Cover Letters

Here are a few of the cover letters I completed and sent when applying to placement roles. For some roles I had to simply send an email or fill in an automated form with reasons as to why I wanted to work there so I will include the ones that I can but I won’t be able to show them all.

My cover letters are consistent with my branding and brand identity.

I did a lot of research into each interview prior to applying to better adjust my Cover letter to them. I compiled my research in a separate blog post. Click here to see it.

My cover letters

Email cover letters

  • ESO

  • Little Thunder

 

*** I did not include all cover letters as it would get repetitive 🙂 ***

IXD302 Submission Links

*** So I decided to put all my research and organize it in a post to make it easier to navigate and mark it – I hope that helps 🙂 ***

 

1- CV and cover letter

Research and discovery

 


2- Investor pitch

Research and discovery


3- Proposal and invoice

Research and discovery

Elements project

It is easy to get lost in the infinite sea of information so I decided to make this a little easier to view and keep track of by listing all my research blog post links and other relevant links here to keep things nice and tidy.


Finished app

Click here to see my Figma Prototype


Research

 

 

All things placement

So I will be using this post to organize and sort all my posts relating to placement and career boosting – make it a little bit easier to find my work amongst my organized chaos.

Me trying to sort out my work LOL

Placement prep and research

Talks and events I attended

Company research

Placement interviews

  1. FinTrU interview – this was the 1st stage of the interview process.
  2. Global Payments interview – This was the first interview stage.
  3. FinTrU interview – part 2
  4. Rapid 7 UX interview
  5. ESO interview with MT

505 design

Here is a link to my Figma design file.

I wanted to make the logo look like the old style of calculator numbers so it would look like SOS and 505 at the same time, here is how it went:

 

So I wanted to keep the design of my presentation kind of simple so I could make it all about the information – I decided to stick to a simple black and red colour scheme. I wanted to make it clean and simple.

I used Canva to create my presentation. Here is a link to view it.

505 presentation (1)

I also developed user personas according to the kind of people I came across when researching the needs of people that inspired this product.

I did not want to go into too much detail in the presentation slide as I felt it would be distracting. I think this worked well as it meant that I would not be distracting the audience with visuals and instead encouraged them to listen.

Elena is a 60 year old woman who is homeless.

She has no constant access to healthcare or insurance so instead of risking huge bills she ignores the problem and risks further infection or injuries that could cost her, her life.

She has access to a phone but calling an ambulance still is not an option as she could not afford the costs.

Having to pay for medical bills would push her further into homelessness and her dire situation.

She should not have to compromise her health because of her social status.

Proposal research

I decided to start my research into design proposals, how to write one and how best use them. I read the book ‘A project guide to UX design’ I read chapter 3 ‘Proposals for Consultants and Freelancers’. It was an interesting read and it was were I got most of my information from.


What is a proposal?

A design proposal is a way to outline the work you expect to do and the time you will need to complete the client design brief. In this document you also highlight what the goals or aims for the project are and what the client expectations are for you as a designer. It can sometimes be used as a way to apply for a client brief when competing with other designers.

Do I need a proposal?

Yes! you should always write a proposal when working with clients. Not only are they a legal contract but they are also a way of protecting you. Promises can be broken on either side of the project so this is a way of ensuring that the work that is promised to take place, along with the payment is completed. The proposal will also ensure you as the designer are provided with the time needed to complete the project without being unnecessarily rushed.

A proposal also allows you to define terms that protect both sides in the event that something changes. If the client does not provide you with timely access to their resources, your timeline may slip; you need to make them aware of their obligations to the project’s success. If a client loses funding and kills the project and you do not have a proposal or other form of contract in place then you may run the risk of not getting paid for work you have already completed. Always write a proposal.

What should I include?

The sooner a proposal is approved and signed, the sooner you can begin work and-most importantly begin to get paid for the work.
The core components of a a good proposal are as follows:

1- Title page: This is what introduces your document. A typical title page consists of the following elements:

  • Client company name
  • Submission date
  • Client company logo (if you have permission to use it)
  • Proposal authors
  • Project title
  • Project reference number
  • Document type (proposal)
  • Cost
  • Version of proposal
  • Confidentiality

For your first proposal, include everything, except the client’s company logo, the cost, and (potentially) the project reference number. Why not include these elements on the title page? Includes things such as: client company name, project title, submission date etc.

It’s a good practice in general to send a link rather that an attachment so that things don’t get lost in the inbox.

Below is an example of a title page.

Next, on the first page inside I could include an introduction in the form of a short letter.

2- Revision history: This would be the amount of iterations made before getting to the final version.

