Ello again folks! Something I've been meaning to do for ageeeees. Like literally since I moved down to London 10months ago(!!!), was to start sharing monthly updates of things I got up to, places I ate at and just a general chit chat about things I did. 

I'll be perfectly honest, the photography in these posts will not be top notch, especially if it's a day I forget my camera, the battery dies or it's just a total random trip that came out of nowhere after work. But instead, hopefully they'll give you a bit more insight into what I get up to during the month and how much traditional tourism I actually do. But regardless of all that, what did July bring?

With June being Pride month, the celebrations of such were still rolling on into July with London pride being the 7th of July. I've never actually been to a pride parade before but it was definitely an expierence to get along to London's as my first. Ignoring the nastiness that this years London Pride started with, I seen so much beauty, love and excitement from it. Including one couple getting engaged before they left the parade line up.

The following week of July I had a pretty busy and sociable one. With a few works do's for people leaving and then catching up with a few mates that were down for D&AD's New Blood Festival and to do internships. Throughout this week I got to try a panzo vegan pizza, as well as pizza pilgrims vegan option too.

On the Friday evening, Darren and I decided to make a last minute trip to Westfield in Shepherd's Bush in order to play a bit of crazy golf. We had one round of crazy gold at the first ever Puttshack, a digitised version of the very much loved traditional game. I'll be honest, the game was very quick, about 20minutes. But it was definitely one of the funnest crazy golf experiences I've had with how they have integrated tech into this old game.


The next day I met up with Jamie, a friend I met at GDFS a few years back, along with a few folk from his uni friendship group. We met at The Design Museum in order to check out the 'Hope to Nope' exhibition. Unfortunately, it's already closed but it was definitely a great one to check out. They had a variety of memorabilia, design and so much more that were created for social, political or economical protest, with a large portion being for the Brexit referendum and Trump's presidency.


On the 21st of July, we took to the canals of Camden. With our first stop being the incredible Temple of Seitan. I had previously visited with Robyn (of RobynMakesThings) a few months back but wanted to take Darren so he could try some different (and wonderful) vegan food.

After finishing up at ToS, we headed back along the canals to Camden Market for the afternoon. Neither of us had been round this way so we just spent time walking through the shops, stalls and markets. But it was a super warm day so we headed off about 4ish with me starting to get a bit of heat stroke.


On the Sunday, I headed down to Hyde Park on, at the time, one of the hottest days of the heatwave so far in order to hang out at the picnic Lucy Jane Wood had organised. It ended up being such a lovely afternoon getting to know a mixture of other people that had similar interests and life experiences. Moving to London when you 'know' a lot of people but don't know them in person very much can result in a lonely affair. But it's days out like this one that really makes you feel part of something.

And the last kind of notable thing I got up to in July was heading to my first ever Nicer Tuesday's with my friend Aaron who was down for an internship. For the July night, they had Flat-e, Nadine Redlich, Vicki King and Sophie Koko Gate as the featured speaks for the event. My favourite out of the lot was definitely Nadine as I really connected with her illustrations and I think her way of working is super interesting.

But yeah I guess that's all the cool stuff that I got up to throughout July. I hope you like this little insight of what I'm getting up too and I'll hopefully keep up with it! It's a bit like keeping a visual and written diary but spouting it all out at the end, so I know I'll probably end up coming back and reading it in a few months to be like "omg this was such a good time". But in the meantime that's all! Although if you do want to check out something creative I've been up to this month, check out this IG post.

It's that time of year again, where students all across the country start freaking. 2 years ago I had my spell of freaking. You've graduated from university and now your thrust into the "real world". You see people all around you that have left from your class, or friends on social media starting jobs and internships while you are stuck back at home and your only main resource of your time is spent working in retail. 

It's heartbreaking. 

When I graduated 2 years ago I wasn't sure where to go from that. I didn't feel ready to apply for jobs or even internships. I felt absolutely stuck. I think what I felt was burn out. I had spent the last 7-8 years of my life going from secondary school, to college and finally university in order to become a graphic designer. And here I was at this point that I could be. I had spent all this time in education learn the skills, expanding as a designer and when I got to that last point, with my degree show finished, my energy and push to get there had fizzled out. You need a big dose of energy to keep you going when you graduate and you see everyone else doing incredibly. So today I wanted to give some advice that comes from what I realised and what I know now helped me keep going. 

Keep connected

When you leave university, your main support system kind of disappears. And I'm not talking about family or friends, I mean your tutors and lecturers. When you're at university they are essentially the ones that teach you what you need to know and give you an insight into the real world. But when you leave there's no one. So when you graduate, or try even set it in place before then, find people who are working in the industry that you can go to and ask questions about your next steps. It's so so so beneficial having that up-to-date and insightful knowledge to keep you floating. 

