Pay Interns!

about

Pay Interns is an independent project I started shortly after my university class began our first internship terms in architecture, and I heard stories from my peers about the "studio culture" in each firm. My peers were being paid for 8 hour days, but staying in the office for 16, and were sometimes paid below base rate salaries. The amount of people sharing this experience was astounding to me, and I wanted to figure out a way to spread honest information about potential jobs at firms. If students are interested in a firm's work in any creative field, they should have the right to transparent information about the position. Students and creative professionals should always be fairly compensated for the amount of work they do.

goal

I wish I'd had more information about the industry of architecture before entering the program, and PayInterns provides that to students. After hearing my colleagues stories, I set up a survey to collect data from other students at my architecture school. The survey asked for rate of pay, average hours, average hours during competition deadlines, studio culture, and type of work. Everyone who answered the survey provided information based on their past experiences, and all the information that went live on the site was personally reviewed. Pay Interns has been live for roughly 8 months, and is now beginning to collect data from architecture school professors and their colleagues.

date

jan 2019 - mar 2019

role
  • design
  • UX + prototyping
  • development
  • branding

prototyping:

I kept the PayInterns design minimal, and easy to style for a variety of devices. The site is fully responsive, as I knew students used their phones or tablets to search for jobs regularly. I wanted the focus of the site to be on the information it contained, but still have the site be attractive to a group of students who'd spent their university careers studying design. I chose black and white, partially for it's high contrast and easy readability, but also for the famous stereotype of architects only wearing black.