Note: These are loose notes taken from the talks and are not refined.
The Designer Self: Talk series.
Session One:
Jason Hayhurst and David Grant
The crux of this talk landed on the idea that future developments are always going to be coming and it is probably best to try and develop my skillset towards that future.
Rough quotes and attributions
Jason Hayhurst
Do not sit and wait to graduate, if possible, try and get in front of it and start developing semi-professional work now to help build out the portfolio.
Learn and understand what the client wants, It can be better to be more open minded in your approach to design philosophy and not to be bound by the constraints that are generally present, such as when in a prior compony they used the skills of graphic designers as opposed to web designers to try and gain a more unique design rather than sticking to the expected rigidity of the template.
Christopher Newell
The design world is a space where you can be unconventional and the environments tend to be more inclusive and liberal minded. There is a degree of freedom that can come from roles within these kinds of environments.
You can be imaginative but try and understand both sides of the coin. Contradictory ideas can be joined together.
Opportunities will arise between now and graduation. USE THIS TIME WELL! I.E try and develop pieces for the portfolio of semi professional work even if it doesn’t pay or pay well. Use any personal connections you already have to build.
Companies that may seem out of scope at this level may make more sense to try and apply for as they have the resources and funding to help you to develop your skills which is a luxury that smaller companies cannot do given the current financial climate.
David Grant
Approach situations with a positive attitude, the industry can be quite insular and people within it may grow to recognise you and this may open doors for you down the line.
GENERAL
Contact student futures and the mentor scheme to gain contacts already in the field.
Session Two: Stewart Liliford
The creative fields are made up of multifaceted teams that bring independent skillsets together to create (hopefully) unique and diverse solutions to projects (advertising). It doesn’t matter quite so much if you don’t have the strongest technical skillset, ideas are king.
Stewart Liliford: Sacred Square Games
Q: What is ahead of this cohort
- There is a large sector with a lot of jobs in the creative sector, but it is highly competitive. Soft skills are more important generally than the application skillsets. Communication and idea generation is vital due to the collaborative nature.
Before Stuart starting teaching, he knew he wanted to create video games from age six. He saw the remake of Super Mario Bros on the SNES and wanted to work on something like that. He chose education paths based on this ambition.
You cant get experience, because you don’t have a job. Repeats forever.
He tried to apply to hundreds of places, only one responded that he went to test at.
Be creative with your CV, any work you have done do not underestimate the additional piece of experience on your CV. Larger companies will have more hurdles to overcome to gain employment at, whereas the smaller studios will have a smaller hierarchy and you could create a real conversation with.
Recruitment agencies
*As an employer (CN), you may need someone straight away and go through the traditional channels. The problem with agencies is they constantly have to be paid for their “services”. Studio pipelines may necessitate that certain roles are made redundant during certain points of production, i.e. Bug Testers are needed towards the end of a development cycle but around release time this drop may drop off and few people are needed for patch testing.
Gaining any professional experience is great for the portfolio.
*Try and network with the community that is already out there and try and make yourself known.
There are a lot of people now who are creating self-published novels (Look into creating cover art for them).
Setting up your own business, One of the things you would be wise to do is take as much help as you can from the government. A lot of it is boring when setting up a business, but it will pay dividends down the line, there is training on things such as bookkeeping etc, if you can fit it into your schedule, do it. But don’t do it alone, without additional people working on these projects you may lose track of your project and deadlines may spiral. This is also a good way to avoid paying tax legally (citation needed).
Know that in the personal development document, how do I feel about working within this industry?
Session Three: Abby Carmicheal and Robert Consoli
Abby started by creating T-shirts and other “cringey” pieces from their store inky apparel creations. No marketing was paid for and was covered online through pieces posted everywhere online. Fifty pound initial investment per person, the earlier pieces were created by purchasing tshirts and using a vinyl cutter to create simple vectorised designs using a jpeg to SVG conversion too. Six-thousand-pound income in the first few months. All of this was done in between working in nursing and any spare time was used to create.
Transition to Tiktok in 2020 (Whatapeeling), there was some issues initially with how the sound was credited. This lead to a conversation with the copyright office which reinforced the idea that this needed to be a transformative piece of work (This seems like an at best grey area).
