PPP Presentation

Presentation

 

Presentation script - Q cards

Industry engagement: Graduate job

After sending out links to my online portfolio website and attaching my CV to numerous emails just before major isolation and closing of most business' I received a fairly similar response from most of the studios I reached out to. I was mainly told no positions were available given the circumstances of COVID-19 this is understandable. However, today I received some positive feedback from Andy Director of Andy Rice Creative who is interested in having a chat with me when COVID-19 allows and enables this. This is a positive response and I am keen to discuss possible job opportunities once given the opportunity. 

Teen Vogue: Production GIFs

My own photography:

• To showcase my own photography I created a GIF to show these images can be transformed into a moving image format for social media or other implementation.
• Static images enhances through GIF format
• Blank coloured background resolves legibility problem encountered to allowing type to remain legible within the image 
• Coloured background references femininity and female target audience 
• In context this could appear on teen vogue's website 
• A series of images fits the briefs requirements but also shows considerations on how the outcome can be adaptable across a range of formats 
• The top of censoring the image with type and tape strips could also be visualised more physically. This could create an interesting reader engagement and interactivity via hashtags and social media. This open engagement means it could encourage others to speak out on issues they face. 
• This design makes engagement personal and unique to every reader. 
• Barbie is a powerful pop-culture icon and makes visualising the topic not too inappropriate or explicit for a teen audience.

Learning Outcomes Crit

1. Research brief - Dachshund Leaflet 
2. Self-Initiated - Dachshund App
3. Document a Trip 

Feedback 
1. The pattern and typography works well to represent the context and the breed. Design decisions including format is well backed up by research. Development is explored through variations of stock, gathering content and creating an extension of self-initiated app design. Feedback was helpful as it was suggested to place the leaflet inside a Vet to show the leaflet in its appropriate context. The design also created an interesting, appealing and much more friendly tone of voice. This makes this leaflet stand out against others. The friendly tone of voice uplifts the tough topic of IVDD the leaflet aims to inform and educate upon. 

2. Feedback was positive as the design works well to visualise a celebration of the dachshund breed in terms of design this is achieved through pattern, shape, colour and typography. Further development of this brief took on board previous feedback with the development of an interactive live gallery and capture feature. This improved the applications interactivity and user engagement. Other research and development reference the designs context being an iOS application navigation references the Apple Human Interface Guidelines. Feedback was positive meeting each of the ILO's throughout the design process according to my peers. 

3. Feedback helped with the development and production stages of this project. I asked questions based on which stock choice would be most appropriate and if matt lamination would enhance the quality of the publication. This highlighted a gloss or semi gloss would perhaps take away from the illustrations so a matt stock would give a high-end finish and work with both photographs and the illustrative spreads. Whilst considering creating a high end publication the laminate colour would certainly create a high quality outcome. Colour swatches also relates well to the target audience of designers. Research was inspired by a visiting professionals talk whilst the content is gathered from primary research of my own photography. Whilst other design decisions such as typography were backed up by other primary research recording typography that exists in the location, New York Empire State building in the heart of New York. 

Work: Finding work and finances

Finding Work

• There are a wealth of job boards already out there, including The Dots, Design Jobs Board, TOB Jobs, If You Could, Indeed, LinkedIn, AIGA. 
• If you’re studying, it’s also worth asking if your university has their own creative opportunities website.
• Social media, which can be a worthwhile way to make connections, showcase your portfolio and get in touch directly with employers. 
• The freelance versus full-time question can be a biggie for creatives, and especially hard if you’re just starting out and unsure what kind of working environment suits you.
• Self-employment can offer greater flexibility in hours and more choice in what jobs to take on, the amount of work available is often dependent on the state of the industry, and offers little stability, which is where full-time work can offer more consistency.
• Where you might like to be based? Imagine finding your perfect job, only to find out it’s on the other side of the planet – how would you feel about relocating?
• Think about the kind of setting you thrive in and then consider the location of the jobs you’re looking at. Would you rather work in a city where there tends to be more work available, often with better wages, but living costs more expensive and the competition is higher?
• More jobs offer remote working, and this is particularly the case if you decide to freelance. If that suits you, working from home may be a more viable option.

CV's and Cover Letters

• While it’s common practice to tailor your portfolio to different employers, it’s a good idea to go through the same process with your CV. 
• Cover-letter writing, which truly relies on the art of persuasion. The one resounding piece of advice that employers offer time and again is to make it specific.
• Think of writing cover letters and CVs as a design project – there’s a target audience that you’re communicating to, and the purpose is to sell yourself without sounding like everyone else, so tailor your words to that effect.

