Virtual Internships Abroad Designing for FLIP

FLIP Productions -Tokyo, Japan

As a Content Creation Intern for FLIP Productions in Tokyo, I’ve been able to research different aspects of Japanese life for their social media, create social media graphics for their tourism and entrepreneurship guide, and design vector illustrations to promote their COVID-19 friendly scavenger hunt. Before the COVID-19 pandemic began, FLIP was solely an events and marketing agency located in Tokyo, Japan. They organized nightlife parties, daytime tours, and other memorable experiences for tourists. However, travel limitations had a huge impact on them, causing these events to stop completely and forcing them to adjust to creating entrepreneurship resources and digital travel guides.

Yet despite the virtual nature of the internship, I was still able to gain a global experience and one that allowed me to explore all aspects of design and creative style. My internship began with creating Pinterest pins to attract people to FLIP’s new entrepreneurship and Japan travel resource blog site and posts. I was able to learn about the basics of their branding and marketing tactics, and also learned quite a few entrepreneurship tips and skills related to traveling in Japan myself.

My work also included researching and designing Instagram posts for FLIP Guide’s Instagram, FLIP’s digital travel guide. Previous posts on FLIP Guide have included the top 11 food tours in Tokyo, how to celebrate new year’s eve the Japanese way, and have explained different aspects of Japanese culture by exploring different vocabulary words and visualizing the meaning and history. This task allowed me to explore Japanese culture digitally, and find topics that I thought were interesting to share with the greater FLIP community. FLIP’s target audience includes tourists and foreigners that are interested in living in Japan, many of which are from the U.S. It was interesting to create the posts and become a liaison of sorts in connecting the local Japanese and American communities.

As I became more familiar with FLIP’s branding and business strategy, I was also able to work more creatively. My last project was to create digital vector illustrations that visually portrayed famous destinations in Tokyo to be used for FLIP’s new scavenger hunt. With the start of the Olympics, tourism was expected to increase, and FLIP wanted to create a COVID-19 friendly tour experience. While this was a fun task in exploring different design styles, it also gave me insight into what athletes and their families could be exploring now at the Olympics, but also with consideration to how the local community feels. My experience with FLIP allowed me to grow professionally, create global connections, and gave me a virtual cultural immersion experience that I will hope to translate to an in-person one in the near future.