New Website: www.emma-price.co.uk

Since summer I have been fighting a losing battle with my website. Although I made progress initially, technical problems seem to stop me from getting to a point that I was happy with. Over this last weekend however, I wanted to ensure that I had at least a website up and running that I was happy with and that could be developed further over time.

Update portfolio - print and online

to come

Internships

to come

Numiko

Over Easter I spent two weeks at Numiko working with their UX team. During this time I didn't really take a designing role but more research. The time spent there was focussed on evaluating work and thinking of questions for user testing, reading up and writing personas and learning about user journeys and user testing. I learnt a lot about the important of user needs and how thinking about this can start to identify problems that need designing for. Writing the personas was particularly useful because it meant we had specific characters that we were designing for and instead of making presumptions we could start making real judgements.

After speaking to the guys there and evaluating my placement the opportunity for another longer placement over summer was mentioned (minimum of 6 months). I did however specify that although I enjoyed the user experience aspect of the design I would like to be involved in the actual design itself. At the moment it looks as though if I were to go there then I would take on a role that encompassed both of these aspects. Currently they have a UX team and a design team but no one that does both. And so it seems like quite a unique position to be in. If I were to go for this I think it would help me develop my understanding in user needs and how to make design accessible for different types of users. It seems like a good opportunity to further my career aspirations.

Leeds Chamber

One of the projects I was working on for Chamber. An infographic to show the percentage change in cost pressures.

Creative Milk Round

Registered to go to the creative milk round back in December but it was cancelled because some of the visiting professionals couldn't attend. This meant that I was able to get a spot when it was re-done in March. I registered and asked to speak to those involved in design and digital design and managed to get two interview slots. The first interview was with Hannah from Leeds Chamber of Commerce.

The interview with Chamber was very different to other interviews I'd had with people. Mainly this is because when I've been talking through my portfolio with people before they have been designers and so I've been quite confident in using terminology that designers might use. I also usually talk about what the brief was and why that made me make certain design decisions. When talking to someone from a more commercial background it felt that a different approach was probably needed. The discussion with Hannah went well, she liked the work for the Natural History Museum where I had used design to break down information. She mentioned that because the Chamber do a lot of different things for a variety of businesses its difficult to communicate what they do and they have a lot of information that needs breaking down.

I was in touch with Chamber a couple of times and went for another meeting with one of Hannah's colleagues. I've been in to work there a couple of times doing one day briefs. Last time I was in we did discuss perhaps working on a larger brief that I could get stuck into more so I'll pick that up in a couple of days.

At the milk round I also met with the managing director from Numiko, I talked through some of my portfolio but as I did I felt that my portfolio was a bit long so I need to address that. We discussed more about user needs and how to design for different audiences and it was really interesting. We discussed a potential placement and decided that two weeks working with the user interaction team might be useful. To learn about how they design for different users and their methods of research/user testing.

Portfolio Surgery - James from Thoughtful

The portfolio surgery went really well, I came out of it feeling really positive although it was also a bit scary. I got some good feedback that related more to my career aspirations rather than specific briefs although I did get some more specific feedback as well.

The first piece of advice was rather than display my work in a standard portfolio the layout of my portfolio would perhaps suit a box which is available at silver print:

I quite like this idea however I'm unsure how well it would travel and it might be better to spend a bit more money and get one of the more professional looking portfolios that last years third years had.

He wanted me to push the scuba diving brief a lot more, and take it through to digital. Something that has been pointed out before and something that I need to do.

There were also a few tweaks to do with my butterfly effect brief which I may or may not go ahead and do, depending on time etc and whether it would be worth it.

The main thing that stuck with me from this talk was that James thought that I would do better freelance rather than going to work in a studio. He seemed to think that with the work I have I would perhaps get bored in a studio because he couldn't think of any that do everything I want to do. This has sort of strengthened my feelings that I'd had previously but at the same time I don't believe I'm ready to make the jump from college to being freelance. I don't feel like I comfortably know the industry well enough and there is so much I still need to learn, that will come from working with other designers.

I spoke to Fred regarding all of this and we had a discussion and it seems that it might be a good idea to have a sort of goal for in 5 years time and the time leading up to that can be spent working in different studios and perhaps doing some freelance on the side so that when I feel more comfortable and know more about the industry I'll be ready to think about having my own studio. Obviously the financial implications of this would be difficult and so as well as learning the skills I need for this, the next 5 years are also a time for me to be saving so I can afford to support myself while the business is setting up.