Job Interviews 

• First off, you should know that job interviews can really vary; some will feel like informal chats, others will feel like presenting to a judging panel.
• When it comes to questions, while employers will create and personalise questions depending on the values and expectations they have of you and the role, there are a handful of questions that you really need to be prepared for. 
• What attracted you to the role?
• Can you tell us a bit about yourself?
• What was the last thing you saw that really inspired you?
• Where do you see yourself in three years’ time?
• Can you tell us about a time you overcame a challenge in your work?
• Oh, and Inevitably, you’ll also be asked questions you might not be prepared for. 
• And last but not least, they’ll almost definitely ask you if you have any questions for them. Trust us when we say that you don’t want to pass that opportunity up.

A few things to consider 

A word of warning! 

• It’s now become common practice for job interviews to require you to complete a pre-interview task in order to demonstrate your creative skill, in addition to showcasing a portfolio. 
• Watch out for companies that seem like they’re out to exploit you.
• f the work is going to take you much more than a day, or requires a suspiciously large amount of labour that could become free work for them to use, question the motives behind the company’s actions.

A note on rejection 

• The interview process can be nerve-wracking, and getting a ‘No’ can be disheartening and frustrating – we’ve all been there. But know that it’s somewhat inevitable, and the more resilient you become, the more you’ll shine to potential employers. 
• Often, a job rejection just comes down to the fact that you weren’t quite the right fit for the position, which means that you probably wouldn’t have been happy there anyway. 
• Dust yourself off, get back on your feet and put yourself back on the market.

Money isn't everything 

• If you are offered the job, congrats! Now you’ve got to decide whether you’ll take it. Try to think of your first job as the first step in a journey that houses your career. 
• When you’re looking for employment, rather than just focusing on salary, consider what that workplace can offer you.

Money, Money, Money

• While it certainly isn’t everything, we can’t emphasise just how important it is to know your worth and have a handle on your finances.
• While it can be a difficult topic to discuss, the more transparency there is around the subject, the better the chance of earning what you deserve.
• Your job is not a hobby and you need to be paid for your work. If you’re self-employed, it means that you are effectively running a business.
• Making decisions about copyright, licensing, accounting, pensions and more will mean you’re prepared for whatever might come up.
• It’s useful to know the industry rate of pay when determining salary expectations or putting together an estimate for a client.

Contracts and Invoices 

• A contract will protect you when the going gets tough – and believe us, it can. 
• The beauty of a contract is that it’s meant to work on your behalf, outlining the exact duration of the project as well as the expected outcomes from both sides.
• This provides a concrete set of guidelines which can be referred to in times of crisis.
• It’s important that you get your invoice right to make it as easy as possible for people to pay you. 

Make sure you increase the chances of getting paid on time by always including the following information:

• Your name
• The client and project name
• Your address, email and phone number
• Invoice number (you create this)
• The dates and hours you worked
• Your bank details (including IBAN Number)
• Your National Insurance number

Taxes 

• Taxes can be scary, but the best way to avoid tax doom is to be informed. When you have a full-time job, your company will automatically deduct tax from your paycheque.
• This is called PAYE. But if you’re freelance or self-employed in any capacity (even if you do freelance work on the side), you need to register as self-employed  so that you can pay tax on your earnings.
• When it comes to the end of the tax year you’ll need to fill in your tax return, which will determine how much you have to pay. 
• This may also be in addition to any other contributions, such as student loan repayments or pension contributions, dependent on your country.
• Often, freelancers will hire an accountant to help them with their tax return or managing money in general.

Connections: Building a network

Prepping your online presence

Even if you meet someone IRL, you will likely always end up connecting online later.

This is why it can be so important to start by prepping your socials so that they reflect you in your best light to a potential employer or collaborator.

Here are some key steps to keep in mind:

• Refine and update your bio
Make sure your bio on any platform where you might meet professional contacts is appropriate and clearly sets out who you are and what you do or make.

• Post the work you love
Get into the habit of sharing your work, especially the kind that you’d love to do more of. This will help you attract more dream commissions.

• Express your interests
Whether it’s French cinema or intersectional feminism, post about the things you care about. This can help attract people and work that align with your interests, as well as showing potential employers that there’s more to you than just your craft.

• Engage with other people’s work
When you find other people’s work on social media that you admire, shout about it! Share it, like it or leave comments about why you find it inspiring. This a great way to start chatting to the creatives behind it, and helps others discover your great taste and opinions.

