OUGD602 - Placement: Leo Burnett

For a week at the beginning of August, I did a placement at Leo Burnett in London - an advertising agency who have 103 offices worldwide.

Initially I was a bit nervous as this was my first proper placement in a working environment. I also know that they worked with big clients such as McDonalds, so that was also a bit daunting. I was a bit worried that maybe I wouldn't be as experienced as they would like, or my design wouldn't be something that they like.

That said, I did find the experience enjoyable and found that I learnt a lot. They were all welcoming and I got a lot of time with a couple of different people who talked me through the way the agency was run, and showed me the different departments and the work that they do. Something that really surprised me was the amount of departments there were and all the very individual jobs they had.

For example, there was a office for people who worked on Photoshop to edit the imagery and manipulate it for advertisements. Then there was an office for the people to take these documents and set them for print. It previously didn't occur to me that these jobs would be split down because in my working practice, I have to do it all. This gave me a real insight into what is available in the industry as it shows that you don't have to be incredible at everything, but you could specialise in one particular area.

I was also given the chance to do a bit of work for McDonald's. Obviously it wasn't a huge bit of design work, but being able to work on such a big client in a small way was exciting anyway. It also allowed me to experience the way the design team worked in terms of checking the designs and how they go about making everything look perfect, even down to the smallest details of kerning headings.

Overall I found it to be an enjoyable experience, and I have been offered the chance to return for a placement, something which I would be more than happy to do.