Transitioned over to transfer sheets, then to print on demand. There was no business plan going into this endeavour. The business is built on popular trends online, memes tend to be recirculated. It is now a limited company (250 a month for an accountant and 50/50 ownership with the business partner). SEO through tags on Etsy while using copyrighted terms may result in your products getting removed. “We made every mistake you could make”.
Robert Consoli
Q) What inspired you to become a graphic designer?
A) I look back now and see there are many things that were significant in hindsight. Robert was in a well-financed city (Pittsburgh). Carnergi made such vast amounts of money, he decided to invest in the world of arts. He took additional classes available on a Saturday morning.
Graphic design was the path he would be on from the word go effectively. His mother was an artist, his father was a civil engineer (soft and hard skills). Before Robert was plucked from home to go straight into the job market.
Consume as much media you can consume (CN)
A lot of the earlier years were spent in museums, “Whenever I am exposed to really high end culture, I want to do something”.
CN, going out of your way to immerse yourself in an experience helps you to remember it more.
“You are going into creative industries, it aint that cosy” but there is still going to be a sense of “deliver now or get out mentality”. (CN)
Stay in touch with the tutors and update them with what is happening, this can help you down the line. GET A JOB WITHOUT A YEAR AND A HALF PASSING!
Getting a salary increase had you jumping between many roles across many companies.
Number one rule, don’t go freelance without professional experience. The work you do can effect the work of others and there can be a lot of money involved. You can end up failing faster than ever.
Creative business – Full time employment vs the freelance business
Talk about money before you start, estimate the job based on a daily rate or half day. Pay for 40 percent of the job, don’t start the job without some of the money up front. You want work and need assurances that you won’t be scammed.
Do a portion of the job an have a meeting when 40 percent of the job is done.
Rob worked on branding packages for new business to create their brand identity, if you get paid for several days work and get it sorted in a shorter period you can work more and gain more money.
Question, Portfolio keeps coming up, how did you curate this over time and how much from each project is used?
The unattainable triangle
Is this project exciting?
Are the clients professional?
Is the money worthwhile?
Try and get two of them if you do freelance.
Session Four: Lisa Marini
Lisa Marini has done quite a lot of different things in the creative mediums. Lisa creates musical pieces and creates the multimedia assets herself, such as composing, graphic design work etc.
The start of the creative process starts with writing the music and creating the timelines for the other aspects. Setbacks in these projects are adapted to, her vinyl album wont be ready for launch (12-16 weeks) but the album launch is in seven. “For any creative project, patreon is a mix between a fan page and the old school mentality of supporting an artist”.
CN: I got really involved in a project and I get involved where you have do a load of stuff. This might not be what you are trained for or what you are really wanting to do.”
Q) Do you get wound up in the admin side of things?
A) I tend to enjoy it, as its something you have to do. With the internet and social media, you have the world available and there are so many things you can collaborate on and work with. I love exploring, it’s a creative form in itself”
Having freedom to create what you want to create every day, I enjoy it.
Q) Do you feel overwhelmed by the creative process
A) I prefer approaching things in a holistic approach. I had to find balance with everything as I became overwhelmed with everything. Productivity is seen as a productive thing, to find balance and creative freedom.
CN: I wanted to bring something in about wellness, when RC was talking about how things “used” to be (read: shit all over everything). It was abuse, I was brought up in the that school of thought. When they (his two boys) started in the creative industries I pushed them that way to begin with. The world has changed since then.
*Have a crack at meditation so ideas can come up easily.
Visualise what you want to do in a project, and focus on what you want to do with it to help clear out less helpful thoughts.
CN: You are going into he creative industries, Creative is the operative word before industry. We tend to teach on the basis of looking at other peoples stuff, sit in an empty room and just think.
*The artists way:
* Big Magic: Book about creating and the limitations we may impose on ourselves. Remove the conditioning from external forces.
Get things down on a page and “clear the vessel” to help create from a clean slate.
Planning out any form of socials is more regimented than you might expect. Learn to promote yourself using the tools that are readily available.
CN: There will be a part of the audience you are aiming for that are not going to like it. We all like a pat on the head and we are going to have to deal with that.
