When I emailed Helen at Together Trust I was a little apprehensive as I had not met her before when she came in to our college to work with some of the students in our class, so as we had to do a live brief which involved working on a campaign to encourage adults to foster children most people in my class had to work together as a pair. As I have said before I had to work on this project on my own, so I was very nervous when I actually got a portfolio visit with Helen as I didn't really know what she expected from my work.
Here is how I managed to get the interview by email below:
After I had arranged this I set off on the 28/07/2010 to find Together Trust for my visit. I set off in my car an hour early to make sure that I got there on time. However, disaster struck and I got majorly lost. I rang Helen and she had a few people in the office trying to give me directions, 20 minutes later I got there and was so apologetic and embarrassed. She could not see me that day because she had a meeting so we rescheduled for the same time the following Wednesday. This gave me a huge wake up call and I have now learned that in future I will drive up to the place I am supposed to be visiting so I am not panicking the next day.
As I went through my portfolio she commented on everything that I had done and wanted to know what I thought about the project and how it worked well for me as a person. I really liked this as it showed that she was really taking an interest to what I had done over the past two years. When I finally came to the most recent project for her company of Together Trust she said that my work is something that they would definitely use for their campaigns as it was quite similar to theirs. Helen also said that she liked the fact that I had used my own photography and it did not look like it was posed in anyway it looked very natural which was very nice to hear!
The image below is the one that Helen liked the best:
I became very comfortable in speaking to Helen as she was such a lovely person, she gave me lots of great advice and she gave me a sheet to look at to improve interview skills, the best graphics online e.g the D&AD awards, tutorials for programs and general sites worth checking out.
I again asked her the same questions that I had asked the previous two people at my other portfolio visits again to see if any of the answers had changed. Here are the questions and answers below:
1. Where do you find your inspiration/ influences?
I don't find my inspiration/ influences by a specific designer or companies. But I do like advertisement such as the Innocent smoothies and the Honda advert. I admire Innocent because it is ethical and good for you. I like looking through Youtube too at quirky bits and pieces. It can come from anything. I think that if you have a natural interest in something then you are going to do broader research on it and perhaps go off and create something that's not what you started thinking of in the first place. Brainstorming is always good.
2. What do you enjoy most about your job?
I enjoy it the most because like I said before I like ethical things in life, so because it's a charity I know I can go home and feel good about myself and hope that I am making a difference with what I do and what we all do as a team. I used to advertise for debt companies but had to get out of it as I just didn't feel right. Don't force yourself in to a job that doesn't suit you.
3. Is there any advice you would give to graduates just leaving University?
Do alot of research about the company you are going to visit, research well where you are going. You have every right to ask the person who will be interviewing you if there is something specific they will want to see in your portfolio, just ask.. there's no harm in it. I would really make sure that you at least have one thing in your portfolio that is relevent to that company as you really do have to be enthusiastic and sell yourself. Tell the employer what you like about their company or if you have created something similar. You also have to make sure that you are ready to mix in and going to work well with an already existing team. You need to be confident and try and get work experience whenever possible to get a good job, look at bigger agencies between the times of, March, April and May time. This is vital because this is the best time that they might be taking people on for the summer. Even if it's just for a week it is still experience and you are still gaining knowledge all the time. Also keep practicing your skills and do live briefs. Here is a link you can go on where you can involve yourself in voluntry live brief jobs.
www.frogspawn.com
Overall, I think that this has been my best visit so far I feel as thought I have had a big boost of cinfidence and I am not scared to put myself out there anymore and go and show companies my work and show them what I can do. All contacts count.
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