I should aim:

• To be introduced to professional practices within the creative industry, career options and skills to improve employability.
• To demonstrate a clear understanding of idea generation and research tools for digital product design.
• To demonstrate skills in written and verbal communication within a professional context.
• Working on paper and supporting research and independent study. Reflecting and evaluating your work in a professional context.

I will need to

• Develop professional practices skills and employability.
• Make a good CV, cover letter.
• Learn how to give a pitch and confidently present ideas.
• Create products that will solve problems.
• Record my idea generation process and the research that leads me to my final design outcomes.
• Produce work and research and take on feedback within the allowed time.
• Aim for personal development and career development.

• Formative feedback: this is the kind of feedback that helps the work progress and its development.
• Summative feedback: this is the feedback one receives after the work has been handed in.

Preparing for Placement

• Always ask, mentors that simply refuse to help are useless to me as a young designer as they don’t help me increase and hone my skills. Do no waste your time, it is not worth it.
• It is ideal to recognize a bad situation when you are in one, if your studio environment is not helping you grow, then you should leave it. You are not only there to work but most importantly also to learn and improve.
• As part of building up yourself as a young designer attending events such as the Belfast Design Week would be greatly beneficial.
• Be aware of the challenges of your industry and how it is continually changing. AIGA (the professional association for design) has an amazing website which would make for a great resource.
• The UX design collective trends has a great resource – 100 lessons for 2021
• The article ‘are you a good fit for UX?‘ talks about skills you need to succeed in the industry; this would be a great learning resource.
• Employability; it is essential that I identify my strengths and weaknesses.
• What kind of studio environment am I interested in. It’s up to me to find the direction I want to go in.
• Challenge yourself, this will help you grow as a designer, learn new skills and develop my design process.
• When creating my portfolio to show to employers a mix of physical and digital work is a MUST.
  You can get ideas down on paper faster than on screen, these sketches are essential when applying for placement.
• Don’t let an employer pay you less because they know you are willing to do the job simply for the love of it. Get you that money sis.
• You need to know what you are looking for before you start looking for it. Separate the jobs that are of interest to you and set aside the ones that are not of interest.

Possible job roles

• UX designer
• UX researcher
• UI designer
• UX engineer
• Visual designer
• Content designer
• Front-end developer
• Graphic Design
• Product designer

Here is a link to a separate blog post where I carried out further research into the different career directions I can take.

Companies that have previously offered placement

• Rapid7
• Puppet
• Fathom UX
• Output Digital
• David Henderson Design
• White Space
• Sugar Rush
• Little Thunder
• Cirdan
• PSNI
• Secure Broadcast
• Core Systems
• Global Payments
• Qarik
• Aurion Learning

Things I would like to have in a workplace

• Innovation
• Flexibility
• Creativity
• Growth opportunities
• Feedback
• Mentorship
• Travel opportunities
• Driven
• Exciting
• Learning opportunities
• Friendly
• High quality content created
• Collaborative
• Great pay
• Focus on work/life balance
• Learning Opportunities
• Good fitting environment – it is important to be mindful of the environment and that you are a good fit for it.