Your first project and how you got it!

S

Sean Lee-Amies

Guest
So think waaaaaay back when you were just starting out as a designer (or 3D Modeller :p), tell us about your first job and how you got it!
My first real project consisted of website development and branding and the client was a dance school in the next town over. They didn't have a website yet and they were still stuck with the typical text logo, so there was lots to work with and not many restrictions! I managed to get the job through a friend that I'd worked with in retail for a couple of years. It was a mother of a friend of a friend situation, but it was good. I built the website and developed them a new logo! I still host their website for them and have kept in regular contact.
What about the rest of you, what was you first project and how did it go?
 
client came to me wanting me to do photo-realistic renderings, I did them, I got paid.
It's not exactly like I can say much else, it's all under nda lol
 
I assumed so... if they want my first ever project then that was more like
Mum: Levi, do this for this sheet for me on the computer so I can use it at school
Me: Do I have to
Mum: Yes
Me: If I have to
Me: Here you go
Mum: Not right, go change such and such
Me: grumble, grumble, grumble
Me: Hows this
Mum: That will do
I was still in (different) school lol
 
Great topic Sean! I actually planned on writing this a week or two ago but completely forgot! Was that the dance logo I saw some 1 - 2 years ago when we were chatting on skype? ^^
Another interesting aspect would be how much we asked for in zie $$ :p
I found my first project!! My old external HD - back from summer 2009!
 

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Yeah It was Alex!
Levi, first paying project :p Being paid in pocket money doesn't count ;)
What about you Scotty? Or has it been too long? ;)
Gianluca that's interesting, so they gave you a silver chain or something?
 
Sean Lee-Amies said:
Gianluca that's interesting, so they gave you a silver chain or something?
They gave me a photobook with a massive silver cover. It was the heaviest object ever carried in my life :p
Anyway, better than the folllowing project for a pastry shop. They paid me with a cake... a big one, a tasty one... but still a cake :D
 
Oh right. Well the first paid job was a video made for a ice skater... so random. Got paid 30$ I think.
Then I did a banner.. for 20$... but there were 43 changes I had to make. Yeah. Sad times.
 
Sean Lee-Amies said:
Levi, first paying project :p Being paid in pocket money doesn't count ;)
um... that would be the other one then... paid somewhere in the region of 400-500iirc, can't be bothered to check my accounts, but it was rather cheap.
 
I somehow got my first project through a design forum. Somebody needed a website, I told them I could do it. Learned it as I went. Things kept rolling in. Job's a good one.
 
Sean Lee-Amies said:
What about you Scotty? Or has it been too long?

Sorry Sean. I've been laid in a ditch pissed up living the hobo dream.
My first freelance gig was when I was at college and I got the job of doing all the gig posters for The Leadmill in Sheffield and also Sheffield Uni's music venues.
(I said "gig" twice in the same sentence)
I got £40 a pop and used to do posters for up and coming bands like Pulp and Manic Street Preachers who never really went on to do anything. ;)
I then got the job of fly posting them which actually paid a lot better at £1 per poster after the old sticker upper got beaten up in the public toilets mixing his wallpaper paste.
Used to see some funny things mixing our paste up in those Sheffield city centre public toilets and my mate quit when he found out what a "glory hole" was while having a poo break.
I went to the Leadmill a while back to see a band and they'd pasted all my old posters up from back in the 90's in the bar which was nice to see.
 
Tony Hardy said:
I somehow got my first project through a design forum. Somebody needed a website, I told them I could do it. Learned it as I went. Things kept rolling in. Job's a good one.
I got mine through a football forum.. :lol:
A guy on there works/worked for a company that needed an illustrator to work on an infographic for a small branch of a media/degitial company (don't really know how to describe them :huh: ) - there's a group of designers on this forum and he got in touch after someone suggested me. Ended up doing 2 jobs for them and was a complete n00b when it came to the whole quoting/invoicing/chasing payment thing. One of my designer mates was on constant email alert. :lol:
The internet can be a wonderful place.
 
My first job was at 2008 when i started study at university. It was a project for clipping path. But that time I was begginer and couldn't make it correctly. It was just simple job but I learned plenty important stuffs from that.
 
I do think that taking on jobs that you know you can do but don't have the currenty knowledge to do them is a good thing to do. I think it forces youf to learn.. and learn fast!
 
That's what I did Alex. When "panic mode" sets in on a job, you can surprise yourself with what you can actually achieve!
 
Yup very true. Then once you know it it can be done for future clients/work so win win.... unless you actually can't do it... then you're stuck! :D
 
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