Christmas Postcards for SALE://

A collaborative project that was self initiated with Ian Prentice
The side project was aimed for a local arts & crafts fair in Leeds. We wanted to create something in time for Christmas, but didn't want it to be treated as a Christmas card, but more of a series of card designs under the title 'if you could do anything this Christmas...'

We wanted it to be a collaborative project with a few other Graphic Design people from the course therefore initiated a 'brief' as a guideline for people who would be interested to contribute. Under the title of the brief, they were asked to design an A6 portrait postcard that would form one of a set of 16 cards that would be screen printed. As it would be screen printed, we wanted to keep it simple and the cost at a reasonable price therefore, the limitations were the colours used.

Final collection://
The limited edition A6 postcards screenprinted with gold and red ink on cartridge paper, hand trimmed and bounded together with a belly band. The prints are limited to 50 copies and are all hand signed by each designer at the back.

If anyone is interested in purchasing the collection, then just get in contact via email://
timsum10k@gmail.com and I can arrange for payment and postage in time for Christmas!

Questions to be answered://

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What is professional / industrial experience?
- Experience gained from working in the design industry or work that is design related that is practiced outside college. This can be gained from part time work, freelance commisioned work to short internships.
- Contributing towards part of a design process in a industrial workign environment.
- Get in contact contact with practicing designers - collaborative or simply overseeing their work process.
- Getting feedback from professional designers.
- Having an idea of professional design practice and being aware of what the industry is like.

Why is professional / industrial experience important as part of PPD?
- Offers you an insight into what/ where you could be after your degree.
- Allows you to reflect on your own work in comparison to what is expected in the industry.
- Knowing how to work/ communicate with your clients ( people with no design background) and other designers.
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How do you gain professional / industrial experience and what form does it take?
- Attending guest lectures.
- Speaking and getting in contact with practicing designers.
- Arrange for short internships at the relevant design agencies.
- Getting hold of some freelance work and actually learning from doing.
- Collaborate with other creatives and getting your work out there.
- Entering design competitions eg, YNC, D&AD, Computer Arts etc.

What should you aim to gain from professional / industrial experience?
- A better understanding of who you are as a designer, what your strengths and weaknesses etc.
- An idea of how the design industry works, things from how to get work, promote yourself to something like pitching your idea requires experience and an understanding on how to apply yourself as a designer.
- A clearer idea of your career path and what specialist area you would like to pursue.
- Contacts - people you may get back in touch with for collaboration or for reference.
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First taste of industry practice

During the few months prior to the summer holiday, I decided that I wanted to get some industry experience over the summer period, therefore started looking into different design agencies and individual designers whose work appealed to me the most.

After spending days researching and finding out about different agency's and there design methods, I decided to get in contact with a few places. As there are so many different agencies around, I focused mainly on ones that worked mainly for print and editorial design which is an area that I wanted to go into for my 2nd year. Ideally I was also looking for more independent studios, rather than in house places as this would hopefully offer a more personal learning opportunity. Another thing I had to take into consideration was the location, I focused my research into Leeds, London and Hong Kong based agencies.

Some of the agencies contacted via email include:

A Practice for Everyday
A2/SW/HK
HK Magazine
Stereo
B&W
SEA
etc etc....

Thankfully, majority of the places did get back in touch, with most cases, as they're quite small independent studios with limited people, it was a bad time to recruit any interns at the time. Both HK Magazine and Stereo got back with more positive news I guess, with HK magazine offering an interview with a potential 3 weeks internship in their Hong Kong office. Whereas I was also in talk about another internship with London based Stereo, but never did get the time to visit their studio to arrange something further unfortunately.

The process was rather frustrating really, I probably took about a month just researching and getting in contact with all these places, with only a handful of places replying with slightly more positive news. However, I'll take this as experience for this year hopefully. Quite a few places, did like my work but were not in a position to offer an internship at the time, so they will be the ones that i'll be contacting again in a few months time!

Work and my experience working as a graphic design intern at HK Magazine can be viewed here