Design and market:Week 17 Getting in Touch

While writing emails to my chosen companies I thought it would be more appropriate to have personal referrals. I spoke to lectures, professors and fellow students in order to make first contact.

I also used the opportunity to speak with the Mill lecture team while they were visiting DJCAD. They gave me contact details to one of the recruiters, who we interviewed when we visited London.

However I didn’t have all the contacts I was looking for so I phoned and emailed companies directly.

Here you can find an example of the letters: 

Design and Market . Week 18. Questions

On 3rd February 2012 myself and Sarah, were brainstorming ideas for the questions  Below you can see what I came up with, some of them are research question, some are interview one:

• How company was created/What is the history of the company 
• how did get involved in the company to person interviewed
• how do you get your clients
• How do you market yourself /advertise
• Who are you clients
• What makes you different form competitors
• How the structure of the company looks like
• What are your plans for the future, plans for the growth
• Do you do everything in house, do you have freelancers/outside brother company
• How do recruiter your talent
• Can you say that in VFX industry you can talk about niche? If yes, do u have one
• Can you run individual VFX business
• What sort of amount of money you need to invest to start up VFX company
• Do you have any deals with the software companies
• What is the usual entry road into the company
• What is your profit
• what are the aims of the company
• Are there any values that you particularity believe in
• How many people do you employ 
• What is the official company status (stock shares etc.)

Also I had a close look at VES - The Visual Effects Society. In my opinion it is a good starting point for the research.  

Design and market Week 18 Networking

Week 18 brought a personal networking revolution. Inspired by Mike Press and Emma Walker - Chief Executive of Craft Scotland I set up my linked in and twitter account, updated my cv, updated my website, set up my more professional email address and design business cards.

So below you can find links to all of the above:

•  Linked in Profile
• personal website
• twitter @jhjakubowska

I had some much fun while designing business cards:

After talking to lots of people, both at college and work I have decided to go for this design:

Design and market. Week 17. Getting in touch. Approach letter.

Before I started contacting companies I researched how to approach them in an appropriate manner. Since English is not my first language I needed to look closely how to write a formal approach letter. I found the Stanford University website very helpful which clearly explained the whole process together with clear examples.

What a good approach letter should contain:

1. Start with a personal statement which connects you to the reader. If you lack a personal referral,

you might open with: “I am writing to you because of your position as...” or “Because of your experience

in...”, or “We have a common interest in...”’ or “Since we are both alumni of_________________ I

thought...” If you have a referral, you might start with: “Mr., Mrs., Dr., suggested that I contact you...”

2. Orient the reader to your purpose. Explain that you do not expect the reader to know of any current

job openings, but you would like his or her help, advice, suggestions, or guidance. Stress your purpose(

s): to get his or her advice on your career plans, obtain occupational information, or discuss future

work possibilities. Explain your current situation.

3. Close your letter by requesting a brief meeting at a mutually convenient time. Indicate that you

will call in a few days to arrange a meeting.

4. Be clear. Have a specific purpose in mind before writing this letter.

5. Always address the letter to a name, never to a position or title.

6. Make the letter brief, unless there are special reasons for going into detail.

7. Make your letters warm and personal. Avoid boastful, aggressive and stereotyped phrases.

8. Carefully proofread for grammatical, spelling or typing errors.

9. Neatly type your letter. Leave wide margins.

10. Type on good quality bond stationery. Never use erasable, copy machine or onion-skin paper. 

11. Keep copies of all correspondence in an efficient filing system for follow-up purposes.

I also sent my letter to friends so they could proofread it. A big thank you to Ania, Andy, Jon and Lee for helping me with this.

In addition to my research I was also looking at Polish etiquette of writing those type of letters.

And yes some things are done in different way to make me even more confusion

Since I was also contacting a Polish company it was interesting for me to compare the different approaches to writing a formal business letter.

Design and Market . Week 16. Presentation.

 Presentation:

One of the requirements of the Design and Market module is to present the artistic achievements and commercial success of a company I admire. This research aims to give us an insight into the creative sector and an understanding of how the chosen company operates as a business. The presentation should be delivered to a group of students and professors from different disciplines such as animation, graphic design and illustration. The aim of this project is to deepen the understanding of the industry and prepare students to enter the market.

Working in groups:

Within our specialism we divided into groups of four, five or six and prepared a twenty-minute presentation. The evaluation of this project will provide 50% of our final grade.

On January 27 2012 the animation department was divided into three groups. Within the groups we selected specific areas of interest. Some people decided to analyse companies from traditional animation, some went in the direction of computer games and the group that I found myself in decided to analyse companies from the visual effects industry.

Plan of action:

During the first meeting the group decided that each of us will try to contact three companies and organise a meeting at their offices.

Sarah Rettie took on: MPC, ILM, The Mill. Daniel McCance researched Digital Domain, Prime Focus and Cinesite. I contacted: Dneg, Digicam Picture and Framestore. In addition, I decided to contact the Platige Image company that is based in Warsaw. In the following week, we were joined by Charlie Lodge, and her task was to contact Escapes Studios, a VFX training company.

 

Prezentacja:

Jednym z warunków zaliczenia kursu Design and Market jest przygotowanie prezentacji. Prezentacja ta wymaga od mnie analizy rynku i wybranej prze zemnie firmy, firmy, którą podziwiam za osiągnięcia artystyczne oraz sukces komercyjny. Projekt polega na przygotowaniu prezentacji dla grupy studentów z różnych dyscyplin jak animacja, projektowanie graficzne, ilustracja itp. oraz profesorów. Celem tego projektu jest pogłębienie rozumienia branży oraz przygotowanie studentów do wejścia na rynek pracy.

