Hey everyone! My name’s Freia, i'm 17 and I’m
currently doing work experience here at Apple Print. Recently I decided to
leave sixth form in order to focus my attention on finding a job and starting a
career. After I left, I started contacting my friends and family to see if
they knew of any work experience jobs going. I have a passion for media and
graphic design and I know that there are many different roles and career
choices that I can go down within this fun, but tough industry. Fashion and
music are also things I love so I thought I may as well do something I enjoy as
it will give me the motivation to do well and aim towards that job I would love
to end up doing.
I
was introduced to the digital department at Apple Print through a good friend's
mother where I met Ruth and Sarah. They told me about the work they do and it
immediately interested me. Web-design, graphic-design, marketing and social
media are all up my street. They kindly offered me some work experience that I
couldn't refuse. Luckily I had some experience using photoshop and other Adobe
packages from starting a graphic art A-level course. Just a few days after
meeting the team I started my work experience. As anyone would be, I was
nervous on my first day, but Andrew, Ruth, Sarah and Mark were all very warming
and after a couple of weeks I seem to have fitted in quite well.
My first few projects
have been really fun and have helped me learn a lot. I’ve had the chance to
meet some clients and even directly work with them as well as putting together
proposals and hand-outs for Orchard (Apple's new marketing arm). Ruth has helped me learn extra skills on
photoshop and indesign, and I’m hoping that in the future I can start helping
her with some of the design work she does, once I’ve gained some more
experience. Working with Sarah has also been great; together we have set up
social media sites for a couple of clients and I’ve helped come up with new
ideas about how to market businesses. On top of that I have been blogging and
of course making a lot of tea!
An
on-going project I’m really enjoying has been setting up Twitter, Facebook and
Pinterest sites for Decorative Mirrors and Glass. They’re a branch of Artifax
who sell beautiful Mirrors, bespoke glass, gifts, jewelllery and paintings.
I’ve never used Pinterest before so it was good fun learning the ropes and
creating pin boards full of images. Sarah and I also started up a competition
on Twitter and Facebook for Decorative Mirrors and Glass. This was great fun to
get involved in as we got to decide the name, the rules and eventually the
winner who will win a lovely mirror kindly donated by Jean, the owner of the
business.
I think my work
experience at Apple Print will really help me when applying for college,
university and future jobs. At some point, everyone will have that university
they would love to study at or wish they had studied at, whether it's a
language course at Bristol Uni or an Art degree at Chelsea college of Art and
Design. In my case, the London College of Fashion. Not to study textiles, or
fashion design, which I had thought for many years that's the route I wanted to
go down but figured out I definitely didn't like making clothes after what felt
like a long 2 years of textiles GCSE. Instead, fashion media. I have been asked
multiple times, 'what job do you see yourself doing in 10 years time'. The
truth is, I still have no idea, but I know that this work experience will help
me find the one job I love that will get me out of bed every morning even after
a long night out.
