Day Five

For my final day of work experience, I did some of the paper work rather than the design work for my boss Karen Fraser. I was given a template to follow, and had to write up a succint discription of the courses I had been told to write about, such as the language and construction courses. I uses the Bath College website course discriptions for help but thought I did quite a good job. I had to do a page per course and make sure I used a style of writing that was easy to understand. After I finished them, I showed my colleague Matt who helped me improve them.
I then took them to the student advice centre and asked if they would put them up, under Karens orders, so that everyone would be aware of what courses were available etc.
After this, as Kim and Samantha were away, Karen had no more projects for me, and as I still had two hours work experience left I tried to set myself some work. I remembered that Samantha had told me to take pictures of a building that was set to be altered as she wanted 'before' images, so I completed these and then emailed them to her. I also emailed her my air cabin photographs which seemed decent, as this was my last day and I would not have access to the room again and this was my last chance to send her my images.
As I still had time left till the end of the day and I had internet access, I finished up all my other work for my college studies to fill the time.
I was then asked by Andy to find an image of a nurse for a presentation he was creating. He was having trouble with it as the majority of the photographs he was finding would be inapropriate for what he was doing. I completed this task and emailed him my findings. I was then asked by Karen to explore the City of Bath College website to see if there were any pages or links that were confusing or misleading, as the website was going to be revamped shortly.

I think my week of work experience has been very useful and constructive and I have learned a lot about the working environment from it. I enjoyed it most when I had a lot of work to keep me busy, and I was greatful for any of the odd jobs my colleagues assigned me. I think as I worked over the space of a week I got a more accurate view of what the office environment is like as I got to see everyone else get on with their day to day business. I have decided that marketing is an option when choosing my own career, as my collegues work is the sort of things I would like to be doing, and they seemed to have a lot of their own input as they were in charge with the design and looks of things such as posters, leaflets and prospectuses.

Day Four

My fourth day of work experience primarily involved preparing for the Open Evening of that day. I found that a lot of my colleagues were stressed because of the amount of pressure they were under to get everything right. Most of my tasks for this day were to help get everything organised, such as cutting paper up to create the registration and feedback forms, or getting direction signs for the open evening laminated. One of my jobs was also to put these signs up, so that the visitors would be able to find the venue easily. I had to put them in logical places and use my own common sense.
After all the initial preparing, I helped Samantha by setting up the main room it would be held in. I helped put up the banner stands that featured the names of the subjects you could enquire about, and I set up the tables that corresponded with the banners. I placed things like full-time and part-time prospectuses on them with pens and pencils with the bath logo on. Not long after this, the visitors started arriving. My main job for the evening was standing at the welcome desk, explaining how the evening would play out, and giving people the registration and feedback forms and telling them where to go.

This was by far the busiest day of my work experience as there was so much to prepare. I think it was the best way to see what it is like working in this sort of environment as I got to see my colleagues handling the stress and pressure they were put under. I think I would be good working at this sort of pace as I am level headed and organised, and can see things with a clear mind. I think the evening was very well organised and there were no problems and everything seemed to run smoothly.

Day Three

For the majority of the morning I finished my leaflets, and edited the photographs that I had managed to take of the air cabin. However there were not a lot of photographs to work with, so I had to make what I had look as professional as possible as this was what my aim had been.
My next task was to use the website http://www.shutterstock.com/ to find images of physical and learning difficulties, equality and diversity, for a poster that I would create later based on equality. I found this quite a challenging activity as it is quite difficult to find images that portray a learning difficulty, especially as I was restricted to just the one website. I managed to find a satisfactory amount of images for the other categories however so after this I began the poster.
My guidelines were that it must include the Bath College logo, and also the text 'Working together to promote equality and student success'. I was also told that I should initially make the poster A3 sized, then my coworkers could cut it down if they thought it appropriate.

I created the poster in Photoshop, making a mosaic of the images I had collected to back up the text and attached the Bath College logo. I thought that the poster still looked a little bland so I added a background pattern with a very low opacity so it did not make the poster appear too crowded, and so the background did not detract from the text or images. I was pleased with the overall outcome. Image attached.

