Beyond the creative to the business end of things
Gary Edwards
Gary came to talk to us from his company Digital Issue, where he is the managing director. He made a point of saying he's not a creative person, but had come to discuss the business side of running a creative company. His background is in engineering, after starting his working career as a chef in the Navy, he gained qualifications as a car mechanic and read books about how to get rich by selling in his spare time.
Eventually he moved to sales, working for Everest double glazing on a commission only salary. He was self employed at 22. Eventually he moved back to engineering, working for British Gas. He has also worked for 12 years in financial services and on a mortgage advice line.
After building his reputation up, Digital Issue was eventually born. They deal with digitalising magazines and other publications. One of their biggest works was with the London 2012 Olympics. Gary explained that many many companies were tendering for the Olympics, and that it was an expensive and long winded process with no guarantee of success. They approached the England Badminton team and were able to create an online magazine.
The online magazine enabled users to vote the best moment in badminton, had a live Twitter feed, as well as links to share things from the magazine on Twitter and Facebook. It also hosted videos, and video profiles for each player.
Gary explained that one of the upcoming projects for the company is to create a digital magazine where readers can click on the items in a fashion magazine and buy the items. He stressed the importance of creating and protecting your reputation as a business, and the importance of researching your market.
The company itself is relatively small, and the hold no product as the company merely delivers pixels which can be produced quickly and they have a minimum order of £150. As many others have done during this and previous Creative Futures weeks, Gary stresses the that communication is key. Be careful of the projects you choose to undertake, remember to constantly aim to move up the ladder, pick your price and justify it (don't undersell yourself!), don't wait for the phone to ring, stay in contact with your clients and know your competition are all valid pieces of advice.
If I'm honest, I didn't really take all that much from this talk, what Gary had to say wasn't really new information and his talk wasn't really engaging.
Me Me Me
Gareth Lawn
Gareth is an ex-Glyndwr student, he graduated in 2008. He now works for a company called View Creative in Rhos-on-Sea, Conwy. He started there as a junior designer and has been promoted to digital creative lead. His areas of speciality are web design, CSS, and HTML.
The website has profiles for all their staff, this is Gaz's
Gareth explained that one of their biggest projects to date was working with the Royal Albert Hall, where they made huge 100ft banners, programmes, fliers and press advertisements.
Jessica Silvester (of the Albert Hall) said this about the work that View did for them;
The company takes pride in every stage of the design process from briefs, through research, moodboards, concepts, designs, final designs and print. As a creative lead it is Gareth's role to oversee the visual side of all the websites that they create, making sure they are in-line with the briefs and needs of the clients.
So how do you land your dream job?
- The first step is approach the company, say hello. Often agencies will create new roles for graduates.
- In the current climate, it's important to stand out, do something different.
- Aim high, do something crazy. Post your CV or folio as emails are easy to ignore.
- Having a good attitude is also important. Make sure you are someone an agency would want to hire.
- Learn how to sell yourself and your work.
- The ability to make websites, code and make apps are advantageous.
No agency expects graduates to know everything, but at least a basic knowledge is important. If you have skills elsewhere such as Illustrator, or photography make sure you let the agencies know. There is a gap in the market for product photography. Gareth says he's learned a lot since landing his job. The importance of time keeping and deadlines, that he was frustrated on his first day there as you're thrown in the deep end, dealing with people and talking on the phone.
Effort, hard work, enthusiasm are appreciated and respected (I'm not sure this is the case everywhere, so I think he's very lucky if they're like that where he works!). He suggests surrounding yourself with good design, and to get a Pintrest account to keep good pieces of design in one place for inspiration.
Feedback and criticism shouldn't be taken personally, it's part of the job, don't get defensive. Deadlines are much more real in the workplace, over-exaggerate your time-scales Learn to multi task juggling lots of jobs at once will happen.
Finally Gareth finished with some questions for us to ponder.
What type of work do you want to do?
Do you want to specialist in a certain area?
Where do you want to work?
Big/little agency? Corporate or arthouse?
Very valid questions, relating to design of course, an area that I can't see myself ending up in. Personally I hope to continue to work in film and photography on some scale. Gareth's talk was insightful, and I found it interesting to hear from an ex-Glyndwr student who is doing very well for himself.
So creative futures has come to an end once again. In all honesty I haven't really learned all that much, with the exception of Jason Devitt's talk which was easily the best of the week for me. It would have been really useful to hear from him in the first year as his talk was very, very informative. The same lessons seem to crop up each year, and although it's comforting to know there are jobs out there for graduates, some of the talkers can seem quite patronising to us mature students. Still, Creative Futures is a very useful tool and one of the best parts of the course in my eyes.
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