What is industrial experience?
- Industrial experience is gaining the knowledge and understanding of how the practice runs and works outside of education. You will be able to gain a certain about of background from education itself, however, the working/professional environment can be completely different and needs to be recognised first-hand.
- Preparation for your future - gaining an understanding of whereabouts in the industry you see yourself, whether or not you will be working freelance or as part of a studio. You won't be aware of how it is you want to work until you get experience of this.
- It is not only about visiting studios and professionals, but also events. By visiting events, such as print festivals, you will be able to network and create a name for yourself within the industry.
- Taking part in briefs outside of education. Looking at entering competitions and live briefs, as well as doing some possible freelance work in order to gain experience and contacts.
- Collecting all the skills you will need to create an exciting and successful future for yourself. This may include processes and different variations of print etc, but it may also be about gaining confidence and the presentation skills needed for this area of work.
What can you learn from industrial experience?
- You will find out the type of work ethic needed to go out and work in a professional environment. Although education will teach you the basic skills, in the future you will be getting paid for what you do, so you need to be aware of how to act and how to manage yourself in order to get the most out of what you are doing.
- You can further your knowledge of different print processes and techniques on a more professional/industrial scale. Design for print and web becomes a lot more complicated when you're actually producing and printing work for a client.
- Finding out how to work to particular time scales. You won't get months to work on briefs, a lot of projects will have to be completed within a few days, and you need to be able to do this successfully and manage your time well. As well as this, you then must consider cost and payment. How much should you be getting paid for what you're doing.
- If you are unaware of what area you want to be working in, industrial experience can lead you in the right direction when it comes to your own practice, giving you an idea of what it is you should be doing with your life. You may find that the original path you wanted to go down isn't for you.
- Industrial experience will hopefully build on confidence skills, as well and presentation skills. Giving you the determination and motivation to work hard and do well.
What form/format could industrial experience take?
- Visting studios or working professionals
- Undertaking works experience or internships
- Live briefs
- Events - print festivals, exhibitions
- Setting up online networking - behance, tumblr, etsy, twitter
- Competitions
What areas of industry are you interested in?
1. Editorial/magazine
2. Book design/publishing
3. Fashion promotion/advertising
4. Illustration
What are your concerns about industrial experience?
- That I won't be able to get industrial experience in the first place. No one will be interested in what it is that I'm doing or my practice doesn't fit in anywhere.
- That the work I'm producing isn't up to scratch and that I'm not good enough. The standard of work out there currently is insane. Will I be able to compare?
- That I won't have the required skills or knowledge that the studio expects me to already have.
- Not being confident enough in myself and my work (as seen from above statements). I want to be able to make sure they know that I'm willing and determined.
- Making the most out of what is on offer to me, and not just putting things off due to shyness or feeling embarrassed.
Ten statements
1. This task made me realise how important it's going to be to network and to have contacts readily available. In order to get on in the industry, you need to know people and make sure you have a presence. I will keep this in mind for the next few months, and will begin to set up pages and social networking that is more appropriate to my practice than purely socialising.
2. This task has made really consider what area of the industry I can see myself in. Obviously, I will need to start to consider which studios I would like to get involved with and how I can go about doing this. Synergy is important when considering this.
3. I would like to get myself to more events, and become more aware of what is going on out there when it comes to graphic design. I need to make sure I'm up to date with current and up and coming festivals and exhibitions that will be relevant to myself.
4. By becoming involved in live briefs and competitions, I am hoping that I will become more aware of the standard that is currently out there in the public domain. However, I am also hoping that they will prepare me for the industry in terms of quality of work, as well as time scale and submission.
5. I want to make sure that I am going to be confident enough when it comes to eventually visiting studios and working professionals. I need to be motivated and believe in my abilities in order to achieve and make an impression. Turning up and being under prepared or apprehensive is not going to interest those that matter.
6. I am aware that I need to start promoting myself, and getting my name out there. This may be in the form of a business card, or simply making sure that I approach visiting professionals.
7. As well as focusing on my individual practice, I want to make sure that I get involved as part of a team, working collaboratively in order to broaden my outlook. This may be across disciplines, or within my own course.
8. My presentation skills are something that I really need to work on. Whilst I am aware of how I feel and act when presenting to a group of individuals that I know well, I am still unsure as to whether or not I am more comfortable presenting to strangers. This is something I will have to find out as there will be a number of times when I need to present my work and ideas to people in the industry.
9. Whilst working in a studio, you get a good idea of the type of people and work you're up against. It allows you to compare what you're doing yourselves, allowing you to set standards for when you get put into industry.
10. I want to make sure that I keep my mind open when it comes to visiting studios. It is key to gain as much experience as possible, therefore you cannot disregard somewhere on the basis that you do not like their work.
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