Creative Spark: Day 01

Today was the first day of my placement at Creative Spark in Manchester. Setting off at 7:30 I arrived at 9:30 for the day to begin. I was given a small tour again with Andy and to meet the rest of the team and had a quick brew to start some work. Today I was given a small live competition brief for an event happening in Manchester, the 'Northern Quarter Street Party'. I was to come up with a poster design that would be used to market the event. The event is for a 1940's style event which includes various small events including DJs, live music, swing dance lessons, a fashion show and event a barbershop quartet sing-off.

Sounds good. I found it particularly difficult for some reason to get started with the design. I have never attempted to do something for a nostalgic quality event before so it came quite difficult to create some experimental typography and even illustration for an event like this. I ended up creating a series of posters that reflected my particular style of work which could go into my portfolio with ease. I also created a design that had a much more 1940's feel to the design.

Today I spent the best half of today trying to finalise these and climatise to working in their studio. Things I need to take on board are just being a bit more open and making sure I properly engage with what's going on around me. Andy has hopefully some live work lined up for me tomorrow and later in the week. Oh and I also need to remember to get on the train as fast as I can because train-travelers are the least courteous people.

Interview and Results: Creative Spark

After the immense excitement of getting an interview with Creative Spark so soon, I had an interview on tuesday at 11:00. I arrived promptly, smartly dressed armed with a digital portfolio and some physical samples of my work in hand.

I met with Andy and Gemma and we immedietly got down to looking at my portfolio. They really seemed to like the work that I was producing and after showing some of the samples in particular the All Aboard Records posters they actually showed one to the Creative Director Neil. They loved it so much they kept it and I recieved a piece of printed work from them, one of Andy's risograph printed posters of a robot illustration series. I'll gladly put that on my wall.

In terms of placement they want me in next week for two weeks and back again in the summer. They also have offices in Leeds and London so I may be heading to london later on as well. They have a vacancy for a senior designer and to be honest I'll definitely be asking for more information next week.

Design Awards

Awards to look out for:

http://www.annualdesignawards.com/

http://awards.designweek.co.uk/

http://www.chipshopawards.com/

http://www.freshdigitalawards.co.uk/

http://www.dadiawards.com/

Creative Spark: Result

I received contact from my first choice which was Creative Spark, Andy Mallilieu. Although he said that there had been a lot of interest in placement opportunities it seemed after seeing a few samples of my work he gladly offered me and interview and sorting out a placement already. Haha!

Placement Applications in Manchester

I've booked some time from work so I can concentrate on obtaining a placement and making the most of it. Due to changes in circumstances I have been looking more and more at working furthers away than Leeds and branching out my connections within the north in general.

Manchester is ideally located just a 30min train ride away from Dewsbury and alongside the likes of Leeds is it one of the biggest cities of design in the UK. I have found simply by searching online a vast number of design studios within Manchester. After searching through several I found a number of agencies I was interested in working for.

+ Creative Spark

+ Reform

+ True North

I've also set to email Dan at Brass to see about a placement there after my visit in January.

GFSmith Visit at Hull

Team Impression Visit & Application

I made a visit to team impression to have a look round their facilities, ask some questions about the printing processes and what kind of clients they work etc. I met with Ian who gave me a good show round the facilities. They're massive to say the least.

I was really intrigued in getting to know how Ian got into the printing business and it was that he worked his way up from doing typesetting back in the day to now conversing with clients. He showed me where bespoke finishings are handled by hand and after speaking to the receptionist I found that they could be an opening in one of the departments in foil-finishing as a helping hand. I responded by sending him an email, I am still in waiting of his reply. i may have to give him a ring.