A great new addition ......Freia's first Blog

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.