Day Two

For this second day I began by finishing my banners. I did this for most of the morning, then slightly edited a few of the images for the 'before' shots of the gym building. After this, Kim had some work for me. She asked if I would be interested in designing the leaflets/vouchers for Hair and Beauty students. These would entitle them to money off hair treaments etc. I had guidelines for this, such as the colour scheme and fonts I could use, and I had to use the Bath College logo. But again I had free reign of my ideas. I decided to have them quite small, around A6 size, and to have the colour theme of blue to run in with the Bath College logo. I designed one vouched for each of the three offers, each with an image that reflected the content.
After showing Kim my draft ideas, she said I had the right idea but I had to make them more seasonal, and to include a christmas theme. For this I started to add seasonal images for the backdrops of the vouchers and had very positive feedback. I tried to keep them within a colour theme. I had one with a christmas tree background, and an orange/peach theme, and blue for the other two with snowflakes. My ideas are attached.

After this, Samantha asked me to take some photographs of the Travel and Tourism sector of the college, as they had created a model air cabin. When I arrived however the room was just getting locked up, so I managed to get a few photographs but I was rushed, so Samantha booked the room especially for me to take my time and get good photos another day of the week. So far I am thoroughly enjoying my work experience as I am able to use all the skills I already have, such as photography and photo editing, but also have time and oportunities to build on them. I also feel I have gained confidence when talking to people through this, as it is necessary for a successful working environment. I have also become more adequate at working to guidelines and briefs.

Day One

For my work experience placement I worked in the Marketing office of Bath College.

My first day of work experience was quite enjoyable and I learnt a lot about the working environment. When I arrived, I met the people who work in the Marketing office, Samantha Harding, the marketing coordinator, Kimberley Morris, a Graphic Designer, Andy Street, a web editor and technical development advisor, and Matthew Smith, the public relations officer. Their boss was Karen Fraser, the manager of marketing and client services. They were all working on issues at their desks, such as leaflet designs and organising the pending open day. I asked Samantha what I should do and she said that her and her colleagues had several odd jobs for me to get on with. First off I would be designing the banner for the top of the college website. Karen told me that they change it to reflect the seasons, and they needed a new one for autumn.

To start this, I went out with my own camera that I brought with me, and started taking scenic photographs of the college. I wanted it to seem as seasonal as I could so I tried framing the images with nearby trees, or taking picture of foliage to add later when editing the photographs. I had a few problems doing this exercise. First of all, the college was being built on so there were many pieces of machinery scattered around, and also workmen, cranes and diggers etc. that got in the way of me taking certain photographs. One other issue was that fact it was such a dreary day. The lighting was terrible for my photographs as there were so many clouds and it was beginning to rain, so I took what I could then went back to the office to begin editing. I used Photoshop on the laptop I had been lent to start playing around with the photographs and effects and seeing what looked best. I asked Samantha what dimensions to use for the banner, and began work.
The editing process was left entirely up to me, which I was glad for as I could use my own ideas. In total I made around 10 different banners, of which the majority of had the ‘Diffuse Glow’ filter on, to add some light and make it seem more seasonal. I also saturated most of the images for the same effect, and added some red and green tones to trees. However, as the banner was a lot wider than it was high, I merged around three images together for each one. These would only be sections of images, such as the tops of trees or the corners of buildings, and I found this worked extremely well and gave me the desired effect. The main thing they all had in common was they all deliberately featured the Bath College logo for obvious reasons, and had a lot of trees surrounding the buildings etc. I am glad that I could use skills that I have already learnt, such as my ability to use editing softwares etc. I showed both Samantha and Kim my banners and they were both impressed and complimented me on my hard work.

Samantha had one last job for me to do, and it was to take pictures of the gym block in the college, as it is soon to be rebuilt and she needed 'before' shots to compare to the new building in the future. She didn't seem too bothered about the specifics of the image, so I took several photographs from many angles in hope I would get what she wanted. I was pleased with all my work and enjoyed creating it. From my day I learnt that coworkers have to work together and help eachother out to make everything run smoothly, and people need to finish their tasks so not to hold everyone else up. I think this is a very good placement as it gave me an insight to what the working world is really like.

Attached are a few of the banners I created.