Sort your portfolio out
Yes this is a simple step. But make sure that before you leave university you have everything you need for a portfolio! You’ll need final deliverables & development stages from projects to show the progression. Also make sure that with indesign or after effects files that you have all the linked files in case you want to dip back in later on!

Make your own projects
Again, when you leave university, you have no one telling you what you need to be doing or creating. So the best way to do this without having freelance work, commissions or being in a job/internship is to create your own projects. There's so many ways to do this from a social feed to creating products or something else entirely. But it's mainly a to help keep your design skills fresh in your mind, it can also add something totally unique to put into your portfolio. There’s a magnitude of things you could create, but start with your interests & go from there.

Make some money
So as I've stated already not everyone gets into a job or internship right away. It happens but not to everyone. So if you’re struggling, get a part time job & make some cash for the time being. Or see how you can make money from your designs. Either way you need cash & get it sooner rather than later.

Don’t stop learning
When you leave uni you’re not done learning. The creative industry is constantly evolving with it being the digital age. Our outputs change all the time, technology & software is adapted to fit. So keep brushed up on your key skills but also make time to learn things that may set you apart.

Get out 

& lastly… 
Stay passionate!
Leaving the world of education can be overwhelming, scary & like being smacked in the face, especially if you have a slow start. Being turned down for jobs & internships can take their toll & deter you from continuing. But keep going! Stay driven to work as a designer, keep making things & be open to opportunities if it’ll push your forward.

I hope you enjoyed this post. It was built up from one of the posts I made for The Design Weans takeover I did last month. If you fancy seeing the entire collection of posts check out the instagram profile here: The Design Weans. And let me know what you thought of the illustrations I've created for this blog post via my iPad and procreate as well.

Hello! So today I wanted to chat about an event I went to recently, Commercial Work VS Creative Passion set up and organised by SheSaysUK with partnership from Major Players. There was an all-female line up of speakers including Business Artist Lola Lansa who ran the discussion with  Illustrator Tegan Price, Photographer Catherine Losing and Designer Sadie Clayton sharing what it's like to be commissioned and working freelance, while Saatchis&Saatchi Creative Director Fabiana Xavier and Creative Consultant Sarah Williams gave insight from the side of helping and/or working with freelancers. 

The evening was largely about how freelancers can work in order to produce commercial work that helps them work on passion projects, while also making decent money. But the majority of the speakers also had either a part time or full time job on the side to support this so they spoke about the balance of that and how to make it work as well.

As someone who does work full time but also enjoys illustration and lettering on the side it was such a great talk to go through and I came away from it with lots of tips and advice about how to turn this interest into a way to make some money on the side through commissions. It also made me think about this years 100 day project and how I can look at what I'm creating and see if there's illustrations I'm interested in creating can be targeted to companies, brands or a specific social or environmental issue.

From the evening I wrote almost 3 and a half pages of notes which is mainly what I wanted to share in this blog post.  There was so many interesting questions asked and a lot of great points that the speakers came out with that I wanted to pass on some of that wisdom. A lot of it does direct mainly to people working as freelance or those who take on some sort of commissions but I think there's a lot of ways that you can alter them to work in an agency or in-house setting as well. 

Hopefully you've found these points as helpful as I have! There's so many events like this in London and I'm really keen to head to more of them when I can. So be sure this won't be the last post like this if my social calendar has anything to do with it! 

'Sup! It's been a while hasn't it? Nevermind... Since my last post, I've definitely had a hectic 2months with getting settled in our new flat, as well as family visits and events. But the one thing that's probably kept me most occupied for the last few weeks is this years edition of #the100dayproject. 

Now I've attempted the project in both 2016 and 2017 and I also tried a #Create365 in 2015. If you've been following me for a bit you know that each of these challenge I didn't finish so why try again? 

The one thing I enjoy the most about these projects and what I learn from them is what I enjoy creating and new ways to use that creative output. Like last year I've given myself quite a simple focus to work towards with the 'goal', essentially, just to think more about how to work or create things in an editorial way that is also humorous, depicts my actual life and shares some tidbits about being a creative/designer. 

This year I also decided to play with one thing I would often stay away from, something I never felt was my strong suit- illustrating people. Or to be more advantageous (I guess?), the person I've been illustrating is myself! *insert shock, horror, disbelief* But actually so far it's gone really well. Although I still have difficulty with drawing things like hands it's been fun to think up concepts to illustrate out. 