Reaching out

• You need to put yourself out there and reach out to new people. 
• The trick is to think carefully beforehand about who you are contacting, how you should do it and what your message should say.
•  You’ve got a network already. Your schoolmates, colleagues from your side job or uni alumni are all part of your professional sphere.
• People know people, so start asking around for recommendations of who you should reach out to.
•  When you see something you like, take note.
•  Email is probably the most professional way of communicating.
• It’s essential to email people rather than places. If you don’t have someone’s personal email address, try asking them for it on social media via LinkedIn, Twitter or Instagram.
•  The average office worker receives 121 emails per day! So if you want your message to get noticed, it has to get to the point quickly. Having a clear, punchy subject line will also help.
• Be specific about what you’re asking for, as this makes it easier for the person to reply. 
• ·Let the person know why you have chosen to contact them specifically. If you’ve enjoyed something they made, tell them. 

Networking in real life

While creative people are increasingly connecting online, to make a lasting impression on someone, nothing beats meeting face-to-face.

One study found that in-person requests were 34 times more likely to get positive responses than those made by email.

Practice summarising who you are, what you’re interested in and what you’re looking for. People can’t help you if they don’t know what you need.

Be ready to talk about your work and interests too. 

Make an effort to remember what someone is called. It might sound obvious, but especially when you’re nervous, it can go in one ear and out the other when people introduce themselves. 

You’re better off trying to get other people’s details than giving out your own, as this way you’re more in control and can start a follow up conversation yourself.

Sometimes you won’t get the chance to ask for someone’s email at an event. If you remember their name, you can find them on social media and give them a follow or Like. You could add a short message to say how nice it was to meet them.

Portfolio Website Guide

• In terms of showcasing your work to the world, not having a website is a bit like being lost at sea without a life jacket and whistle. How is anyone supposed to find you? 
• As well as the flexibility and freedom to curate your online persona, a portfolio website is one of the most practical and memorable ways to share your work with press, potential collaborators or employers. 

Representing Yourself online

• Deciding to create your own website is pretty exciting. It means you’ve already done the hard bit: You have a handful of work you’re proud of, and that you’re ready to share. 
• Consider all the platforms you’re already using online. You might have an Instagram account, or several. You might also have a LinkedIn profile.
• Collectively, all of these touch-points make up your ‘online presence’, and individually, they represent different sides of your practice and personality.
• This means that when people are searching for you online, they could find themselves landing on any one of those touch-points.
• Being searchable is a good thing, but you want to make sure it’s for the right reasons.
• Your portfolio website is a chance to control and curate the way you want to be seen and perceived. 
• It means that an employer’s first impression of you is the one you want them to have, rather than the one Facebook decides to show them.
• A portfolio site is a chance to put your best foot forward, and give recruiters, employers or collaborators an understanding who you are as a creative, regardless of your discipline.

Michael Bierut is a partner at New York-based design consultancy Pentagram in New York. Like many other employers, when he’s looking at portfolio sites, he naturally likes to see great work that’s been “beautifully documented and carefully presented. But I also like to get a sense of the personality of the designer behind the work,” he adds. “Make your site distinctive, but also make sure it’s understandable (at minimum) and compelling (ideally) to someone who’s never met you. The visitor should want to meet you in person!”

Finding your purpose and making a plan

Think back to your online presence and all the different ways you’re currently representing yourself online. What role does your website play within that? For example:

• One clear destination for your work to live
• A playful demonstration of your skills
• A drive people to a shop, blog or social media profiles

What pages do I need to build?

These will make up the different layers of your site. These are some good starting points:

HomepageA landing page, the first thing your visitor sees.

‘About Me’ or ‘Biography’ pageThis can include a short statement about your practice, where you studied or worked, or what you’re interested in.

Contact pageThis should contain essential info, such as your email address (with a working link!) and social media links. As web designer Craig Jackson puts it, “Don’t take people on a treasure hunt to find your contact details!”

Project pagesThese tend to consist of images, GIFs or videos alongside a caption describing the project and listing fellow contributors or credits. How might you tell the story of your project?

• It sounds obvious, but when it comes to curation, choose your very best work. Don’t be tempted to include dozens of projects and remember that you’re only as good as your worst project.
• Michael also advises prioritising finished work on your website: “I find that preliminary sketches and other process documentation works best in a live conversation."
• The less-is-more mentality also applies to the images you choose to upload and the words you write to accompany them. Massive images can be a nightmare to load, so Rifke Sadleir advises you to save non-transparent images as jpegs and reduce the quality rather than the resolution.
• Communicate what the work is and your role in it clearly, in small, bitesize chunks. Don’t have page after page of text – just enough to inform your visitor.