LM: I used to do merchandise, you work for them. If you are working for yourself, you have to serve yourself, you will please yourself and please everyone else. I want to find the audience; I got management from a big management company. I didn’t want a fleeting audience.
You should be up for doing stuff.
Look for opportunities to collaborate wherever you can,
I think something is done, when you feel you have done everything, with what you have at the time then it is done. Sharing the process can help you to understand what you are actually capable of.
CN: Some “mistakes” become crystal clear in hindsight when it is published in whatever medium they are out in.
LM: Perfection can be a source of self-destruction.
Session Five: James Cherry (Eon media)
James is from Eon Media, a media production compony from Hull.
The digital marketing team have asked for content, and he has a drone to set up establishing shots for his talk. He is in charge of a marketing team that fulfils two roles. He started as an apprentice after almost starting at University.
- Marketing the service
- Digital content for clients
They have created a plethora of content across the board to help their customer base use the content they produce.
- What would I need to join a digital marketing team
- Experience with talking to clients.
- Talk to customers and sell them on the service, communicating the services well
- Multiple stage interviews
COVID affected this generation quite heavily, so the expectation is that you can communicate effectively online through the camera. Get used to it, its part of it all.
Passion – Switching off and on between work, it can be difficult to actually switch off and making the differentiation between the two.
Q) How much do customers know what they want?
A) Dependant on the customer. Knowing how to guide the customer between different services, for example if a customer wants an application it could be well serviced as better as a website.
CN: If they don’t know what they want, it is your job to help them find what they want. For example, the Bridlington brief from Y1. A lot of customers will ask for something they perceieve as new and “relevant”.
J: Guide the conversation and tell them what you think the right approach would be, discuss this with your team. NOT WHAT DO YOU WANT, WHAT DO YOU WANT TO ACHIEVE?
Be honest with your clients, operate with morals and ethics to ensure you stay in business.
Sometimes this approach can lead to you not getting the work, but this can be
Life is long. Having the clients best interest may not be the best in the short term but long term, by building these relationships it can create a stronger relationship down the line.
PDF CV’s: It is a set list that I will look at, but for the creative industry it cannot stand out. The weight of your worth is based on your portfolio.
QUESTION: In the section about CV submission, make a creative display of what you can do. Is this not likely to land in the hands of HR which are likely to be turned away from a standard template?
Q2: What is the sense of dress code for interviewing either in person or online?
Research the business and try and weigh up who your CV is going end up into the hands of. More than likely in a creative scenario.
It won’t do any harm by standing out when applying with an application. If you know who the CV is going to it will help, send it to multiple people if there are several people your application may be useful to go towards.
For us, a big part of the interview is you need to be able to integrate into the team.
The UX process, in particular for web, the clients don’t really care too much about the fundamentals of design. They would design the basic website on a service like Wicks. Trying to start from scratch and develop the content through something beyond what they are sued to may be quite tough to convince them of those steps. It can be a challenge in most instances, to try and educate them why you would benefit from this.
We were having a conversation about in depth you have to learn what you are creating, where does “expert” content come from. There is a bit of a mix based within your role, The 3d team for example needs to create “mode of action” animations. Conveying information such as how strepsils work demonstrating how it would coat the throat. You would need to learn some of the more technical aspects of something but there. Be immersed in what the clients provide.
Send a creative version & a more templated version when applying. Do not lack design, make it tailored towards the compony that you want to apply to. USE THIS FOR APPLYING TO MASTERS.
Part of producing content for digital media is a pretty open path for people to go into. You will be approached by companies that don’t have much input into the current digital space.
Session Six: Adrian Mills & Dan Wonnacott
AM: Taught for ten years, initially went into teaching thinking you would need to know everything about everything. “I know my subject, but I don’t try and bluff it as you will be found out”. A quick google can undermine this attitude.
DW: Seven years teaching. The choice was either a management roll or going to university.
You need to do a masters to get into higher education. We need a degree level higher than what you are looking to teach.
AM: Its on thing to have the ability to do something, it is more important to understand the subject and be able to recontextualise it.
DW: Every task I intuitively don’t know I will go off for twenty minutes and try and work out the answer for it.