One thing that's also driven me to illustrating myself is that being surrounded by magazines and editorial pieces at work, seeing how an illustration takes an article to life has inspired me. It's made me want to work towards doing things like that more whether it's from a typographic or illustrative point of view. And although I do have one lettering piece published in a magazine, I definitely have a lot to learn and experiment with still so I look forward to exploring these more throughout the challenge. 

At this point I'm only about 1/4 of the way through my project, so I'm a few weeks behind but I'm not letting that bother me either. In past years I've gotten caught up in being behind everyone else and feeling like I need to *perfectly* upload once a day. But the reality is it isn't always possible especially when you're working full time and having to do household things like making tea and doing loads of washing when you get home. So the truth is, I'm going to take it at my own pace and if it means I finish a few weeks later then that's fine by me.



I've dropped a few of my favourites so far form the project in this post so hopefully you've enjoyed seeing them. But if you fancy seeing the entire set, you are definitely better checking my instagram @LaurenGemmaHay or my 100 days tag which is #OhHay100Days.

Today I planned on sharing a blog post talking about the work I did on a magazine at work but I actually changed my mind this morning to something else, so that post will come over the weekend.

The 6th of February actually marks 1 year since my first day of officially working as a designer on an internship basis but it also marks the first day of my junior designer life at SevenC3 after passing my probation period. It feels ironic that the two have married up so precisely but it does feel like a nice 360°.

With this all in mind, I wanted to discuss in this post a brief outline of what the last 365 days have entailed, some things I've learned or realised and some stuff that I hope will help other people who are trying to get their start as a designer. 

So where was I 1 year ago? 

Last year, I was starting my first day interning at Glasgow based studio, Freytag Anderson. I was given the opportunity to intern at FA through the GDFS festival which I actually spoke about in this post. I spent the week learning how a studio works and even seeing that on the business side of things, with client and internal meetings, doing some concept research and putting together design packs for competitions. The most impactful part of this internship was actually on my last day when myself and Greig sat down to speak about my portfolio and ways to utilise it in order to enhance my chances with jobs. Leaving this internship made me more hungry for 'real world' expierence and cemented my thoughts on my next one. 

One of the projects I helped on while at Venn. Check out the full project here.

From leaving Glasgow, I then went home for a few weeks to then travel almost 700miles in order to intern for 4 weeks at Venn Creative in Penryn, Cornwall. With this internship I simply found/heard about it by tracking tweets on Twitter that included "graphic design intern" with a variety of variations on that phrase. I spoke a lot about this time on the blog already, so if you fancy reading that check those posts out the Venn Creative tag. I also shared this post on Medium detailing the vast majority of things I learned during my time there too. The main thing that boosted my expierence was the vast amount of projects I got to work on, from both beginning to completion. 

After the extremely eye opening 4 weeks in Cornwall I came back to life that was dreaded normality. I got back to working in retail and applications after application, interviews after interview I wasn't really getting anywhere. Apart from joining in 2017's 100 day project, I wasn't doing much design work. From the period of April to July I got more restless and deterred. I wanted a job or even an internship in the industry but didn't seem to be getting anywhere. I was losing faith in my skills and knowledge and each knock back pushed me further away.


In July however I did go into Aberdeen based design studio, Foyer Graphics for a few days after a family friend put in a word for me. With the few days I got to see, again, another side of the design world. With a lot of their clients being non-profit there's a different way that you need to approach the work. The team that worked there were knowledgeable and on top of it. And also working in an industry where women are considered minorities in top creative/design roles it was inspiring to be in a design studio that didn't just have a single female in the office but all 3 designers were female.

Between Foyer Graphics and the next company I was at, I had a major knock back. I had applied for a role at another local-ish design studio and thought I had pretty much landed it. But thus, it wasn't meant to be. And although it did upset me at the time it was just for the best.

Moving on from the knock down, I'd had seen a post from a creative I knew in the Aberdeen scene and had spoken to a few times. His work was looking for a marketing design intern to join the business group that was made up of restaurants, food delivery service and a gym, amongst other things. Seeing as I had no other work or interviews lined up I figured I'd messaged him about it and he pretty much invited me to come along straight away since we already knew each other.


After that first month of being at the ACC group, I was asked if I wanted to stay on and to actually get paid! It was only on a part time basis, usually 2 or 3 days a week but it meant I could cut back my hours at the Coop to do something I had actually studied. My role at the company varied massively, I would often be creating different types of assets to use on social media from Facebook posts to Instagram stories. I also designed posters, leaflets, newspaper ads, as well as more marketing work including contacting influencers and compiling lists of possible deals we could run in certain areas of the business. My time here obviously ended once I had been offered the position at SevenC3 but I'm thankful for the opportunity I had there. Being in a more 'in-house' role showed me how you can start to develop a style for a brand and constantly develop it further. 

