Today, we have had two visitors- Anthony Fern and Bew Knox both of which are designers at two different design agencies. Anthony is a previous student from Chesterfield college who studied both art and design and graphics and then left to go to university in (Epsom), he is now based at a large graphic design company around our area which specialises in the leisure industry and so he spends most of his time designing posters, flyers and other promotional material for bars, pubs etc. I think this is both a good thing and bad because although it may give you a good experience of designing for companies, it also doesn't give you a lot of good work for your portfolio which would mean designing outside of work, perhaps freelancing.
Bew seemed more experienced and had worked for longer in the industry than Anthony. I asked him if he thought it was better to be a designer in a big city or somewhere more rural, as coming from quite a rural location, I find the thought of moving into a big city quite daunting. He told me that working in both is great, however, you often find that working in a city at a larger company restricts your creativity in the sense that you are given a brief from a large company and you don't have much freedom to play around with the brand whereas more rural agencies may allow you to spend longer and be more creative with brands and companies. I think I prefer the idea of being able to have that freedom, but also I think it is important that you dont stray too far from the original brief.
Bew seemed more experienced and had worked for longer in the industry than Anthony. I asked him if he thought it was better to be a designer in a big city or somewhere more rural, as coming from quite a rural location, I find the thought of moving into a big city quite daunting. He told me that working in both is great, however, you often find that working in a city at a larger company restricts your creativity in the sense that you are given a brief from a large company and you don't have much freedom to play around with the brand whereas more rural agencies may allow you to spend longer and be more creative with brands and companies. I think I prefer the idea of being able to have that freedom, but also I think it is important that you dont stray too far from the original brief.
Overall, i have really enjoy the past two days and i think they have been helpful as they have given me something to think about over the summer and i can hopefully start developing my portfolio and start thinking about where i'm going to go after my college course is finished.
