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Micro-internship brief ≈8h across 2 days — design and mock up, then gather votes and iterateno-code

Design merch people would actually wear

Merch design has a brutal test: would someone put it on their body? Generate directions with AI, refine 2 candidates for a real group you belong to, mock them up, put them to a vote with 5 real members, and iterate on what they say.

AI-assisted DesignGraphic Design

Posted by The AI Internships

The work brief

  1. 01Pick a real group: your class, team, club, fandom, or college batch.
  2. 02Generate a batch of print directions with an AI image tool, pick 2 candidates, and refine each by hand — front print, sized and placed like real merch.
  3. 03Mock both onto shirts/totes (Canva mockups or AI) and run a vote with 5 real group members: which would you actually wear, and what stops you?
  4. 04Iterate the winner based on the objections, and show final vs. original.

What you’ll produce

4 deliverables

Submission standard

Submit both mockups, the raw votes with objections, and the final iterated design, plus your AI workflow. Also submit the public Canva view-link to your merch file and a screenshot of your own editor showing your account name and today's date.

  • The real group and what identity the merch expresses

    Short answerRequired

  • Both candidate designs as merch mockups (one labelled image)

    Image uploadRequired

  • The 5 votes: who (roughly), their pick, and their "what stops me" objections

    Record all 5 voters, their pick, and their 'what stops me' objection in their own words — real members disagree and hedge. The objections must reconcile with the changes visible in your final design; invented or uniform votes fail.

    Written responseRequired

  • The final design after iterating on the objections

    Image uploadRequired

You’ll complete these inside your private workspace.

What you must submit as proof

This brief requires evidence an AI can’t fabricate.

  • Public Canva view-link to your mockups and final design

    Canva 'Share > Anyone with the link can view'. Must open to YOUR editable merch file — a dead or private link fails.

    Public linkRequired

  • Screenshot of your OWN Canva editor building a mockup — account name and today's date visible

    Show the live mockup canvas with your username and system date, not just the exported image.

    Image uploadRequired

Submissions without this evidence cannot be submitted.

Protect other people in your proof. Blur faces, names, phone numbers and email addresses before you upload, and refer to anyone you worked with by role or number ("Listener 1", "the stall owner"). Your proof is only ever used to check your work — it is never published, never appears on your certificate, and is never shown in your public portfolio.

How your work is evaluated

The passing benchmark is 70/100.

Wearability

29%

The final is something the group would plausibly wear — placement, size, taste.

Real vote

29%

The votes and objections read like real group members.

Objection-driven iteration

14%

The final visibly responds to the stated objections.

First-party provenance

29%

Auto-fail if the designs have no live editable file, if the editor screenshot lacks account/date, or if the votes read invented or do not reconcile with the objections addressed in the final.

How we grade your AI usage

30% of your score

Using AI is the point — it’s the skill this certificate proves. You’ll answer three short questions about how you used it: what you asked, what was wrong with its first answer, and what you changed. Specific, honest answers score high. “I pasted the brief and submitted the answer” scores near zero.