Experience of a masters
DW: Research based
Haptic research based masters. Trying to develop a new technology based on haptic feedback system.
AM: Creative writing masters, Distance learning over two years with a full time job. Video, resources to read through, peer feedback,
CN: Did his masters which had a maths based programming skills without them.
Industry experience
AM: Degree was in Media Production during the 1990s. Game design wasn’t a taught subject back then. The closest thing available was scripting. Went off and did boring jobs for a while when experimenting with engines. He also podcasts about c64 games.
Have your passions and hope for the best but prepare for the worst. These fields are so highly competitive, and you may not what it takes for certain roles.
Positive stuff
AM: Two students have gone on to work at Sumi Digital in senior positions. Keep making stuff, just keep making stuff in your own time.
LIFE COLLAGE IS THE WHOLE LIFE – NOT JUST CAREER
Session Seven : Avani Shah
Avani is a fiction writer who also runs her own business copywriting and facilitating creative workshops. After graduating from university, she lasted one week in a full-time job before deciding the 9-5 life wasn’t for her. Twelve years later, she is still managing her own schedule. She now has an Ma in Creative Writing and has been published in a variety of places. She has just completed her first novel.
She was present as fan fiction emerged online and integrated within the communities. If you are writing based on the work of others, you don’t have to do the world building so much and can focus on the characterisation. Within her twenties she moved into the wider realm of creative writing.
Emotionearing – a formula for creating well rounded characters.
Transcribing the spoken word of others when transcribed may not come across as natural. Shows such as The Office and Peep Show come across as more realistic due to their unflinching gaze. Writing on a show will be different to writing for yourself, as it is more of a collaborative effort.
Naomi Olderman –
You will gain knowledge and insight as to how the industry is in general when you connect with your peers from university. Your colleagues and peers are there to support one another.
DEVELOPING CREATIVE WRITERS FUND – DYCP
Copy – Words that are present everywhere, decisions that were made to convey ideas. Copy is a really broad term.
It is important to follow trends and keep an eye on what things are happening with the scene you are in. It doesn’t mean you have to replicate and you don’t need to engage everyone. Its better to have a hundred people who you are targeting rather than a thousand of people that are vague.
Make sure your library is up to date, there are some terms you could get away with some time ago that you wouldn’t be able to do so now. This is vital to remember – DON’T GET CANCELLED.
The material that is produced visually should be defining your audience. The real audience in terms of getting the grade is for Chris Newell.
Turns out if you write sixty percent of the day, you don’t know what the quality of the work is within the moment. You need to take a step back away from it and observe it for what it is.
Pursue the weird curiosity, the stuff that comes out when you are writing. Interrogate something that may make you squeamish and uncomfortable as the story develops.
When they do a first draft, they use every cliché available, start to peel away these layers and reveal an actual character beneath all of that.
Q: As someone who is well within versed in writing and creativity, you will have examined structure and tropes for years. Do you find that looking into the how and why of things, it kind of ruins consuming media for you and you look at it with a more critical lens?
There are interesting variants on traditional structure,
The Publisher – The agency that publishes the works.
Fiction – Write a draft the send it to an agent who negotiates with the publisher. They should know your writes and will take a cut from earnings.
Session eight: Hugh Vincent
Musician and multidisciplinary artist
Spirit lens
Currently working on a video game with a developer (also a musician) as an art developer. Wrote music with the singer of the band Litany. Working on it for three days a week minimum, usually five but always thinking about it.
The game that is currently in development in the VR space. Had an epiphany while sat in a boring metaverse.
“The discipline to deliver something you might not enjoy this, think about how much elon musk might admire you” CN
“I hate this, I hate my work, it helps to have someone there who isn’t having the same lul. A good friend that you trust.”
“Define the boundaries of your project and you can chuck things that don’t work away”
“There was a big pain barrier, it was brutal”. In relation to development hiccups.
“We won’t make a fortune, but we will make a game” pursue what excites you and don’t let money be the primary motivator.
“Purging something from you, helps with writers block because it gets it out of you.”
Folder structure
Seed / Sapling / Flowers
This is a way to help know where you are going with a project.
Put a ribbon on it and give it to somebody else.