Overall it feels like I didn't do much experience in hindsight but counting it out in total it does work out to be 3/4months of interning and part time work before getting into a full time design role (although this doesn't include the variety of the freelance and self-initiated projects I've done throughout the years). I'm not sure if this is on par with what most people experience or not but I know that I seen a lot of even junior roles looking for one years experience which is mad tbh.

I hope this helps give you some insight to what my journey was and feel free to ask below any questions about interning or building up experience. I do want to write a full blog post on some tips I realised through my time so let me know what you would like to see within that.

So hello, and welcome to the second post of 2018! (Yes I know there was meant to be a post on Saturday, but I don't think I'll be diving right into them just yet.) But today I wanted to have a chat about resolutions, new year intentions, goals, whatever ya call them! 

For me I like to start the year by looking at the last 365 days and seeing what I've achieved and not achieved at, then think about what I want to take forward into the new year and work on. I know a lot of people don't like the idea of New Year resolutions as the common idea is that you fail it within the first month, if not week. But for me I always try to make mine much more actionable and something I truly will try be exciting about achieving. 

This year, I decided I would note all my goals within my bullet journal and give myself some actionable points to be able to start achieving them. Most years I do kind of just write down whatever things I can think of but this year I took a much more level-headed approach by giving myself on goal for different areas of my life that are important to me like my personal creative development, what I want to be doing at work, and also things involving my health, finance and relationships. 

Laying it out the way I have (which was inspired by happily eve after) it gives me the opportunity to write down those actionable points I mentioned but also to give a space that I can mark off how I am progressing with them when it comes too April and then August. 

By doing all this I think this year I will be more successful in how I achieve my goals and the extent they'll be achieved as well. As a creative I think it's always important to strive to push yourself further not just creatively but in your regular life as well as what happens to you on an everyday basis can become the foundation for a new project or give a new perspective on an idea you have. 

Of course with goals though, you need to keep them somewhat manageable. Many times in the past I've strived to do the standard "loose X amount of weight" with no plan or steps to take, which is obviously going to end in failure. But it's good to give yourself some means to keep yourself accountable as in the end you'll be wanting to pursue that goal in order to keep ahead of the accountability. 

The last thing I wanted to touch on was something I've done for a few years, which is a word for the year. The idea for this is that you have a word that encompasses your goals, ambitions or feelings for the year ahead. It is a bit like giving yourself a mantra to follow throughout the months. For this year I've decided on the word "develop", largely because a lot of the goals I've chosen involve developing some aspect of myself or my life into something better. I also like the idea of using the word develop because one thing I'm aiming to do this year is to print off more photos on my sprocket that I got for Christmas and it obviously ties into the photography terminology. 

So what about you, have you got some goals for this year, has this post made you think that you need to add some actionable points to your goals? Or has it even inspired you to make a spread in your own bullet journal or even to give yourself a "word of the year"? If it has let me know below and we can have a chat about them! 

Well it's been a while ain't it? My last post was in October and my goodness how things have changed since then! 

If you haven't been keeping up with me on socials (Instagram & Twitter) you will have missed that I am now working as a full time graphic designer at a company called SevenC3 in London! The past 3/4months have been a bit of a crazy whirlwind with it, from having interviews to then being invited to be part of the company! On top of the usual new job business I also moved across the country for it too. Meaning that a lot of my spare time has involved looking for permanent living options, adventuring round the area and London itself, among all the other boring adulty stuff including weekly shops and cleaning. 

But enough about what happened in 2017. What's happening in 2018? Cause it's a new year folks! 

I'm coming into this year with an optimistic and excited attitude. I already have set myself goals in my mind for things I want to achieve within my work, personal, side projects and general health & wellbeing, among other things. 

On the side project front, that's where this blog sits. I've been speaking to Morag and Laura, two close blogger friends as of late and I've been discussing with them my goals and how I've wanted to be putting more of an effort with this blog. And that starts here I guess. 

I've refreshed the ideas I have with this blog and given myself a new focus on what topics and themes I want to cover, along with giving myself a new schedule to work too. So hopefully from now, you should see a new blog post on OhHay! Blogs every Tuesday and Saturday, covering topics from developing myself as a young designer, living in London, reviews and I'd like to share some insight into my creative process as well. 

I'll be going into a lot more depth about things like moving to London and finding a job in different posts but for now that's me! I hope you're excited to follow this new chapter of the blog and I'll catch up with ya in the comments & on socials!