independent, giving me the clarity and confidence to pursue creative work that bridges visual identity, design strategy, and diverse cultural perspectives.
Rola Abdelwahab