Looking for Graphic Design Work Experience has anyone any helpful advice?

hazelhoff

Hi,

I will be finished my Graphic Design DTP at the start of January 2011. I was wondering if anyone knew any studios or companys that take on people for work experience I currently have a full time job (which I dont want to just leave as I am lucky to have it) but I would willing to take time out on a Saturday or any evening after 18.00pm or a week or two to gain experience.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated to get my foot in the door and learn more hands on.

Thanks in advance :pac:

Chochese

If you're restricting yourself to those hours, you might find it very hard to find somebody willing to take you on. For work experience, it's prefferable to employers if you were on the premises and getting invloved but most design offices would operate during buisness hours (Mon-Fri, 9-5ish).

You could always check if any printing shops had a design section that opened on Saturdays. They may be able to accommodate you. Best thing to do is jam your portfolio under your arm and start knocking on doors around the town.

hazelhoff

Thanks a mill, yeah I would probably be better off trying get a week here and there during normal office hours. I will defo look into the print shop thing thats a great idea.I have done the knock on doors things before and it did work great for me so I will defo do that too. Thanks for helping out appreciate it.

Trojan

Hi hazelhoff,

I'd recommend you put a portfolio site together if you haven't done so already. I've an example portfolio site specifically for our logo design here, something like that might be useful. If you need a hand with it, feel free to contact.

Contact me at the address listed on top left of http://www.websitedoctor.com/ if I can help in any other way.

hazelhoff

Thanks Trojan, thats a great help, I appreciate it. This is all in the plan for 2011 as I need to get some different pieces for my portfolio first which I am working on at the moment.

So I will contact you personally when I am ready to go with that . It would be handy to have alright, is it costly? Your website is cool and the logo link, i really like it. Can you recommend any good quality not over the top priced printing shops? I want to dabble with printing my own projects for experience and trial and error :P

Although I am more at a loss of where to start looking for work experience. Do you think trying to get an internship for even a few months would be beneficial, the only thing is that I would have to leave my job, save first etc before I leave. I do want to stick it out here for a while as I am doing graphic design here, but not labelled the graphic designer and feel like I wont learn it all. But in saying that I get to do newsletters, posters, mailshots,flyers,signs etc but not much would go to print only really flyers. Therefore I think I would need more experience than this.

Trojan

hazelhoff wrote: »

Thanks Trojan, thats a great help, I appreciate it. This is all in the plan for 2011 as I need to get some different pieces for my portfolio first which I am working on at the moment.

So I will contact you personally when I am ready to go with that . It would be handy to have alright, is it costly?

I gave a talk to some design and software students down in UL recently. As a demonstration for them I built a CV/Resume site on the train on the way down. It's not wonderful, uses a template, and probably has typos aplenty, but as a demonstration of what you can do in 30 minutes on a train it's decent - just imagine what you can do with a bit more time and effort

(Cost-wise, it totally $15-20, could be slightly more if you need to pay for hosting. Digiweb and Blacknight offer free web hosting to students afaik. Here's a video of the talk I gave, might be useful to you)

hazelhoff wrote: »

Your website is cool and the logo link, i really like it. Can you recommend any good quality not over the top priced printing shops? I want to dabble with printing my own projects for experience and trial and error :P

Online printers: I recommend Vistaprint for cheap and cheerful (you can get some free stuff from them), and I recommend Printing.com for high quality but doesn't break the bank. There's also plenty of local printing companies - check the Golden Pages and haggle them on pricing.

hazelhoff wrote: »

Although I am more at a loss of where to start looking for work experience. Do you think trying to get an internship for even a few months would be beneficial, the only thing is that I would have to leave my job, save first etc before I leave. I do want to stick it out here for a while as I am doing graphic design here, but not labelled the graphic designer and feel like I wont learn it all. But in saying that I get to do newsletters, posters, mailshots,flyers,signs etc but not much would go to print only really flyers. Therefore I think I would need more experience than this.

I think if I was in your shoes right now I'd stay where I was at the moment. Maybe join a couple sites like LogoPond, Artician, etc.

Read freelancer blogs like FreelanceSwitch. For web specific stuff, read sites like SitePoint. Read about usability and visitor conversions.

Watch YouTube video tutorials on tools that you want to learn more about, e.g. Illustrator, Photoshop, Quark, etc, and experiment.

HTH.

InTheTrees

How about doing charity design work?

Charities are happy to have volunteers and aren't picky about working hours and you can get some real world work into your portfolio.

Potential employers dont care about how much you were paid (if at all), they just want to see work beyond the college portfolio.

hazelhoff

InTheTrees wrote: »

How about doing charity design work?

Charities are happy to have volunteers and aren't picky about working hours and you can get some real world work into your portfolio.

Potential employers dont care about how much you were paid (if at all), they just want to see work beyond the college portfolio.

I really appreciate all your help both of you. Defo going to join those sites now and already have some work from home things to get stuck into to gain as much experience as possible.

Thanks a million I will let you know how it all goes

hazelhoff

Hi Trojan,

I am ready to get my portfolio online. Have a couple questions first though.

I recently did a web design diploma so as the project had to create a website so I called it HazelBreenArt. Do you think I should use this as my online portfolio or start a new link. I can send you the link if you get a chance to reply to this.

Another thing I wondered about is that I work for a showroom and have a lot of corporate work that I have done in here as included in my fulltime job as I am reception in here too but can I use that publicly or should I create a locked folder with the images inside on my link and only give potential employers the password to it? Can I do this or would I be breaking any rules. As in if my employer found out about this could I be in trouble or am I allowed because it is my artwork, although it would have their logo, products etc?

So I will have roughly two years experience altogether at say March next year 2012, should I be applying for Junior positions or normal Graphic Design positions? I have only done the one website as I was concentrating on my graphic art first so will get into that in the new year again.

Hope you can reply as it has been a long time. Thank you

Digitaljunkie

I just stumbled across this if it helps looks like good experience.................

Zonua

Hi Hazel . . . PM me, I might be able to help.
I expect to need someone in 2012, and also need a favour urgently tonight and maybe even someone over the next week!

hazelhoff

Apologies I have not been on this in a long time. I have been doing some freelance work and managed to get my title in my job as the Junior Graphic Designer so I am working away but still feel like I am not covering enough to secure a good job and I feel like I have lost the nack of writing a good c.v. as I have not needed to in nearly 6 years.

I would love if any of you had any advice on a few things as follows:

First of all do you recommend making a design c.v. as you would find here http://savedelete.com/100-most-creative-example-resumes-of-all-time.html to stand out when applying for a position.

Also I feel really unconfident to apply for graphic design positions due to my lack of technical experience when it comes to web design. I can create a basic website and edit out CMS in work but nothing major and I feel as though I cannot apply for a job for design skills without knowing the insides out of CSS and coding. I have never been very technical minded, mind you. But I can get it right when I work at it.

I also have my 3D options disables in Photoshop on my pc in work and also my laptop, I think I have the standard versions but I feel as though I am missing a key tool of photoshop and I just try to do as much 3D as I can with Illustrator etc. Is this really important to have all this knowledge or would I pick it up easily enough if I had those options if I moved to another job?

Another issue I am running into is that where I work presently I also work on reception and find myself not being able to concentrate on getting a really nice design, I feel like they are good and everyone is always really impressed with my work but I feel as though it could be better without the distractions, any tips that help with this or could it be the I am never happy with my work symdrome that all artists have?

Sorry for the questions but any advice will be greatly appreciated and if any similiar experiences I would love to hear about them. Thank you :pac: