OUGD602 - Placement: Cool Beans Creative

Two Week Industry Experience - Placement with Cool Beans Creative

Following the studio visit I had with Cool Beans Creative a few weeks ago, I started my two week placement with them. I was nervous to begin with, worried that my web design skills wouldn't be as refined or as good as they wanted, however I quickly found that I was able to work at my own pace and develop my skills in this area as I went.

Throughout my time at Cool Beans, I worked on several different projects - one which I did almost all the design work for. Knowing that they had the confidence in me to be able to let me work on that project single-handedly was a really great feeling and it definitely gave me a much needed confidence boost when it came to web and App design. For this brief 'Unity' - a new fitness App - I created a website design and created the majority of the App for both mobile and iPad. As well as working on this brief, I worked on creating variations of a website for another potential client YTM Group, did a bit of branding work for a business 'Don't Grow Me', and created a poster for 'Tri-Force Training'.

As well as this, I sat in on a number of client meetings and was able to see exactly how the client sees a project before it is realised, and how it progresses with their input. It was also really great to see a client being positive about the work I had created.

I think during the first week I was a bit hesitant about the work and my ability to do it, however in the second week I found that my skills in web and App design had definitely progressed and I was much more confident in creating better initial designs, meaning the final designs were much more refined much quicker. It definitely gave me more confidence in my ability to create designs that are good enough to be put out there and put into use.

Overall I really enjoyed these two weeks and found that it was a good break from university and it gave a much clearer insight into what it is to work in the industry. I think that I have grown a huge amount as a designer and professional thanks to this experience and I would have definitely continued working there.

I think the main thing that this experience showed me is that I actually really do enjoy creating design for web and App. I had always enjoyed it a bit, but tended to avoid it because I never felt that my designs were anywhere near professional or sophisticated enough. Now I feel a lot more confident in my ability and I definitely think that this is something I want to consider pursuing in the future.