After my placement at the South London Club came to an end last week I signed up with employment agency Brook Street in the hope that they could find me some work. Having left them my CV they got back to me letting me know that a vacancy for a Designer/ Artworker had come up in a town not too far from my own. I jumped at the opportunity and on Monday went for an interview and portfolio check at the company – ‘Premier Print and Promotions’. This was the perfect opportunity for me to show off my recently updated portfolio and explain the roles and responsibilities that I had at the South London Club. The interview went well as I had plenty of work to show them from this site and could back up the Marketing & Design Manager’s questions with real life examples. I was hired on the spot, started the next day and have just completed my first week at the company.

Premier Print and Promotions are a multi-award winning distributor of promotional merchandise and print based in Kelvedon, Essex. My role within the company so far has been to assist the design team in a range of different tasks including the checking of supplier proofs, saving artwork files and checking the usability of logos sent into the company from potential customers. It has been a big change from my role at the South London Club, but I have been able to apply the skills that I learnt during my time there. The design team here mainly use Illustrator, so I have had to adapt to my colleagues’ work flow of doing most things in that programme. I shifted out of my previously “Photoshop only” mentality during my time at the South London Club and have continued to break out of bad habits at this new job. I have also been properly introduced to the web-based project management application ‘Trello’. I had briefly used the tool at University during one particular project but never fully understood it’s capabilities and uses for a professional company. It is the perfect tool for different departments to send projects and requests between each other, where everyone can see what needs doing and win what order basis the urgency of the task. I feel that my knowledge of the software will be key to my development as a professional as I now have an understanding of how companies spread work between different departments and make sure tasks are delegated properly. This is an insight into professional work spaces that I never knew about during University and is a skill that I will take into third year, where I will start organising my work using Trello and encourage others to do so when working in a group.

Working in the ‘Studio” department of Premier Print I have been mainly dealing with print as the name of the company would suggest. My work at University and at the South London Club has mainly been digital, where I have not had to give much thought to the printing process. Here at Premier I have had to re-educate myself about the importance of DPI resolution, colour set-up and bleed areas. Part of my job has been to check that supplier proofs match the artwork that was sent to them by the company I work for. Having been shown the ropes on Tuesday (my first day) I made a note of everything I was taught and have been been carefully checking proofs ever since. This is already having a big impact on my creative practice as I am widening my skill set to print as opposed to just digital. At the South London Club it was someone else’s job to check that t-shirts and mugs were printed correctly, however that responsibility now lies with me. Checking proofs has been a great introduction to the company as it has given me an idea of the workflow here and has had me talking to multiple departments including admin and sales. Not only have they have been asking me to examine supplier proofs but they have also been getting me to check the usability of logos that they are sent by customers for print. I have been letting them know whether the logos are vectors (which they should be) and whether text is outlined and ready for print. Like checking proofs, this is another part of the design industry I had never been exposed to at University or the South London Club, but I now know how essential it is for things like this to be checked in the printing world.

It is crazy to think that at the start of the week I didn’t have any job and have now just completed my first week as an Artworker for a major printing company. I am learning new skills all the time that are helping me to grow as a designer in an industry I had not yet been a part of. I am grateful for the opportunity and can’t wait to se what next week has in store!