Key Art Design Intern

The Refinery is an entertainment marketing agency specializing in key art, digital, and social creative. We’re looking for a talented, visually driven designer who is passionate about film and television, excited by entertainment design, and curious about the rapidly evolving role of AI in the creative process. The ideal candidate is equally comfortable pushing pixels in Photoshop and experimenting with new creative technology.

This is a 3-month, full-time paid internship designed for an emerging designer who wants hands-on experience. You’ll work closely with our team to learn the many stages of developing entertainment creative—from initial concepts and visual exploration through polished comps and final production.

If selected to move forward to the first round, you’ll receive a link to The Refinery’s Key Art Design Internship Contest, where you’ll be given a brief to design a movie poster. This creative exercise gives us an opportunity to see how you approach concepting, composition, storytelling,

What You’ll Do

• Support Art Directors and Creative Directors in developing key art for entertainment projects.
• Create thumbnails, concepts, layouts, typography, moodboards, and visual treatments from creative direction and references.
• Build and refine comps using Photoshop, provided assets, photography, stock, and other source material.
• Assist with compositing, masking, cleanup, color adjustments, revisions, and mechanical preparation.
• Prepare concept and sketch presentations and contribute creative ideas to pitch decks.
• Follow established file organization, naming, production, and color-conversion workflows.
• Incorporate generative AI into concept development, visual exploration, compositing, and image-making workflows.
• Use AI tools to rapidly prototype creative directions, visual treatments, and image variations.
• Support hybrid AI + Photoshop workflows, including inpainting, outpainting, asset replacement, enhancement, and upscaling.
• Develop a critical eye for AI artifacts and maintain consistency in composition, lighting, texture, depth of field, and visual style.
• Stay current with emerging AI tools and creative technologies, and explore new ways to improve creative workflows and adapt artwork across formats.

What We’re Looking For

• A strong design eye and genuine passion for film, television, entertainment, and key art.
• Demonstrated Photoshop and design skills through a portfolio or work samples.
• Curiosity about AI and enthusiasm for incorporating new tools into the creative process.
• An ability to take creative direction while also bringing your own ideas to the table.
• Strong attention to detail and pride in the quality of your work.

Technical Skills

Required:

• Working knowledge of Adobe Photoshop, including layers, masking, compositing, and basic color correction.
• Familiarity Google Drive
• Familiarity with at least one modern generative AI image platform and an interest in learning new tools quickly.

A Plus:

• Experience with AI tools such as Higgsfield, Nano Banana Pro, Adobe Firefly, or similar platforms.
• Experience with AI image enhancement or upscaling tools such as Topaz Labs, Magnific, or similar.
• Experience with video generation tools such as Seedance, Kling, or similar.
• Basic Premiere Pro or After Effects experience.
• Blender or similar 3D experience, including basic block-outs, camera/lighting setups, or depth maps used to support AI workflows.

Portfolio note: we're looking for recent work (last 3 months) ideally made with the tools noted above. If you work with different tools, show us what you've got.

Salary Range

$20.00-$25.00/hr