3- Project overview/objectives: This would need to give a clear and solid overview of the project to be undertaken and the goals expected.

4- Project approach/my process: This is where you tell the client what your design process is like and how you will be completing their design brief. Here I could include client expectations, deadlines (my timeline)

5- Additional costs/fees and project pricing: Here you can break down the pricing into smaller segments. It is important to structure your pricing will pretty much define your relationship with the client.

For example: besides the logo design, you also list other items like: brand strategy that precedes logo design, and also stationery design or a style guide that follows logo design etc.

Keep in mind that it is easier to ask for a higher price and then lower it than it is to do the reverse.

A good practice is to give the client either a price range (if you charge a flat rate) or you can estimate hours (if you charge per hour).

6- Scope of work: This is where you say what aspects of the brief are your responsibilities or the clients.

7- Assumptions: Here you state what your expectations as a designer are of the clients.

8- Deliverables: Here you specify what kind of work your client can expect from you.

9- Ownership and rights: Copyright, ownership and how much or how little the client can use the work you produce for them.

10- Payment schedule: This depends on personal preference you could either have the client pay for a deposit before hand or they could pay you in instalments.

11- Acknowledgement and sign-off: This come at the end of the agreement were the client now has to sign the contract.

 

Developing my ideas

I started on paper after deciding on my ‘Only murders in the building’ themed app design. I had a few ideas that I ran by Kyle and then landed on the building idea.

I wrote down some of my ideas (see image above). Initially I was going to develop a monster themed app but I felt as though it had already been played out and wanted to go with something a bit different.

Minecraft was also a big source of inspiration at the beginning, especially since I love playing the game and making fantastical houses and structure; this lead me to move my focus towards building and architecture which in turn reminded me of the incredible architecture, illustrations and set design in my new favourite show ‘Only murders in the building’ Now obviously this is not kid appropriate but I still like the cleverness of the name so I decided to adapt it to ‘Only elements in the building’ which would then becoming my whole theme. I continued to sketch and note down some quick ideas and the design just sort of started taking shape. I wanted to bring in a bit more about the actual periodic table so I wanted to design the building in the same shape as the periodic table.

I wanted to make it an immersive and engaging experience for the kids so I thought that I could draw little windows that showed an element character peering out of for the kids to tap and explore or meet the element as it were.

I then started to do some visual research for inspiration for the artistic style. I of course drew some inspiration from the tv show ‘Only murders in the building’ but I also  took a closer look to the set design, promotional posters for the show and some of the artwork. I researched the artist and her name is Laura Perez (A Spanish artist) I really enjoyed her work and her playfulness with shadows. I talk about this in a lot more detail as seen in the image below.

One day after class I found this building near the campus that has a little light display set up where the colours change in a pattern – this fit with the inspiration the show game me and further highlighted this idea of being eye-catching and engaging; again I go into a lot more detail in the image below.

I remember watching 101 Dalmatians as a kid and how much I enjoyed the scenery and the artwork in the movie in spite of its muted colours; I want to draw and engage the users (kids) attention but I don’t want to have to rely on only using very bright colours as it would change the theme I am perusing so seeing more muted and realistic colours being successfully used here made me think of doing this as a sort of challenge to myself. I also wrote down some thoughts on my sketchbook while researching (see image below).

From this my sketches began to take shape along with the initial designs of the building. I started thinking of maybe creating an archway entryway that looked sort of like a tunnel of sorts; kind of like you see around Belfast. I was not however sure of how I would make this work as it would require a lot more transitions when prototyping it and at this point I had spent too much time on my portfolio and placement applications – Time management is something I really need to work on and this project showed me that.

Below are some more ideas and sketches.

I started thinking of the flow of the app and the screens that would need to be created. I also started considering branding for the app and wanted it to fit in with the elements in the periodic table as a sort of hint or tribute in a way.

I also decided to create human characters in Stan Lee fashion with their first names starting with the letter their element name starts with, eg Hydrangea Hydrogen. I also started considering making my characters inclusive so kids could feel represented and seen when playing the game. I didn’t want anyone to feel alienated so I kept this in mind.

I created my title for the app in the style in which periodic table elements are presented in a box. It felt playful while still providing a call back to its original sources – You can see the Figma process by clicking on Part 2 below.


Apologies in advanced for leaving the price sticker son but I hate the sticky feeling books get after taking the stickers off.


Another great source of research were these books I got on the periodic table. The one of the superheroes informed my character ideas and reinforced the idea of how to name my characters.

I liked how the character was presented and then the element block.

The book below was great for finding information that I knew was reliable on the elements. I also really liked the cover.