Praca w grupach:

W obrębie naszej specjalizacji mamy za zadanie dobrać się w grupy: cztero, pięcio lub sześcioosobowe i przygotować dwudziestominutowa prezentacje. Ocena tego projektu będzie stanowić 50% naszej oceny końcowej.

27 stycznia 2012 wydział animacji podzielony został na trzy grupy. W grupy dobraliśmy się na podstawie zainteresowań: część osób zdecydowała się na analizę firm zajmujących się tradycyjna animacja, część poszła w kierunku gier komputerowy, a ostatnia moja grupa zdecydowała się na analizę firm z branży efektów specjalnych

Plan działania:

W czasie pierwszego spotkania grupa postanowiła, ze każdy z nas postara się skontaktować z trzema firmami i umówić na spotkanie.

Sarah Rettie przypadły firmy: MPC, ILM, The Mill. Daniel McCance zajmuje się: Digital Domain, Prime Focus and Cinesite. Mnie przypadły w udziale: Dneg, Digic Picture and Framestore. W ramach własnej inicjatywy postanowiłam skontaktować się z Platige Image firma która ma bazę w Warszawie. W następny tygodniu dołączyła do nas Charlie Lodge, Jej przypadły w udziale Escapes Studios firma zajmująca się treningiem VFX

Design and Market . An introduction...

For me, this blog will take the form of diary. I've never kept a diary, but I have attempted a few times in my life to do so. It has never come to me easily. Keeping a public, module specific diary seems an even more difficult task. Writing a blog in a foreign language and updating it regularly seems to be an impossible task! Laura - my friend and fellow student suggested that it may be easier for me to meet this challenge by first writing in Polish, then translating what I have written into English. Therefore, these posts can be seen in two versions and I can attempt to express myself more clearly.

Last year brought unexpected changes. DJCAD students were faced with changes in the Undergraduate Programme. The entire course structure has been reviewed to meet expectations of the market, as well as budget cuts in education. In my opinion, the changes are the most positive phenomenon. Questionable, however, is how they have been introduced. Almost immediately students felt that they are treated like guinea pigs. I must admit that it is not quite a comfortable situation for me to be in.

We were given three options to choose from at the end of Level 2, the first of these routes was the traditional, comparative theoretical work - a dissertation. The second choice/module focused on international studies (this year China) and lastly, a module titled Design and The Market. My choice was Design and the Market. A business, more practical side of it was really appealing to me.

The second half of January 2012 held the first of the lectures. First impression: module blog is professionally prepared; module information is easy to access, interesting presentations and very well-prepared lectures.

However some of the statements in this first lecture raised my concerns. A lot of unknowns are ahead of us. We still do not really know what is expected from us in the fourth year, we do not know whether the internship is a compulsory part of the course and if we receive placement assistance.

The third and fourth years will therefore be a great challenge!

Blog jest dla mnie formą pamiętnika. Nigdy nie prowadziłam pamiętnika, choć próbowałam  kilka razu życiu . Nigdy nie przychodziło to mi łatwo. Prowadzenie publicznego pamiętnika wydaje mi się jeszcze trudniejszym zadaniem. Pisanie bloga w obcym języku i uaktualnienie go regularnie wydaje się zadaniem niewykonalnym. Laura - koleżanka po fachu zasugerował, że może łatwiej mi będzie sprostać temu zadaniu jeśli będę mogła pisać w pierwszej kolejności w języku polskim. Dlatego też posty te możecie oglądać w dwóch wersjach.

Zeszły rok przeniósł nieoczekiwane zmiany. Studenci DJCAD zostali postawieni przed faktem zmian w programie nauczania. Cała struktura kursu została zreformowana aby wyjść na przeciw oczekiwaniom rynku …..oraz cięciom budżetowym. Moim zdaniem zmiany są jak najbardziej pozytywnym zjawiskiem. Kwestią dyskusyjną jest jednak sposób w jaki zostały wprowadzone. To co jako studenci odczuliśmy niemal momentalnie to fakt, ze jesteśmy traktowani jak króliki doświadczalne. Muszę przyznać że nie do końca jest to dla mnie sytuacja komfortowa

Jedną z ważniejszych zaproponowanych zmian jest opcja wyboru pomiędzy tradycyjną pracą teoretyczno – porównawczą, tak zwaną dysertacją, kursem skoncentrowanym na studiach międzynarodowych ( w tym rok są to Chiny) oraz kursem zatytułowanym Design and the Market (Projektowanie graficzne i Rynek)

W drugiej połowie stycznia tego roku odbył się pierwszy z wykładów Design and Market. Pierwsze wrażenia: profesjonalnie przygotowany blog, łatwy dostęp do informacji, interesujące prezentacje i bardzo dobrze przygotowane wykłady.

Kilka z twierdzeń jakie padły w tymże wykładzie budzi jednak moje obawy. Także wiele niewiadomych przed nami. Ciągle tak naprawdę nie wiemy czego oczekuje się od nas na czwartym roku, nie wiemy czy staż jest częścią obowiązkową tego kursu i czy otrzymamy pomoc w organizacji stażu.

Trzeci i czwarty rok będa więc jednym wielkim wyzwaniem!

2nd year life drawing