the start to my journey in design

Moving to Melbourne in the hope of finding a new and exciting opportunity for myself as a young designer seemed like a far-fetched challenge a few weeks ago, but now I have taken the first step to developing my career in graphic design. I have just started as an intern working at the FlexArt Group in Reservoir, Victoria alongside designer and printer Jason Milani and his team.

At the moment I am currently working two days a week in the studio from which I will move into full time for 5 weeks in January 2012. 

My first day in the studio...

And what a big first day it was. Jason set me up with a newly purchased monitor screen and began teaching me the insides and outs of design program CorelDraw. Coming from a completely Apple and Adobe background, working with PC's and a foreign program became my new challenge! I also had to learn how to use a tablet, something I had never done before, but I have since become addicted to their amazing ability and the ease they allow when you are designing! With my new workspace and set up I firstly explored CorelDraw to find my bearings and become competent in its use so I could start doing some work. 

There's nothing like being thrown into the deep end on your first day, with Jason asking me to develop a new concept for a website - http://www.nvirocare.com.au/

I will be posting my developing concept in later posts!

Whilst coming up with new ideas for a website, Jason also gave me my first opportunity to work with a client in house! The client was one of the managers at Preston Hire - a local building solutions company. 

The client wanted us to design for them a series of promotional items including pens, usb sticks, lanyards, mouse-pads and stubby holders. It was a great learning experience to actually work with the client there, making sure that the designs I was creating were exactly what he and the business were looking for. These designs would then be presented to the Board who would then make a decision to use or make alterations to develop the final design solutions.

See these designs soon!