Design: What it's going to look like

• Thinking about the nature of your own work is a great starting point. What kind of style or design aesthetic might complement your projects?
• Do you want your work to take centre stage, or do you want the way your website behaves to do the talking? 
• There is nothing wrong with showing breadth, you just need to consider categorising your projects “so they don’t all appear on the same page at once” and cause confusion.
•  You can try drawing wireframes to plan the layout of your pages, and what links you might need and where. This will help put you in the mind of your visitor, and their journey as they go through your website.

The Technical bit: Getting your site online

• Build your site from scratch, or even team up with a friend who can code or collaborate with a developer. 
• There’s a misconception that using a template means you risk your website looking like everyone else’s. But you can change everything from the typeface, layout, image size to background, colours, menus and more.

How to maximise the sites potential

• One way to do this is of course sharing it on social media.
• Having good SEO helps search engines like Google find your site and make it appear higher on the results when someone searches you online. 

Updating your site

• It might seem premature to start thinking about reworking your website but knowing when to update it is an important consideration. 
• A lot of designers get lazy and never update their projects, so things can get stale quite fast.
• You want to make sure that your site continues to represent your practice as your career progresses, so keep it up-to-date where you can.
• A website...is inherently unfinished. It’s imperfect...but that’s the beauty of it. Websites are living, temporal spaces.

Creative Identity: Personal Branding and Self-Promotion

Who Are You?

• Some people find it really easy to sell who they are, what they do and what they’re looking to get into next. 
• You might already be able to say you’re a portrait photographer, collage illustrator, or an editorial graphic designer.
• “everyone on this planet is gifted, sometimes it takes some trial and error to figure out what your gifts are.”
•  Truly interested in and excited by.
• That could be a sector or industry, and it doesn’t have to be what you’ve studied. 
• Graduating in graphic design doesn’t mean your only choice is to be a graphic designer. 
• You might decide you want to do something else entirely, or that you’re more multidisciplinary and want to work across a few different areas.
• When you can understand many mediums and have a variety of skills, it helps with collaborating and directing other creatives.
•  knowledge and strengths are totally transferable. A skill learned in one discipline can be really useful in another. 
• Graduates should not focus on what you think a job wants from you, but what you can bring to a job. 
• It’s hard to come up with a simple description or title for what I do. I believe that over time the work I make will define who I am, not the title I use.
• Just choose a title that matches the work you want to be doing. Focus on making good work that you love, and opportunities will come to you.
• Remember that passion is magnetic, and people hire people – it’s not based solely on your skill set and experience. 

Personal Branding

• Personal branding is a curation that forms an impression of who you are, as well as what you want to be.
• How you come across as a creative is similarly down to a combination of elements that create an overall impression. This can be made up of: Your work, personality, experience, interests, network and collectively, the way you express these differ
• Being cohesive and consistent will help you unify your brand, as it’s made up of so much more than just your work – it’s an overall sense of who you are.
• To start with, you can think about how you want to be seen, what kinds of people or clients you want to attract and what you want to be known for.
• Being decisive about the answers to these questions will allow you to have control over your public image, which is something you can then apply to your entire online presence.

Social Media

• It’s important to remember that personal branding is a spectrum and can be as involved or as subtle as you’d like. 
• Try not to worry too much about coming off as overly ‘professional’ or gaining loads of followers
• The whole point is to communicate your tastes and personality in whatever way you’d like.
• Some creatives put their day-to-day experiences front and centre on Instagram Stories for example, and others prefer to take a backseat and let their work do the talking
• While some creatives combine the personal and professional into one account, others like to have a separation between the two, or install privacy settings on their personal page. 
• Social media platforms like Instagram can also be a great tool for promoting your work and finding work that inspires you.
• As well as being a great way to get on peoples’ radars, social media can help you connect with creatives you admire.

Writing About Yourself

• Getting comfortable with writing about yourself and your work is an incredibly useful skill as a creative, and one that will serve you well across many different formats and platforms.
• Depending on where it’s seen, these kinds of texts are usually made up of: Information about you and your work, your achievements, recent clients, employers or experience, your interests and (if relevant) your availability. 
• You might also want to consider including contact information, as well as links to a website, social media or blogs, and in some cases, a headshot.
• People are far more likely to engage with a casual tone brimming with your personality. 
• You’re trying to stand out, so talk about what you do and why you love it. 
• Putting what you did into a concise paragraph was powerful. It helps clarify and consolidate your ideas.
• Writing becomes more specific to interests and inspirations; these elements were the driving factors behind desire to create. 
• What makes what I do different from others? What would someone who doesn’t know anything about me, and only has my work for reference, want to know?

Get Sharing

• how you promote yourself. There are tonnes of different ways to do this – from posting on social media platforms to going to industry events and chatting to people. 
• Self-promotion is equally as important as shaping your online presence – if you don’t tell anyone about your work, no one will be able to appreciate it!