I felt it very important to gain creative work experience as I originally started University pursuing an academic subject as opposed to illustration and therefore had no work experience in anything creative. Once I started my degree in illustration I was proactive in seeking out roles and taking opportunities. I thought I would write a post about how I gained this experience!
I am currently searching for a creative internship. Therefore, I will take this opportunity to research these internships in more depth before applying so I have a better idea of the role and make a much better impression on the employer. This will also enable me to tailor both my CV and personal statement to fit the role advertised.
I previously applied to graphic design internships last summer and was unfortunately unsuccessful. However, I feel since then I have gained a lot more skills and experience and therefore, I am a stronger applicant. Since then I have pursued many other opportunities such as branching into rapportage illustration for conferences. This opportunity first came about from the Student Employment Agency. They advertised for 5 “Graphic Illustrators” to work the Buxton 2018 Teaching and Learning Conference. I was successful within my application and secured work illustrating visuals for the ideas and concepts discussed at the event. My fellow selected “Graphic Illustrators and I spent the day observing the various workshops and making notes on key phrases and facts we heard. Then, as the workshops ended and all the attendees gather in the main hall, we illustrated the events along the walls of massive sheets of paper. This made the event more interactive and successfully opened a dialogue between staff and students. Alongside this, we creative interactive visuals giving us some experience in infographics. Here are some photos of my working from the 2018 University of Derby Teaching and Learning Conference.
University of Derby 2018 Teaching and Learning Conference with me live drawing at back
½ some of my work I drew live along the walls while the conference was in progress
2/2 Visual metaphors and representations of various ideas discussed
Following the success of this, the Universities marketing team contacted me personal asking if I would like to do some live illustration at an open day to which I agreed. I thought this would be a great opportunity to get some more experience in a hands-on creative role. This would both enhance my CV and allow me to explore variations of jobs available in the creative industry. It also allowed me to get my name out there! The purpose of my illustrating was to be used as a marketing tool as well as encouraging people to get involved and speak to me as a current illustration student. I was drawing on massive sheets of paper along the wall and the marketing team suggested I draw whatever I like. I decided it would be nice if, to engage more people and male it something everyone feels they could participate in, I got people to draw something from their home town and write where they’re from. This both encouraged people to come and draw naturally lead into conversation about my experience as a student at Derby. Of course this also attracted prospective illustration students and I spoke to lots of them about the course itself, which I felt I could talk about confidently as I also work as a student ambassador at open days and student rep for my course. I don’t have any photos of the finished wall unfortunately. However, the wall took the interest of the people running the Universities social media accounts and they shared a boomerang of me working on my piece for the wall. Here it is below, I’m drawing a ram as I’m from Derby!
Things like this help me gain experience but also grow as an illustrator, the marketing team encouraged me to share my instagram handle on my work and the university also shared this on their story. Following the event, I gained about 10 follows from it, I think its all great exposure!
Recently, I worked another conference doing rapportage illustration. This opportunity came about from an email sent out by our program leader simply asking if anyone would be interested and of course I sprung up to the opportunity replying almost straighter away saying I would be very happy to help and sharing my previous experience. I then got this role, it was a much bigger one than I’d previously work and I was the only rapportage illustrator their unlike my previous experience of their being 5 of us at the Buxton Teaching and Learning Conference. This time it was the University of Derby’s Online Learning Summit, the first one the University had ever had. It was a massive event with people who had travelled from all over the global to attend. The summit organiser had placed me on a high table in the room and I took on the same role at previously did at a conference, only I had to produced a lot more work at a faster pace. I created my work on the table and then I displayed all my illustrations in the stage areas as they were somewhat incorporated into an activity they were doing.
This was the first Online Learning Summit the University had hosted and therefore they had camera and film crews in to also capture the events of the day. This is to be used as marketing materials for next years. I was asked if they could do a time-lapse of me working as a marketing material so of course I agreed. They had a go pro attached to the wall over my shoulder for the whole day. They also took photos of me doing my work and clips. Towards the end of the day the filming crew were doing video interviews of attendees of the conference and I was asked if they could do one with me. I agreed because I thought it would be a fun experience plus its all good publication! They thought it would be a good idea because if they didn’t use the video footage the could use my audio interview over my drawing time-lapse. They interviewed me asking me questions about what work I was doing, how I found the event and let me shout out my website and Instagram handles. They she they would send me all the photos/ videos/ time lapses and interviews and gave me permission to use them on my website, blog and social medias. I should be receiving these soon, but I know they’re not publishing them for about another 6-9 months as it’s for advertisement for the next summit.
The role allowed to talk to the attendees and opened up a dialogue. One man was particularly fond of my work and said he thinks work like this, the visual metaphors and the very visual form of note taking was immensely useful. I was able to agree to this as I too learn visually through images and we discussed how we both used to cover our walls in drawings and note in order to make everything more visual to enable us to make more sense of it. He, alongside other guests asked to take pictures of my work to they could used it as note, to which I agreed of course! He also encouraged me to get my work up on the walls so everyone else could see and take pictures. Another person came asked if I’d ever considered working in infographics. I really enjoyed being about the talk to the attendees, I had lots of interesting conversations with them about visual learning and rapportage illustration. Apparently, it’s becoming quite common at conferences! Maybe an employment avenue I can explore!
Again, the event organiser encouraged me to write my Instagram handle under my work when it was displayed before people took photos of them, therefore giving me more exposure! The lady who organised the event even asked to take a boomerang for her Instagram of me signing my work which was a massive compliment to me! The event itself was also really interesting as in the future, I think I would like to lecture in Illustration. Therefore, I’m very interested in education and learning, my work as a program rep and attending the committee meetings make me curious about the inner workings of education.
Here is some examples of the work from the Summit, there are only my photos, better ones to come!
Once I had more experience in the creative industry I then started look at internships. I did this through various websites, primarily indeed searching all the buzz words such as creative, art, design extra to make sure I saw a wide variety of opportunities. Then the University launched it’s “Driven” internships program to which I signed up for. Therefore, I have decided to discuss job applications for various internships I applied for as my discussed job advertisement. I applied to about 5 graphic design internships through this platform and have secured at least 3 interviews so far. I have already had 2 interviews for a graphic design role for “Akoma” a Derby based Fairtrade skincare brand and another product design role for an artesian café in Derby. When applying to these, I looked very closely as the job description, job essentials and desirables. I split my laptop screen to show half the job advert and half a word document so I could properly draft out my cover letter and answers to the role specific questions. I knew I wanted to apply to several of these so by working on a word document and saving previous answers I could use the word document for the previous application as a skeleton for the next ones editing and them making them relevant to each opportunity.
Here is an example of my word document.
I have had many jobs and an internship in the past so I feel I am fairly comfortable with the application and interview process having done many. Therefore, I always like to thoroughly research the company first and see whether theirs anything in particular I’m fond of, any particular values I share which the company or any working practices they use that I have a a lot of experience in. When answering the questions, as they were mainly graphic design roles and I am an illustrator, I tried to make it clear I have a diverse skillset.