A General Update

Returning back to work after my holiday break and then on top of this…a very crazy week. This explains my lack of blogging, but it is all positive news.
On Monday evening, I had a meeting with the owner of Publicate, who I will be working for as a freelance web designer. He had got in touch with me after Alex had kindly recommended me when working on the branding for his business, Albatross Clothing. I am quite looking forward to be taking on some extra projects from this job.

I have again been approached by the owner of Kitbag; which is a counselling family support service for the military, after previously designing the branding for them. I will be collaborating with a web developer on this project in order to get the website up and running. Although I do not show any agency work, I do showcase my personal freelance work, therefore I will definitely blog about this website once it is complete. My current portfolio of work lacks in showcasing website design. Hopefully this will then lead to more website design work for me. 

On Wednesday I and a few other designers met up for lunch with the Creative Managing Director from Cat Amongst the Pigeons Saul Peake, after he had seen our work on show at the Riverside Innovation Centre. It was great to talk with Saul and hearing his kind words of advice. Saul is currently a creative collector, and hires freelance designers and designers to collaborate with for specific projects. We also got a sneaky little feature on his blog. Check it out here.

This week I have also been finalising the work for ‘The Rio Challenge’ where here I designed all of the advertising material which I blogged about previously. I was up against another designer on this and after the time and effort I had put into this design, I am very pleased to say my design won the pitch and it will be seen across schools, colleges and universities. I have been sent over the final details this morning, so I can now add these and get this project finally signed off.

Finally, two weeks on Wednesday I begin studying part-time for my Masters Degree in Design, I am slightly nervous, but I am definitely looking forward to it. I spoke to my lecturer not long ago, who advised me to keep reading about social trends, and look at what other designers are doing in comparison to what I wish to be doing. I have been reading the social trends section in The Guardian, and reading as many design blogs and magazines as I can, which has been quite interesting, because throughout university, I did not really give myself the freedom and time to sit down and do this as much as I would have liked to. Once I start my studies for the Masters, I will have to balance my work a little more professionally, or possibly give something up. Attempting to even consider doing Masters work on top of this now would be merely impossible. I want to get most jobs finished within the next two weeks leading up towards it, and slowly finish bits of work off in preparation for my commitment to this.  

The beautiful card I have included within this post was an extra little note to say thank you to me, and it was signed from everyone in the business. It definitely makes the job much easier working with amazing people. 

On top of my two jobs, I am being hopeful and would love all of this hard work to pay off one day. Only now do I truly believe how hard it is being a graduate and that getting your name out there is really tough, but I definitely want to keep going, and after reading the article in Creative Review, giving recent graduates advice, I am trying to go the right way about it and starting off by not turning down any opportunity to work.