Many would agree that a lot more is demanded from University graduates – a decent degree and A levels is not quite enough to make you stand out from the rest of the crowd. Particularly in the design and art field, initiating freelance work or applying for work experience is the first step to getting your foot in the door.
I had finished my Art Foundation at Kingston University and returned to Guernsey for the summer break – three months of blissfully doing nothing!
But I didn’t want that, I wanted to find out what it would be like to work as apart of a professional design team so I created a CV/letter with a link to my portfolio.
Two weeks of nail biting went by until I started to hear back from some of the companies. Crowd Media who work online promoting businesses through digital & social platforms made a quick reply appropriately through Facebook saying that they were interested in meeting up.
Jo Porritt, Crowd’s founder outlined the kind of work I would undertake; writing blogs, designing logos, print ideas and trying online marketing through Twitter and Facebook.
This was all very exciting to hear but I knew I was going to take on a risk considering this type of work was a slight tangent from my previous concept based graphic design experience.
I wasn’t entirely thrown in at the deep end, I was introduced to Twitter and to friends and followers too. It is important to develop an online presence using social media tools as well as through blogging, but being quite a shy person, Twitter is a place where users seem to be shouting all at once. James, the Community Manager explained to me the basics and I have to say I haven’t looked back since.
I’ve found out how brands and businesses can use applications and social networks to directly communicate with their audience.
This seems like it’s the future, graphic design and communication is evolving. It sparked up the question of what would happen to print? Are we to read the newspapers anymore if we can now see the latest headlines on news feeds and TV online? Advertising also needs to be more attention grabbing without shouting at consumers. The digital age has got us all moving faster getting anything we want in an instant, so we either are to be left behind or we jump on board.
Crowd have their finger on the pulse, noticing such a change in communications has made Guernsey’s businesses and students like me react to it.
So I have taken back a lot of what I have learnt to my first year of Graphic Design & Photography at Kingston, considering the possibility of using the likes of guerilla marketing, viral campaigns, QR codes, and online social groups in all my university projects.