Summer Intern, Motion Designer

About the Role

As a Motion Design Intern on Athena’s Creative team, you’ll collaborate with designers, producers, and creative partners to help bring ideas to life through motion. You’ll support the creation of motion assets that elevate storytelling across advertising, digital campaigns, social content and brand design.

You’ll learn how Athena approaches creative development end-to-end, gaining exposure to real client work and internal brand initiatives while building your skills in motion craft, feedback cycles, and fast-paced creative workflows.

The Athena internship program immerses interns in a collaborative, cross-functional environment where they work closely with teams across creative, marketing, events, operations, and data analytics—gaining exposure to how departments align to bring projects to life. Our Capstone Project allows interns to collaborate and contribute to real-world initiatives by presenting their proposal to internal stakeholders. Interns are mentored through weekly managerial check-ins and executive support.

Athena fosters a culture of support, curiosity, connection, and inclusivity, which allows interns to shine.

• Support the creation of motion graphics and animations for digital campaigns and social content, helping bring creative concepts to life through movement.
• Assist in developing storyboards, style frames, and motion studies to explore and communicate animation ideas.
• Design and animate motion assets that incorporate strong fundamentals (composition, typography, pacing), including work with type when relevant.
• Collaborate with designers and creative partners to ensure motion and visual design work cohesively across deliverables.
• Participate in briefs, reviews, and feedback sessions—making revisions and learning how to iterate quickly while maintaining quality.
• Help keep files organized and production-ready, supporting versioning and handoffs as projects move through the workflow.

• Working toward a degree (or equivalent training) in Motion Design, Animation, Graphic Design, Visual Communication, or a related field.
• Familiarity with motion and design fundamentals (timing, composition, typography, layout).
• Basic to intermediate experience in Adobe After Effects; familiarity with additional Adobe tools (Illustrator/Photoshop/Premiere) is helpful. Experience with 3D animation tools (e.g., Rhino, Cinema 4D) is a plus.
• A portfolio (student, personal, or freelance) showcasing motion samples—short animations, social content, or experimental studies are all welcome.
• Strong communication skills, openness to feedback, and a collaborative working style.
  Strong time management skills, with a collaborative approach to meeting deadlines in a fast‑moving environment.

• Experience creating motion for social-first formats (short-form content, quick-turn assets).
• Interest or exposure to video editing workflows.
• Familiarity with exporting deliverables across multiple specs/aspect ratios for digital platforms.
• Prior experience working directly with clients or supporting brand activations.
• Leadership experience through extracurricular activities, volunteer work, or team-based activities.
• Exposure to marketing, brand strategy, or social media planning.

• Paid
  
  Experience:
  
  Interns are compensated at $20/hour, with biweekly pay throughout the nine-week program.
• Flexible Scheduling: Interns are expected to work
  20–30 hours per week, ideally on a consistent schedule. Hours are coordinated with managers to allow flexibility within the weekly limit.
• In-Person Engagement: This is an‑site internship based in Philadelphia, designed to provide immersive, real-world experience in a collaborative office…