Today was my first day on placement. Due to the fact that I had completed some work for them before Christmas and knew what to expect, I was not nervous about going in this morning. However, as soon as I arrived the atmosphere felt different and it felt a lot more intense than before. I hadn't expected this as before Christmas Revolution Inc. paid me for the work I completed and seemed happy with the way I worked, so I assumed that they would make no changes for my placement.
On previous occasions I have arrived in work and been told what to work on and allowed to work on it until it was complete no matter how long it took. This morning, however, one of the directors, Julian, and the lead designer, Adam, sat down with me and immediately started talking to me about projects that I will be working on alone that I have to have completed by the end of the week. Initially this scares me a little and i suddenly felt very nervous and not up to the job. Despite this I got to work and soon felt like I had never left.
Although initially I felt overwhelmed, I do understand that I will be working full time during the placement and obviously will be asked to do more, but also the staff want me to feel like part of the company and are therefore giving me my own projects that I can have ownership of, which will in turn teach me vital skills such as time management, project management and multitasking, as well as to gain confidence as a designer.
The staff have provided me with a whiteboard in the office where I can write down my projects and deadlines, but to help me manage my own time I have decided to allocate more specific hours for each task in a calendar to form a timetable that I plan to stick to. This will help me determine how accurate my predictions are for working time. If I am slightly behind then I know I work at a slower pace and can adjust my time accordingly, if severely behind then I know I need to work more efficiently, and if I am on track then I know I can confidently estimate working time for future projects for both staff and clients.
I have been informed today, by Julian, that I will be running a meeting in the morning with a new client regarding branding his business. This made me feel even more nervous that I felt when I first walked in. I have never done anything like this before and felt very unprepared for the situation. Despite this, a part of me is excited for tomorrow.
I really appreciate that the staff here already have enough confidence in me to allow me take charge of a new project. Having the chance to run and manage this branding will provide me with an exciting project to incorporate into future portfolios, as well as prove to the company that I am capable of such tasks. Hopefully if this project goes ahead and is successful then Revolution Inc. will provide me similar opportunities throughout my placement.
I have never been involved with any kind of business before, but I love the idea of working for myself in the future and therefore am eager to learn the business side of the graphic design industry as well as the design side. Therefore I wanted to be prepared for tomorrow. I initially went online and came up with a compilation of questions from other websites that I could use. After this, I asked Adam if he would mind reading through them and add anything that I have missed that would be valuable to know.
Another project that I worked on today was an mail shot for Revolution Inc. themselves. The purpose of the mail shot is to engage the audience and inform them. There will be three stories, and I have been asked to design imagery for two of them. At first I felt uneasy, but I always feel like this at the beginning of a project when I have no ideas. Fortunately, Adam had already started to think about the imagery and had some potential concepts that he was able to pass on to me to give me a starting point. While I understand that idea generation is an important part of being a designer, I appreciated the prompts in this situation as it meant that I could get straight into designing.
As I mentioned I am aware that idea generation is essential in design and therefore will continue to work on this throughout all of my projects. In future I would like to come up with at least five different concepts for every piece of design I work on, even if they are quick sketches and some are unrealistic outcomes, just to try and enhance my creativeness as I am aware that this is an aspect of design that I currently lack in.
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