This book was a bit of an impulse buy but it paid off. Not only is the content laid out in a very successful way but the use of simple illustrations really works in well with the information without retracting from it – This is how I want my information pages to be.

Now it was time to jump into Figma, I have attached below the 3 Figma files were I did most of my layout work and such. I did my illustrations in procreate but in hindsight I think if time had allowed I would have made them less flat, maybe a bit more interesting also?

Working in Figma was not a challenge as I generally enjoy working with this software, it was however frustrating at times keeping up with the flow of my prototype links and with the disorganized chaos happening within my files.

Figma design files:

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Illustrations

I started off by adapting some of the building designs in 101 Dalmatians and making it my own and while I really liked the outcome, I simply did not have the time to complete a whole building in this style; it was also becoming hard to work out the logistics of hoe I would design the sides and again time was not on my side so I had to simplify.

This was my simplified solution to my previous problem. It did however loose a lot of its charm and character and in all honesty I was not happy with it but thought it was what I had to do so I pursued this design.

I then started thinking of possible backgrounds for my lettering and tried to blur the image of the entryway to give a hint of what was to come. I however ended up deciding not to use this idea as it simply did not work out as well as I had imagined it would.

 

These are my characters. Now looking back I think that my last character was the most developed one. There were shadows and layers to it, it just turned out better – it was the last one I drew up. Looking back I would draw the rest of the characters in the same style as I did for Aluminium.

After a feedback session I realized that my project was simply not up tp the standards so I went back to my original illustration and pursued that angle again. These are the illustrations I did to improve the look and feel of my app/

 

After creating the building block (lol) for the bottom part of my building I decided to continue with that style and add the normal range of elements behind the illustration I made above as in the periodic table itself the bottom 2 layers of the periodic table are separate from the rest.

I really liked how it turned out and after I was done with it I felt a lot more confident about the look and feel of it.

I played around with colour for quite a bit but decided to go for a dark navy background and add some snow details to set the scene,

I really like how my building turned out but if I was doing it again or had managed my time better I would have spent more time conducting some user research and worked on my character illustrations more – make them less flat.

Click here to use my prototype.

Investor pitch reflection

I received generally positive feedback from Ronan and Daniel but they did say that even though it was a noble project it did not create good revenue for an investor so this is something that I should have considered a bit more. I also maybe made slides too content heavy at the beginning with all the statistics.

I enjoyed the experience and was able to do relatively well in spite of my nerves and while there was room for improvement I am pleased with what I was able to present.

Website update part 2

After learning so much about accessibility and how to design with a user centered approach I decided to make some changes not only to the layout of my website but also to the colour scheme I use not only for my branding but also for my website. Adobe colors was a great resource for researching typography contrast and colour combinations.

The colours while lovely did not have a high enough contrast so I made a few adjustments to ensure everyone who would use my website could use it to its fullest.

I then started considering these colour changes and took a look at my previous designs; it previous looked like this after working on it for a few days:

Now I realize that the pink not only clashes with my illustrations skin colour but as a way of highlighting text, it does not fully work as it is not dark enough. The contrast ratio is too low.

To make this section easier to view I removed the colour for the background; I think this made a big difference in the presentation of my illustrations, making my illustrations stand out more.

I also tried to add the social icons to link my socials but I could still not figure out how to align them to the center – so I asked Kyle.

 

Here are some snapshots of the changes I implemented to my website to improve it:

I removed the block colours to separate the sections and instead stuck to white – I think that overall this looks and works better.

I tried removing the background colour for my intro section of my home page and I believe that it really improved its ease for viewing.

 

After Kyle helped me understand my issues with my navigation bar (It was no longer sticky) I was able to fix it. I really needed the navigation bar to be sticky as I had shown my website to some older family members both here and in Venezuela to see if the general layout of my site was easy enough for them to understand and navigate. I also sent the link out to other friends on Instagram (some who only speak Spanish) to see how accessible my site was – I sent it to my Spanish speaking friends to see if even with a language barrier the set up was straight forward enough to lead them through my website.

One of the things I learnt by doing this is that less is more and that consistency is my friend. The colour changes were also preferred as it made it easier for all who viewed it (They were all of varies ages, abilities and backgrounds) yet aside from aesthetic preferences, there was a general agreement that the higher contrast was the preferred version of the website.


As part of my IXD302 class Ronan McKinless came in to give us some information on applying to placements and how to make the most out of our time in placement. I reached out and sent him a link to my portfolio and he was kind enough to offer me some feedback.

I will be taking this on board and hopefully making the changes as soon as possible.

What I learnt the most through this process is that feedback is vital. Be it by peers, friends and even better yet more experienced designers. I also learnt to consider the user throughout the process.