University of Leeds Graduate Jobs and Internships Fair

I went to the University of Leeds Graduate Jobs and Internships Fair earlier today to see if there was anything that could be useful for me post-graduation. Unfortunately it was mainly internships that were being advertised to second year students. I left details with Jet2 and a company that make climbing walls, both of whom were looking to employ graduates, but other than those two companies there wasn't much there for the creative industries.

Photographing My Work

Given the recent decisions I've made about my portfolio, I started photographing my work in a consistant manner. I decided to use a black background as the majority of my work is one white stock, so this allows my work to stand out more than it would do on a white background. On top of this, when printed on white stock, the photographs will have a mounted look to them which will make the presentation look smarter.

The photographs look like the examples below.

There are small imperfections that need fixing but this is something I'll do when I've selected which ones I'll be using.

Promotional Video Production Plans

After speaking to John about my strategy to find a job with a sports company (see this post) and talking about how sending them all an A3 printed portfolio wasn't cost-effective, John suggested creating some sort of promotional video to promote the key projects to encourage the reader to look at the portfolio and read the e-mail fully. He cited the showreel by Alphabet shown below.


Showreel – Alphabet from Alphabet on Vimeo.


The key projects for this use are the collaborative briefs Joe and I have been doing, so I spoke to him about it too before going ahead with it, and he agreed it would be very beneficial.

As neither of us are capable of making something like this we've asked Kit Cowey (3rd year Vis Com) to collaborate with us on this. After showing him the work we've been producing and talking him through our plans for the video he was keen to work with us. We asked Kit specifically after seeing some of his recent work on Facebook and knowing that he's interested in football as Joe and I met him through the uni football team.

We also think that having a video like this will help our chances of having our work published on a design blog, specifically The Modern Game.

Reflection On Collaborations With Joe Shiels

I've not reflected on the collaborative projects Joe and I have been doing because I haven't really felt the need too. The two briefs are more or less finished now and I've been fortunate enough to not have needed to write anything because of how smoothly things have run.

Ongoing Communication with Harri Larkin

The other day Harri Larkin sent me the below e-mail:

Since then they've started planning on printing all sorts of merchandise (as mentioned in the e-mail) but were unaware of what files they'd need for specific uses, resulting in me receiving inconvenient messages at inconvenient times asking for advice.

Due to being busy at the moment I sent them a large file that's sufficient quality for the majority of purposes and told them not to make it any bigger, and that in a few weeks time when I've finished all my uni work I'll be happy to help them out. Given their wording I can probably negotiate more payment as well.

Research/Thoughts on Portfolio Production

How To Create a Portfolio & Get Hired - Fig Taylor

What it said: Display the final product clearly, talk a little about the process but not much in terms of evaluation so as to show the client/employer you know what you're doing without talking about your mistakes.
How I'm acting on it: Cut down the amount I talk about the process and completely remove evaluative comments.

What it said: Balance commercial work with personal projects to show some personality and passion in your work.
How I'm acting on it: Making sure I only include projects that I'm keen to talk about and am particularly pleased with.

What is said: A3 and A4 are industry standard because they're cheap to post and don't take up too much space.
How I'm acting on it: Design for A3, allowing for bigger images and therefore work to be displayed more clearly.

Burn Your Portfolio: Stuff They Don't Teach You In Design School, But Should - Michael Janda

What it said: Clients and employers want to look for designers who they can build a relationship with or who have the personality to fit into their company.
How I'm acting on it: Make sure I use industry specific words in descriptions of my projects but not sound pretentious, write how I'd speak so as not to appear too formal.

What it said: Clients and employers want to see how design can save or make them or their company money.
How I'm acting on it: Talk about the commercial implications of the projects in my portfolio to show clients/employers I'm aware they have budget restrictions, which helps the understanding between myself and the client/employer.

What it said: The e-mail or cover letter is usually read first, then the CV, then the portfolio.
How I'm acting on it: Make sure the cover letter is custom written for every application using the advice above, pay as much attention to the layout and design of the cover letter as I do to the portfolio.

Stand Out - Denise Anderson

What it said: Make sure photographs of your work are consistant throughout to show attention to detail.
How Im acting on it: Re-take photographs of older work that I want to put in my portfolio so I can make sure they're photographed in the same way as the new work.

Patent Research

A few people had commented on the innovation of the fish transport packaging brief I've been doing for extended practice and suggested it was worth trying to patent, something I've been looking into.

I looked into the best most appropriate ways to protect my work, and it seemed like Design Rights automatically protect the main aspect of the project, but a Registered Design or Patent would do this further. 

A patent doesn't seem appropriate because of the cost and time involved in the process, so if I was to discuss my project with a company like Pets At Home I'd probably have to use a non-disclosure agreement.

A registered design seems much more appropriate for my work because it doesn't involve as much cost or time as a patent but still protects the shape and configuration of my work, which is the main unique aspect of my work. This is something I'll look into further.

Invoice and VAT Research

After the crit the other day I looked into what an invoice actually is, I thought the government's website was the best place to do this.

I then looked into VAT and if I needed to think about that at all. I'll be nowhere near the £83,000 threshold, so it seems as if it's something I don't need to worry about on the invoice apparently.

Organisations Targeted For Employment

Before creating a finalising my portfolio I started thinking about where I'd like to work and how that should influence the projects I include and what order I present them in.

Ideally I'd like to work for a sports organisation (particularly football) in Yorkshire, so people or organisations I should target for this would be:

Sheffield United, Sheffield Wednesdy, Doncaster Rovers, Barnsley, Chesterfield, Rotheram Uniterd, Huddersfield Town, York City, Bradford City, and Leeds United (Football Clubs).

Beyond this I should also target other football clubs in the north and the midlands, particularly around Manchester and Birmingham where there are lots of clubs. I'd also contact the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association (WPBSA) and Barry Hearn, a business man who was heavily involved in the commercialisation of snooker and the former chairman of Leyton Orient Football Club.

I'd also like to work for an organisation that deals with animal care in some respect, so Zoos, Safari Parks, Wildlife Reserves and Aquariums in the north of England are also on my list.

The full list is currently:

It's not financially viable for me to send full colour A3 portfolios to all of these organisations, so coming up with a cheap and compact way to present the projects of particular interest to these organisations is going to be key for me at the moment. 

Personal Branding Crit Feedback

The main feedback from my crit was that I was underprepared for the period of time between finishing uni and when I find a full time job where I plan to do part-time freelance work. The list of things I need to do to resolve this is:

• Create a holding page that links people to my blogger and Behance accounts.
• Update my Behance account.
• Create a new e-mail address for people to contact me on.
• Make invoice slips and time tracking, and expenses documents.

I plan to do this in a couple of weeks time after I've finished off all my extended practice work, as I need that finished and photographs so I can create a finished portfolio, which I see as a priority over preparing for going freelance as it's going to be what helps me in my long-term plans.

Harri Larkin - Logo Release

This evening Harri Larkin revealed the new logo I made them on their Facebook page, the initial reaction seems pretty positive which is good. I made sure they tagged me in the post as well which could lead to some freelance work in the future.