How's 2018 been for you so far? I wish I could say it's been easy sailing but it hasn't, with family passings, looking for flats and needing to cancel your bank card it's been stressful to say the least. But on the flip side, there have been thins that have been going fine including making plans to see friends, feeling creatively inspired and well, my job.
I'm nearing the end of my probation period there now and it's coming to the time where I'm starting to think about my ~almost~ 3 months in the role and what I want to continue, what I want to learn and if there's any changes I feel need to be made. As someone in their first full time design job at an agency I thought today I would kind of go through some of the things I've learned or realised so far from working.
It's scary. But it gets easier.
Holy hell it's terrifying going into your first job with only (in total) 4 months expierence of working and even then that's split across 4 different companies all of whom do slightly different work for vastly different clients. Even more unnerving when you realise that you are most definitely the youngest person in the office.
But for me I jumped straight in, with notebook in hand to make all the notes and doing this definitely helped. Make sure you to ask for help or direction when you're stuck. The most difficult thing I felt when I started was that people may thought I was being annoying in asking about this thing or that but it is actually helpful. It means you know what you're doing and you can get through issues or hurdles a lot quicker than if you go into a project blind. So just get stuck in, there's no point tip-toeing about.
Do actually get stuck in
For me this was my 'coping' mechanism, if that's the right way to phrase it. Basically with just getting on with my work, it has put me in a better place now. When I started I pretty much just took any work I could to learn about the different clients and get used to their branding/identity styles. Since a lot of the work done at my job varies across print, digital and motion it's been super important to learn this but because now I've helped on a lot of different client work I don't need to worry about spending time reading their branding guidelines doc.
Write everything down. Literally everything.
As I previously noted I had a notebook with me from day one. It's definitely been super helpful and I literally make all the notes. Writing down each of my 'tasks' for the day got me to remember all the clients and better helped when it came to doing my timesheet or having discussions with project managers about what work I was doing. From making the time to put pen to paper it definitely makes me more accountable and remember what I actually need to do day to day and it's a space I can use when I need to note things down in brainstorming sessions.
But basically all I'm trying to say is to keep track of what you're doing and write that shit down.
You can learn from everyone. And everyone can learn from you.
I feel this is one I always seemed in posts about starting out in the creative industries but it's so damn true. The main thing with this is being open with what your struggles are and not being protective about your ideas or your work. There's always something that can be expanded or learned from sharing. One day your coworker may tell you about a quick command to copy/paste styles in Keynote and then the next day you're explaining to them how you easily colour correct areas of a photo. Everyone's skills can vary and when you work in a team that are all there to do the work and progress together, you can learn a shit ton more than keeping to yourself.
Overall these are definitely the most important things I've learnt in the past few months that isn't specifcally how to do something but more of a way of working. It'll be interesting if I have any more things like these within the following months! But either way I'll be sure to keep you updated with my progress of working, in the mean time feel free to ask any questions below or feel free to tweet me or send me a message on instagram!
