Starting Work Tomorrow ...

wac

Senior Member
I just had a phone call from a design agency asking if I could do some freelance work with them. I've had to turn a couple of these down because I haven't felt ready yet, and I didn't want to walk in and waste everyone's time by not knowing the jargon or quark or something. But I felt it was time so I agreed to this one!

So is there anything I should know about working in a design agency?
 
All you can do is your best. Don't be afraid to ask questions, and never be afraid to say 'I don't know'. People appreciate it when you admit to not knowing something rather than wasting time trying to figure something out for yourself.

Best of luck
 
I agree with everything Krey20 said. Have a positive attitude and don't just sit in the corner silently, freelancing isn't exclusively about ability (although that's obviously very important), it's also about being part of the team and good company in the studio.
 
Get in a bit early so they can settle you in/ sort out your desk/ login/ explain where stuff is. Don't be the first person to leave at the end of the day. Offer to make coffee. If you run out of stuff to do or get stuck pipe up quickly.
 
Id definitely agree with Ken, dont be shy to say 'I dont know' theres no shame in that. We cant know everything! and there are designers I know with 30 years experience who still admit to getting stuck or not knowing all of the answers.

And yeah, just what everyone else has said, get in a little early, dont leave first, be pro-active in keeping busy and be enthusiastic!
Hope it goes well
 
Thank you all for the sage advice. I had my first day (10 hrs) at Modus Creative today and it was something of a baptism of fire. I spent all day working on a 34 page tool catalogue that had been started in-house by the tool company then passed on to someone at the agency who carried on with it before passing it on to someone else before they were called away and it came to me. I had no friken idea how these people had styled out the InDesign document or where the links were scattered around.

Any how, back tomorrow and hopefully some more creatively stimulating work will come my my way, anyway thank you again for the advice.
 
wac said:
Thank you all for the sage advice. I had my first day (10 hrs) at Modus Creative today and it was something of a baptism of fire. I spent all day working on a 34 page tool catalogue that had been started in-house by the tool company then passed on to someone at the agency who carried on with it before passing it on to someone else before they were called away and it came to me. I had no friken idea how these people had styled out the InDesign document or where the links were scattered around.

Any how, back tomorrow and hopefully some more creatively stimulating work will come my my way, anyway thank you again for the advice.

In a strange way, I miss the catalogues that I used to work on. 260 pages of shackles, gill nets and other marine equipment. I know... sounds boring. It wasn't that bad apart from just doing the one project for about 3 months and wondering whether you can still design stuff after.

Hope everything went well for you wac :)
 
Hi guys sorry I missed the replies. In fact my week there went so well that they kept me on for another three! All in all it was cracking experience as procedures were not at all as I had expected. I did about 25 jobs in total and thankfully many of them were a lot more interesting than the tooling catalogue although that did keep coming back to haunt me throughout my time there!
 
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