The Real Internship

Being an intern for a teen fashion magazine, is totally just like a super fun way to look at like really hot clothes and like meet celebrities and yaknow style way glam photoshoots and stuff, yaknow at least when it doesn’t get in the way of Hollywood partying at Les Deux, or like Hyde, or when you’re not too busy appearing in tabloid magazines instead of working for your publication.



At least that’s what TeenVogue faux-intern Lauren Conrad, aka“LC,” of MTV's so-called reality TV show, "The Hills" would lead one to believe.

In real reality, magazine internships are actually a mutually beneficial way for a publication to get free or cheap labor and for eager students and recent graduates to get some hands on experience in the industry.

Ali Cellini, 24, had just completed her second year at the Rhode Island School of Design as a graphic design major in 2004 when she found out that her grandmother’s cousin worked for ElleGirl Magazine in nearby New York City where there happened to be a summer internship position available.

While a little nepotism got her foot in the door, Cellini insists she wanted to go through the whole application process and be treated “like everyone else.”

So she sent in her resume and portfolio, went through the interview process, was deemed qualified and got the gig.

Initially feeling like a small fish in a very big pond, Cellini admits, “At first I was really scared. I thought, ‘What have I gotten myself into?’”

Not only did she worry if she was really qualified to be there, she says she was even more afraid of the fashion side of the magazine; worried the other girls would not only judge her work as a designer, but her personal style and appearance as well.





But, once she got in, she got over it she says.

“After my first few projects I got really good feedback and I became more confident in myself and my work,” says Cellini.
Cellini says the staff was really nice and supportive, “It was definitely not the nightmare intern stories you hear about the with overbearing editors and premadonna big name photographers.”

“And I never had to go on coffee runs,” Cellini states proudly.

Working exclusively in the art department, she spent two to three days a week all summer, “mostly organizing and researching images for layouts, picking photos for contact sheets and assisting the photo editor on shoots.”

Although the clips she collected are now the highlight of her portfolio, in hindsight Cellini says she could have done more networking. “As an intern you have the chance to make a lot of contacts, but I’m just really shy and at that time I was too afraid to put myself out there like that.”

Despite her shy nature, Cellini’s eyes caught the eye of the beauty editor. “I’ve always had fun with my make-up and kind of ‘punked it up,’” so when the editor couldn’t make it to a product launch party, she sent Cellini to represent ElleGirl in her place.

Meeting celebrities, getting free gifts and going out to lunch on Elle’s bill were some of the perks of the job, but the best part, says Cellini was helping with the big photo shoots that took up the whole day and then seeing all that effort once it’s printed.

“Its so cool to go to a newsstand and flip through magazine and see what you did, like ‘I made that!’”

Today she is working towards her master’s degree in photography at the San Francisco Academy of Art University and uses a lot of what she learned in the field in her current studies. Her best advice for those aspiring to be a part of magazine industry is to be there for your editors whenever they need you for anything, learn all you can by listening and work your way up from the bottom.

“You have to put in your dues,” she says, “and sometimes its just cutting paper and it’s not glamorous or fun,”
“But if you want it, it’s all worth it.”