I knew from a young age what my strengths were. I was colouring in and drawing from being a little girl and throughout school, I never excelled in the so called ‘academic’ subjects I was always better at what I was interested in and that was Art, design and Media. I did my work experience at a local advertising agency to get an insight into the design industry which really laid the foundations of what I was to become in the future.
After my GCSE’s I stuck to my strengths and did A Level Art and Design, Design Technology and Media Studies. My art at this stage was experimental and I enjoyed looking at other artists and what had influenced them and using their techniques and fusing them together. I went down the fashion route in Design Technology designing and making a ‘space age’ dress for the Millennium and researching the fashion industry through the ages and in Media we covered everything from films and newspapers to advertising and iconography which got me fired up and interested in the media world.
After completing my A Levels I did a Foundation Course in Art and Design and a specialist college in Leeds, Leeds college of Art and Design or Jacob Kramer as it was then called. I opted to do this course as it covered a variety of disciplines under the banner of Art and design and I wanted to try out different areas before making a career decision. After doing several modules covering a multitude of topics from fine art to interior design I chose to give Graphic Design and Interior Design a trial. I discovered that I wasn’t as interested in Interior Design as I had first thought and it was too technical and structured with all the 3D drawings and planning, I realised that I wanted to be an ideas person and have flexibility with my work and combine graphics and techniques and this was better suited to Graphic Design. So I had now chosen my specialist area and completed my course concentrating on this discipline.
After my foundation course I went on at the same college to do a BA Hons in Visual Communication, I knew at this point that I wanted to focus my efforts on advertising and Graphic Design and although the course catered for this, I found that it was pushing you to do advertising as a student rather than showing you what goes on in industry and giving you the computer, technical know how to survive in business. I decided after completing my BA to do the 2nd year of a HND in Advertising which I had overlooked before as I assumed the accolade of having a BA would be higher on a employers list, but I was wrong, what an employer looks for is the quality of your portfolio and your ability to show how you can apply your thoughts, ideas and designs to their client base.