Evaluation.

I thought I'd do a mini evaluation because I feel I've got so much out of PPD this year and just generally in the past three years. Before doing PPD I hated presenting and I'll admit, I'm still not the biggest fan but I'm now able to stand at the front of a room and present without notes and feel confident in what I'm talking about so this is good progress! This year in particular I feel I've finally found where I would like to be within the industry, this is in a small graphic design studio, somewhere in the North of the UK. I've confirmed that I'm an image based designer throughout the DP module but I'm in no way looking to become freelance so I want to try and utilise this in my own time by selling things via my Etsy. I've applied for one job so far but I'm not too concerned because I'm taking a couple of weeks out to have a rest and gather my thoughts before ploughing into 'the real world' and then I'll be applying for anything that interests me! Initially on the job front, I was really worried because I'd read an ad for a job and think nope, that doesn't suit me or nope, I don't want to live in London but now I'm finding the location and the jobs that suit me so that has given me confidence. If I don't find a job straight away, I'm going to look at doing more work placements/internships so that I can gain more experience in Graphic Design that will hopefully go toward me getting a job. Overall, I'm feeling confident about my future and this has definitely got a lot to do with this module because it's given me the confidence I needed to talk to new people, in particular other professionals and decide exactly where I want to go. 

Design Presence; portfolio.

This is my final portfolio that I'm going to print for the end of year show. I changed the format to portrait after advice I recieved a while ago from Joe when I had my surgery. I prefer this a lot more since I made the changes for various reasons I discussed with Joe that it could be better. Although it appears minimal still with the space around some of the images, it's visually better because the images can be a lot larger with being on two pages. Each project has been allocated two pages for this reason. I've also included less text because the projects should be able to speak for themselves and a lot of text distracts from the imagery. I've included my favourite and most successful projects because I feel in interviews I will be able to speak about these most confidently and they also communicate my skills most successfully. 

Design Presence; business card.

I've ordered my final printed business cards in time for the end of year show so they should arrive on the 10th. I have however printed a paper sample for the purpose of submission. The final business cards will be 400gsm on matt coated stock with sqaure corners but look exactly like the example above. The colour could differ slightly because obviously they will be printed more professionally. 

Design Presence; samples of work postcards.

As well as my samples of work portfolio I've also decided to create postcard samples that I could actually send out to people whilst I'm looking for placements and studio visits. This is a nice element to have because people are more likely to take note if I send them something physical. I've chosen my best pieces of work that I'm really proud of so I feel confident in sending them out. I've printed them onto cartridge paper to fit with the hand rendered aspect of my work as this is quite tactile. 

Design Presence; letterhead.

I've created a branded letterhead as I quite like sending letters so this could come in handy at some point. 

Design Presence; samples of work.

I changed my samples of work portfolio to suit my new physical portfolio. The general layout has stayed the same but I've included less information about the actual outcomes and just left a sentence about the brief because really the work should speak for itself. The only difference between this and my actual portfolio is that this is landscape but this makes sense because this is more likely to be viewed on screen than anything else. 

Design Strategy; looking for jobs.

http://www.thedrum.com/jobs/

http://jobs.guardian.co.uk/

http://www.linkedin.com/job/home?trk=hb_tab_jobs_top

http://creativeboom.co.uk/

These are a few of the websites I've been looking on for jobs. I'm slowly finding jobs that I find appeal to me and my skill set and check these on a regular basis. I've applied for one job already off the back of this at UK Greetings. Going to really get into applying for jobs once I've had a couple of weeks break after uni. 

Design Presence; website.

http://cargocollective.com/kirstyaldersondesign

I've also updated my website with my most recent and favourite work. I've kept this more image based because this is the type of designer I'd like to be so I really want to showcase this skill in particular to potential employers and they are more likely to visit my website than they are my behance. I'm going to update this with some more image based work over the summer as I'd like to draw more in my spare time. I still need to link my domain to my cargo but I will get round to this eventually! 

Design Presence; behance.

http://www.behance.net/kirstyalderson

I've updated my behance with my favourite and most recent projects. 

Design Presence; samples of work.

My samples of work portfolio will be sent to people if they require a few examples of my skills and the work I've done. I've chosen some of my favourite and best projects for this and based this on my actual portfolio. 

Design Presence; personal cv.

I finally got round to updating my CV with new experience and the relevent references so that I'm able to send this through when applying for jobs. I've kept the general design quite simple because I want it to look professional but have my own twist on it with application of colour and my branding. The fact there is quite a lot of white space actually fits in well with my branding too. The reason the image is so small is because I want to keep personal details private on my blog.