KEEP PLUGGING AWAY!

We receive a lot of CV’s, we mean a lot, a lot a lot, more CV’s than offers of work. Its a very competitive creative marketplace out there…

For some, the rewards are high. For most of us, its a good Monday morning feeling. To earn a living doing something you love, dream of and create is a lucky position indeed.

BE ORIGINAL, BE CRITICAL, BE GOOD

• Establish what type of design you excel at and enjoy.
• Make sure that your portfolio reflects this but also shows breadth in your capabilty and willingness to learn.
• Create an emailable portfolio / website and a CV that reflects your experience and aims, show this to your peers – get feedback.
• Research companies, designers, studios, print shops and get to know your industry well, subscribe to Creative Review for up to date news.
• Find an internship and gather experience even if it means scrimping on pay for the first few months in exchange for valuable experience.
• While you wait for that opportunity, create personal projects that demonstrate your ability, vision, ideas and most of all your commitment to design.
• Keep learning, visually appraising, scrutinising and critisising. Find faults in all design and think of ways to improve it. Then record your work.
• Send out the CV, CD – PDF portfolios – website URLs to as many design agencies as possible. Spread your bets!
• If applying to a specific vacancy, rework your CV to cover all criteria that the vacancy requires. Make you seem like the perfect fit!
• Be prepared to work long hours, just clipping out objects, resizing images and making tea – but get your foot in the door, you’ll soon be on to retouching and that’s when the big bucks come…
• Keep persevering – and good luck!