Arghh!!!

Well today I would have been continuing searching for work placements and working on finding competition entries etc...but somehow managed to get a rootkit, which turned out to be one of those new annoying "you can never completely remove me" ones!  So I had to spend my entire day backing up files, reinstalling windows and changing all of my important passwords on the net... <sarcasm> WONDERFUL!! </sarcasm>

Design Competitions

Today I decided to enter a design competition...I think my submission was ok, but it has showed me that I do work well as part of a team!!  Sometimes other input can be really useful on tweaking things, pointing out design flaws and colour ideas before I end up getting stuck into it and lose sight of the bigger picture :P
But all the same it's entered, and when I have a bit more time I'll probably enter a few more!!  Muahahahaha!

(design: http://99designs.com/users/480728/folio/designs/5941379 )

Another visitor! (and the search for a placement begins!)

Today we were visited by Tom Morris from Sunhouse Design.

Tom started by telling us that finding placements could be difficult with many businesses in the area as a lot of them are either small design houses or freelancers - keeping the companies small to minimize costs - advising us to aim mainly for the bigger agencies if possible!
He started out with a degree in graphic design and managed to get a placement with the BBC, who are apparently a great first time employer as there is a very diverse range of positions and types of work within the company as they are very large.
Eventually he left the BBC and joined a company called "Epoch Design" (who have since merged with a company called Loewy) and worked there for a while before finally deciding to strike out and form his design house with a few colleagues.
The initial stages of setting up the design company were very difficult, often having to offer services for free to obtain publicity and recommendations as opposed to actually earning money!  Thankfully for him he had been working in the design industry long enough to have built up what he termed as a "Black Book" of contacts within the industry - this gave him a starting point in finding new work.
One thing which he pointed out during his talk was that in the world of design, "You are only as good as your previous job" - which is a helpful thing to remember when choosing jobs once you start to make a name for yourself!
Sunhouse design now do a range of different jobs for many different types of company - some examples of this being the BBC, Danone and even work on the Marmite brand!
The later part of his talk was focused around giving pitches and trying to win work, he told us:

• It is much better to pitch on a physical medium if possible (instead of a digital medium) - Sunhouse almost always print A1 boards to use in their pitches as this gives you more control over the pacing of the pitch and protects against many common issues like colour loss from projectors and data issues (broken files etc).
• The pitch should contain more than one solution to the problem - also including progressions of ideas, justification and explanation.
• When designing the solution it is best to first analyse the brand or employer (who are they, what is it etc) - which could take the form of a brainstorm - and also to try and analyse the consumer, their patterns, likely places they will be impacted by advertising etc.
• Often it is not a problem to take large amounts of inspiration from existing products/designs - this should be done carefully to avoid possible legal complications and accusations of plagiarism!
• It can be best to show different "routes" of ideas - for instance he showed us an example where route one of the design concepts was following the current format of the brand (minor changes) and then other major ideas were grouped into their routes.
• Sometimes when creating concepts for a pitch it can be much quicker to draw them non-digitally! 

He also said that although many pitches are paid (some for the pitch and some to the winning pitch) - they can often be very time consuming and expensive!  The two pieces of advice he offered for this were that it is often unwise  to pitch on a project which already has many other companies doing the same, and not to pitch if the project is too far out of your "comfort zone".


And finally!  I have started properly looking for placements today!  They seem to be quite few and far between at the moment (one company told me that this is the wrong time of year at the moment as many houses are busy focusing on Christmas projects at the moment!) but I have called quite a few places, and out of those phone calls have been told to send various information (CV/Portfolio etc) to three of them - which is a start I guess!!

First Post, First visitor! (Jack Owen - Icehouse Design)

Today we met Jack Owen from Icehouse Design - it was interesting and informative to talk to someone who has been in the business for a while.  Icehouse design focus mainly on print-based clients - among these are the NHS and National Trust.  He showed us a recent project, an annual review for the local NHS trust, where some small changes had been made during the process, some of these before consulting the customer.  He said that this can be part of the job - sometimes small changes need to be pushed to create a better finished product for the customer - but sometimes it can backfire and it is important to always sign off changes with the client!

He told us that design can be a very difficult profession to start out in and that there can be times when you may earn very little - he also said that at some point we are likely to end up dealing with a customer who doesn't pay, or could end up in a situation where our integrity as a designer may lead us to withdraw our services if talking and explaining to the client does not present a compromise.  This is because any work you do can obviously have a positive or negative impact on your portfolio - so if a customer demands something that you know to be terrible it can occasionally be less damaging to refuse the work.

The situation may also arise in the future where some requests by potential clients may have to be rejected because they do not bring in enough money to meet overheads etc.

Most of the Icehouse clients are found by word of mouth from previous clients - including their larger customers, large brands like Marks and Spencer, Boots and Tesco.  Jack told us that advertising can often be a massive waste of money and that the most important piece of advertising we could buy would be business cards.

In regards to looking for placements or a job as a studio junior, he told us the most important thing is attitude as the skills required for the job can be taught in house.