What is Industrial Experience?
1. Working in a studio and creative live environment.
Studio Visits, Internships, Printer Visits
2. Professionally Networking in person as well as building up an online presence.
Behance, Pinterest, Tumblr, Cargo, Issuu, Twitter, Emails, Visiting Professionals.
3. Freelancing outside of the course and working on live and competition briefs.
D&AD, New Blood, Talent house, Local Competition Briefs, Freelance Work, Collaboration Briefs, Cross-Course, Inside and Outside of the course.
4. Visiting Lectures, Trade Events and Festivals as well as relevant Exhibitions.
Leeds Print Festival, D&AD Lectures, Visiting Professionals, YCN. Design Related Exhibitions, No brow, Design Conventions.
5. Business Support and a Professional Presence.
Business Cards, CV, Portfolio/Sample of work, Physical work to take as well as an online portfolio, Financial Help, Confidence and Professionalism.
What can I learn from Industrial Experience?
1. A new Set of Skills and a sense of how designers work and function in a studio environment. The Pace and Quality of work produced.
2. Confidence in my professional self and professional feedback on my work.
3. Contacts and getting my name out into the Industry.
4. A clearer sense of my design practice, which direction I might want to go in, Whether I would prefer to work in a smaller studio or larger acency. A different perspective on my ambitions and opportunities. A sense of my working Ethos, who I would like to work with and why.
5. How to handle my professional self. Help build confidence. Learn how to work with clients on different scales. Learning from mistakes.
What form/format could industrial experience take?
Bezier is a design and print agency which I will be interning and working with over the next coming months.
2. Live Briefs and Competition Briefs
Talenthouse Secret 7" Vinyl Competition - Winning Entry
Hyde Park Picture House - Competition Submission
T-Shirt Design for Leading Fashion Retailers, Republic
3. Visiting Professionals
Tom an Olly, Previous LCA BAGD Students and founders of Catalogue.
4. Freelance Work
Grimshaws The Movers - Branding 2012
Arkham Karvers - CD Design 2012
5. Online Networking
Behance, Twitter, Cargo, Tumblr.
6. Trade Events/Lectures
D&AD New Blood
7. Festivals
Leeds Print Festival
8. Exhibitions
9. Studio Visits
10. Business Support
What areas of industry are you interested in?
1. Design For Print and Packaging
2. Branding and Identity
3. Editorial and Publishing
4. Printing Techniques / Processes
5. Contemporary/Forward Thinking Design
What are your concerns about Industrial Experience?
1. Keeping Professional and Confident when visiting studios or undertaking internships as well as when networking with professionals whether that be online or in person.
2. Being in the right environment for me. Getting an adequate placement that will be useful for me to learn from and gain valuable experience.
3. Making mistakes on big projects that could possibly jeopardise the business or a client and eventually your reputation. It is important to learn from mistakes but it is also important to avoid them at all costs.
4. Not having the sufficient skills for pieces of software and having to turn down certain jobs due to this, or ask for help if working in a studio. It's ok to ask for help, but I want to have sufficient skills enough to be able to work comfortably in their environment and also comfortable enough to take on more freelance jobs.
5. Not being able to be pro-active enough. I want to be able to be doing work all the time and not sitting back watching. I want to make the mot out of everything and do whatever I can to help me learn and gain valuable experience.
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Task
Use your findings to develop initial ideas about your own views, opinions, aims and ambitions in relation to industrial experience, internships and/or work placement opportunities.
Summarise your research in a set of 10 short but qualified statements that communicate your understanding, aims and ambitions relating to Industrial experience...
10 Statements regarding my aims in Industrial Experience
1. I need to build my online presence even further and keep a consistent personal branding across all platforms in order for me to stand out and be recognised but also remain professional.
2. I need to create a personal branding for myself which helps get the message across of who I am. This will be in the form of business cards and printable CV's as well as a CV that be accessed online. It's important to have these things when visiting studios as it can be useful to hand out to certain people for them to remember me and also keep my professional presence up.
3. I need to help build my presentation skills further in order for me to remain professional and confident when visiting studios without coming across as arrogant. Naturally, my presentation skills have already improved a lot on this course, but I need to get stronger at this when things start to get more serious.
4. I wish to get as much experience as possible and the only way I can do this is by speaking to studios and networking. I wish to intern in a variety of different studios and agencies which will give me a stronger sense of which direction i want to go in as a designer.
5. I want to carry on getting as much freelance work on the side of the course as possible as this is one of the best ways to gain experience in my opinion. Working with clients is something that I need vital experience in to gain the knowledge on how to act professional and treat them. Similarly, more live briefs and competition briefs in general will help my design practice as well as experience and also get my name out there.
6. I would also like to visit more festivals, exhibitions and events this year as this is another great way to network. I didn't actually visit too many last year but the ones I did, such as Leeds Print Festival, gave me opportunities to network with professionals as well as pick up some knowledge and tecniques. The professional talks was particularly useful too.
7. I think that constant internships will open my eyes more to the possibilities and opportunities within design. There are so many areas within design to go in and I think that by working in these environments, It can help me find myself as a designer and give me more confidence to push in the direction that I want to go in.
8. After visiting smaller studios and design agencies, at the present moment, I can see myself working in an agency for a few years before gaining the experience to break off and set up my own studio with at least one more person, maybe two or three. I think the 'Life's a Pitch' brief will be good to give us experience in working in a live environment. I would love to set up maybe an exhibition or event which would be a massive step in the right direction.
9. In order to gain experience in different fields, I wish to collaborate more this year with students on my course, students on other courses in the university and also artists and designers from all around the world. I already have a small project starting with Israel based Photographer, Jennifer Abessira who is the founder of E L A S T I Q U E, which should be very useful for experience. I would also love to do a three way collaborative brief with a fashion student and photographer to create a lookbook this year as editorial work is one direction that I may want to pursue.
10. Industrial experience is the most important part of becoming a Graphic Designer. It is the most important elements that we need in order to get us on the right track of reaching our final goal of getting a job. Without it, it would be impossible for us to become successful in our chosen field.
