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.
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| 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.
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.
