work experience — Blog

I have been working at Eastside Co for four months, I really enjoy my job here because there's always opportunity to apply my skills outside graphic design, like designing beautiful UI, drawing illustration (e.g. web and app icons) and taking photos (for company's instagram posts!)

Last month, I won my very first internal award, we call it 'trooper award'. We dominate one to two colleagues for their hard work every week. The 'trooper' came to me because of my design for the shopify meet up event. The 'trooper' reflects company's encouragement to people's contribution, which I hope every company should have this positive culture.

Beside work, we have a good work-life balance that we play foosball during lunch hour and break time. And every time when we have new members join in, we will have a pizza day! I remember my first day was a Pizza Friday and we had social after work, which was a very warm welcome :)

I was doing a one-week placement strictly after New Designer. It was my first work placement in my design journey. IE Design Consultancy is a design agency who mainly work for charity, education and health organisation who based in Jewellery Quarter, Birmingham. I was curious about how creativity can work for these non-commercial sectors.

On the first day, I was a bit disappointed to know that an interesting brief is going to present in the next day and I did not have a chance to get involve in it because of the time limit. However, I was given a new brief to redesign the identity of IE office, which I could walk around the office and read over their case studies to know more about their business. I really enjoy reading their case studies to gain knowledge on a live design project scope, schedule and budget.

On the second day, I was happy to hear that the presentation of that interesting brief was postponed. I was asked to design a recipe book for a local Michelin Star restaurant. Pascaline, the designer I was working with, gave me some suggestion on the design and kindly sent off her research to me. A bold, modern but elegant recipe book was finally done, I was happy with the result.

On the other day, I saw Pascaline was still working on the restaurant brief, she picked an ink jar and some brushes upstair. I was curious about how she got on the brief so I followed her and asked what she was doing. She kindly explained her ideas for the branding, shared her work with me and asked for my opinion. After some conversation, I tried to redesign the wine menu for the restaurant.

Throughout the week, I kept working on the identity brief for IE office. To keep things within budget, I designed some posters to tell visitors about IE's work, which is for hanging in the office entrance. I also thought of some decorating ideas to make the office 'green'.

A week after my placement, I received Pascaline's email. She said the client for the restaurant brief was really impressed with their approach and is going to launch the design. She thanked for my help throughout the week, and mentioned I really helped her to complete the project. I was so impressed with the feedback, and I could see how valuable my contribution was.

I'm satisfied with this work experience, thanks my tutor Jane for giving me a chance.

It is worth to ask if people need any helps during your work placement!