Advice & feedback please :-)

R

rosie

New Member
Hi all,

I'm new here, and to forums in general, but thought this might be a good place to ask for advice and get some feedback! Having recently completed a course in graphic design, which I loved, I'm now looking to get some relevant industry experience (I'm 27 and have several years of work experience, however none of it is in design). I have set up a website showing some of my work:

Home : Rosie Cracknell

I'd be really interested to know what you think of my work - good or bad!

Ideally I would love to be working as a junior designer in a studio and am applying for everything I see advertised - I'm also contacting studios to ask for advice and feedback. I'd be very interested in doing a work placement/internship to get some experience too.

Thanks in advance for your advice, feedback, help or criticism!

Rosie
 
Hi Rosie,

I think the work on your website is really good and shows a lot of promise - I like your use of type and the clean and minimal way you've presented your work.

What I would suggest is including a bit more info about your experience and design skills on your website - it would be good for employers to find out what software skills you have.

In terms of adding to your portfolio, I would try and include a few more strong design ideas that don't necessarily rely on great photography...have you created any logo's or business cards that you could put on your website?

Good luck with the job search
 
Thanks so much for your suggestions. I've taken another look at the briefs I've got up on my website and you're right - I think I'll add a few branding projects where I developed a logo, business card, stationary etc. Hopefully it'll help to show a bit more variety in my work.

Thanks again, it's really nice to get some positive and constructive feedback :icon_smile:
 
Design Work Opinions

Really nice work Rosie, very strong on the typography front (especially Galvanize Magazine).

Regarding the work on your site, I would suggest adding a couple more images/slides per project to give a better overview of the work. Also a little more description for each project would be a nice way to lead you into the design.

But overall very strong work.
 
Rosie your work is really nice, I always like minimal, clean and mature design like this. Ive bookmarked your site.

I also recently finnished my graphic course and am also 27. I managed to get a bit of luck and land a job at the start of Jan, but before this I was out of work since the summer (june when the course ended). Along those months I had a few interviews and got advice and tips etc.

I think you should mould your portfolio to the design place your applying to. This might mean having a pyshical copy i.e prints and folder and swapping what goes in when your attending interviews , to creating PDF's to send online, each one catering for the type of place your applying to.

So research the place , look at the work they do , the clients they have and then you can mould your work towards that place. For example one interview I attended , I packed my portfolio which I sent online , and brought in a folder with visual pieces using alot of photography/illustration and basically he told me he wanted to see more branding , identity and logo design.. etc as they mainly did that sort of design. Other places work in advertising and entertainment industries etc. so thats where your visual work would be stronger.

One thing I would advise is try get freelance projects to work on , this counts as experience and you can put it in your work portfolio as a professional job even if its a small litttle job you did for a friend etc

Im sure you will get a chance sooner or later.

oh one last thing , maybe add your CV and PDF portfolio to your website to be able to download, this is good for the odd chance someone does download them and prints it out and takes it round the office to show people etc. I know the place I work now did this.

Will
 
Thanks very much for your suggestions and compliments wdltd - I'm going to add a few more projects and extend some of the briefs already up there this week. I'll take a look at improving the descriptions too.

Will - thanks a lot for your post too, nice to hear someone elses story. I think your hints and tips will be really useful and I'm definitely going to try and tailor my work to appeal to the individual studios that I'll be applying to. Congrats on the job by the way! I've checked out your website - I like the Type Face magazine you designed- the inside spread especially - nice!
 
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