On Friday 22nd February I attended an Alumni event to listen to three previous students talk about how their careers grew, changed and developed after graduating. They would be talking about their work as interior designers, architects, designers and more, explaining how our industries can span across a multitude of platforms and how you may find yourself in a job you might not have seen yourself in.
Sarah
After graduating Sarah faced many difficulties finding work, she went from door to door asking for work only to come back with nothing. The lack of work would have been disheartening and so she decided to travel. Eventually this lead to her finding her first job as an interior designer in Australia for six months. Working for a man and his wife, they were said to be easy to work with, the woman was stylish and the man held the money.
After working in Australia for half a year she came back and began working for a company called Paul Danson Imagineering where she stayed for six years. After working on a great number of projects including the Botanist and Townhouse she decided it was time to move on and start her own business. Around a year later her business was up and running, De_Freitas Design, where she has already worked on multiple cinemas across the country. Her main advice to us was to network, network, network! Get your name out there.
Amanda
Amanda’s career started quite differently as her first major project was a £7million job for AJ Bell, a financial company. This project consumed a huge amount of time as the detail and the finish is immense at this scale. She worked on this project for around a year before moving from commercial work into a much smaller scale, working on Hotel rooms at No chintz where she played around with colour and texture.
After working with smaller companies and doing small jobs she decided it was time to open her own business, named Miss Handled, specialising in homeware. Her work focuses on upcycling old handles, alongside artwork, lighting, clocks and many more, she has also developed her own eco friendly material to create her work using a mixture of Jesmonite and resin.
Miss Handled T light holder//plant pot
A tip given by Amanda, Often clients aren’t visual, when creating a mood board, why not make it physical. Allow the client to feel and see the materials that you will be using too.
Anthony
Anthony graduated in 2003 as a spatial designer his career has ranged over a substantial amount of different job roles. He has worked across museums, education, TV, retail, freelance and more. After discussing his job roles and viewing his design work he gave us his opinion on what makes a good designer and a few helpful tips.
Share knowledge, always help each other. You must open your own doors and make your own opportunities. Use a scope of different sources to influence and inspire your work, and sometimes in order to go forward you often have to go backwards and PRACTICE!
His key attributes;
Listening.
Drawing/sketching quickly.
Confidence, not arrogance.
The ability to be self critical.
Meeting these 3 was stimulating, as it was interesting to hear all the different areas of design they’d found themselves in. It’s nice to hear that it is doable it just requires a huge amount of hard work and dedication. I think from this session I took away a new mindset of being open to possibility because you never know where it might take you.
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