Uni to business

6A2, 6B2

Using uni to enhance and benefit your career, all about internships!

Value of internships include – experience, contacts and mentorship. You need to make it your own experience.

Examples of graphic designers after uni:

The nomadic designer -

Dan cooper, Nomadic Designer was his final year project in 2011/2012 he had the idea that if you had the equipment you can work anywhere. He did a six-week project from London to Reykjavik and back then through Europe. He says to his mentors that “I’ll give you two days, you give me one back”. Which is a clever way to gather experience whilst helping others.

The Cool Bus –

The Cool Bus was 4 creative graduates who just finished their degrees and one yoga teacher. They used final uni project to create a mobile graphic design studio to travel with after their degree. They all got summer jobs after uni and saved up $1000 to take with them travelling. They spent 3 months travelling, where they updated their Tumblr blog every day to show the story and the process they went through. They arranged some jobs in advance and some through hustling.

One of the members (Paul) went for and interview at WILD where he applied to be a junior designer and the interviewer only wanted to talk about The Cool Bus when he tried to talk about other stuff. They ended up offering him the role of art director. This all shows that you need to try to do something that will stand out from the crowd and shows you have personality.

Soren Danielsen –

This designer started off in graphics but ended up moving more into motion. His tactic was to try to get viral. He made a promo video using motion showing his interests and his background, which was then viewed 30,000 times. He posted it to Facebook and Reddit where he got a lot of crit feedback from professionals.

The Pop-Up Agency –

It was originally a 5-person team, required to do an internship however they didn’t fit the role and wanted more ownership. The decided their line to get clients was that they could solve any creative brief in 48hrs. They did 15 briefs, 15 cities in 15 weeks they used internship period to launch their business. They had rules for their clients, where their travel and accommodation are always paid for. Then then went down to a team of two who get £40,000 to solve brief plus travel, they needed pop-up tour to work out market and how it worked as they wanted to work with big brands rather than agencies. They say if you’re going to take risk, make sure rewards are worth it.

From all of this you should use university to experiment, don’t be afraid to fail. They all tap in creators interest and passions.