Creative Minds

In 2020, Lily Stotz, CAS ’21, interned for Oakland University Communications and Marketing Department (UCM) for two years under Debra Lashbrook, UCM’s creative director. Stotz, now an associate art director at Franco in Detroit, got together with Lashbrook to talk about their experiences.

Debra: How did you initially hear about this internship at UCM? And did anybody guide you to apply for the job?

Lily: Actually, my roommate, while I was at OU, had an on-campus job and her coworker recommended it to me. So, it was kind of word-of-mouth but within the OU Network, which was neat.

I remember being super nervous about the interview. And then I was interviewed by you [Debra], and you were so relaxed. I just remember that you made me feel really comfortable. I was also intrigued by your chaotic, creative mess.

Lily Stotz, CAS ’21, associate art director at Franco in Detroit

L: What do you wish you knew at my age, starting in a creative career?

D: To know that you can learn things from just about anybody. You don't know when someone else could help you down the line, so make sure that you are kind to your coworkers. Don’t take anything people say about your work too personally and don’t let anyone stress you out.

D: What did you think about taking on an internship with the university?

L: When I took on the design internship here, I wasn't even sure I was going to go into design. I was really drawn to art and naturally enjoyed it, but I was going to school for communication, and I was maybe looking for a career in PR. But, when I was told about this opportunity, it seemed fun.

Taking this internship didn't just solidify my career choice, it changed my direction. I still graduated with a degree in communication, but I also graduated with minors in advertising and graphic design. This internship gave me the confidence to actually say, “Yes, I'm going to move forward with this passion.”

You were a really good mentor, guiding me to learn things and allowing me to explore anything that I was interested in. And I was really interested in social media and doing stuff for digital spaces. That's where I ended up in my career now.

Debra Lashbrook, creative director at Oakland University Communications and Marketing

D: What advice would you give a current student entering an internship? Is there anything specific about working with the internal communications department versus an agency?

L: I felt like I had a lot of room to explore in UCM and to work with different teams. I think that just helped me really develop interpersonal communication and also gave me the opportunity to maybe explore different sides of design and communications that I probably wouldn't have been exposed to.

L: How did your past job experiences help you to where you are now?

D: I started off at Michigan State working in communications in the department that did agricultural facts, supporting the farmers and laying out newsletters. I spent time at some small agencies before going to the Detroit area to be a studio art director and then landing at Oakland University.

Every time that I moved jobs, it was always an opportunity for me to test myself. You have to believe in yourself and your abilities. The nice thing about moving around to different things is that you get to reevaluate and see, “How do my skills compare to this whole new group of people?”

L: What nontechnical skills have been most beneficial for your career?

D: Archiving. How you archive and how you store things. It's another strong skill that you need to have. If you did all this work and you only present a fraction of it, you can reuse it somewhere else. So, I think just organization, your memory and knowing what to pull from.

L: How do you get unstuck creatively with a project?

D: I have to stay as loose as possible. I might see something on a billboard, and I’ll like how it curves. And maybe I could do that kind of stuff. Visually, anything that I'm kind of being exposed to, watching TV or movies, billboards, I think, “Oh, I could do something like that!” I start cataloging things in my head.

And for me, I try not to judge what I do. I just try to put as much product down. My mindset is if I do 10 options, I'm going to present three.

D: Would you ever want to take a job like mine?

L: Yes. Since leaving OU, my career path has been kind of reflective of yours. I don't know what's happening next, but in the long term, I would like to be in a creative director position.