The Brief
During the end of my first year in Reading, I had invited to be part of the publicity team of the Typography & Graphic Communication department. I have always enjoyed sharing my stories and updates on social media, which I thought it is an excellent opportunity for me to develop my communication skills through this position; therefore I have taken it as my first real job.
The job aims to increase students’ engagement in the department’s events, showcase student’s work to the public, and enhance the public recognition of the department by providing a global platform. Roles included blog writer, event organiser, event photographer and marketing material designer.

The Client
Our team has the same lecturer as both our client and supervisor. As I am not a talkative person, I rarely gave opinions throughout the first few meetings with our client and fellow teammates. However, I started expressing my thoughts more after, and I noticed the importance of having every member of a team to speak up. Even if my idea were not impactful, it would lead the team to discover other possibilities when solving problems.

The Process
We first started by having a job rotation system, but shortly, we have set specific roles in order to smoothen the process. During the whole experience, I did mostly event poster designing and some event photographing. As I am away in the second half of the year, I had decided to help the team a lot in the first term, especially for the Wednesday department events, since it is impossible for me to take part in the events in person. Therefore, I volunteered to design all the posters and social media graphics for the events in the first term solely, with one poster created as a group.
The most memorial task I did was to write a blog to share my study abroad experience and to promote the opportunity for future students. The blog is written in a weekly format and in both English and Chinese, along with photos featuring throughout the blogs.

The Challenges I Faced
As each event has only a short preparation time, there are always sudden changes in the plan. For example, once I was in charge of the poster making for an event and I was told to change the poster design the day before, which this frustrates me. However, after these experiences, it trained me to work better in the real world, where schedules can be changed in a sudden.
For the study abroad blogging task, as my supervisor and I have not set an exact deadline before the end of term and I seldom check my university email during the summer break, therefore, I have missed the deadline my supervisor wanted. At the end, I wrote the blog in English, Traditional Chinese and Simplified Chinese and published them as soon as I received my deadline. This experience taught me to check my email daily to prevent creating any problem.

The following link is the English blog I did to promote the study abroad program: http://typography.network/2018/08/09/study-aboard-at-monash-university-melbourne/

The Experience I Gained
I have gained confidence in my graphic design skills through this real job. I still remember our team has to create the first event poster and refine the existing template few days before the event, which I volunteered to fully in charge. After showing my design draft to my supervisor, he was happy with the outcome, even though it was just the first draft.
Even though it is not the first time my designs have been used by real clients, as the posters are stuck throughout the department hallway, I felt delighted and happy every time I passed by them.
I found myself good at finding supporting images and creating designs in a consistent style as well. Since we have a fixed template for the event poster, all we need is to find the appropriate supporting images and edit the title and headline. Both elements have to be consistent with the posters that were made previously. However, I seldom have to change the supporting images after my first draft.
Moreover, with the blogging task I did, it helped me to practice my writing and improve my translation skills. I have learned how to impress the readers, who might not know me in person and the program in the first state, but still willing to read my blog. The content choosing and placement have to be well considered, as it would affect readers’ curiosity.

Final Reflection
Lastly, I would like to thank James. He is not only my supervisor and client but also the one who chose me to participate in this real job. As I have learned a lot throughout the process, even though I could not help much in the second half of the job, I pushed my limit to help my team in the first half and the blogs at the end of the year.
If I could do this real job again, I would try to create a new template for the event posters and social media graphics. Even though the existing template is well designed, it has been used for the previous years, which it would be refreshing if a new template is used.
To conclude, it was a fantastic experience to be a student publicity officer in this department. It broadens my future career as it provided me practices of designing marketing materials within a short period, and strengthen my writing and other transferable skills.

References:

• http://www.reading.ac.uk/research/themes/theme-heritage-creativity/rd-typography-and-graphic-communication.aspx
• https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/571/57191/down-and-out-in-paris-and-london/9780141393032.html

The Brief
My second real job was to design posters with numerous illustration for Empiribox Ltd, a nationwide primary school science provider. My team was first started with two members, and one additional member has joined the team after my departure to exchange.
The job aims to let the students discover science excitingly and enjoyably, broaden their horizon in the field of science, informing parents about science-related careers and positive impact of science education.

The Client
The first client meeting went well; we were able to understand a lot from the client side, including their needs and expectations. As our supervisor, Alison Black, was not able to join us for the first client meeting, we have met her separately. Alison is a researcher on user-centred design; she shared many suggestions on how different users will interact with the posters, and how complex should the posters be. We have started writing our restated brief right after the first client meeting, as we wanted to have a fresh mind on what we are supposed to design.
The overall idea is quite straightforward; we have to design 24 posters in total, which has changed to 12 later in the project. However, we have faced challenges in identifying the categories of the posters. As there are three subjects in science, and there are two different poster types with different audiences and functions, we were confused at first. In the end, we have solved the problem by making a table on dividing the posters, in order to make a clear mindset.

The Process
In the pre-production process, we have made a few mood boards and initial sketches on the cartoon illustration and poster styles. In particular, I have researched both the general and science-related illustration and posters, in order to gain creative ideas throughout the process.

Mood Boards:

Layout Sketches Examples:

After our client has chosen the style that we should pursue, we have started on designing the main elements, including the layout, mascots and main scientists. I have designed all three mascots for different categories before my exchange program starts, and I am grateful that my mascot designs were chosen. With the layout, three of us have proposed different ideas to our client, and we all have decided on the most user-friendly one.

Mascots:

Illustration-wise, since my style is different from team members’, we started by separating the illustrations into three categories and each of us in-charged one each, while Fay helped to edit all the illustrations to the same style. However, after my departure from the United Kingdom, it was difficult for us to meet up and unite the illustration style. I have then gradually shifted from working on the illustrations to the fonts, header, footer and layout, in order to smoothen our progress.

Illustration Examples:

Moreover, since I have more experience with the Friday real job meetings than my partners, which they were new to it, I know the process quite well. Therefore, I prepared on the issues to discuss for the first few meetings.
At the end of the real job, we have designed 12 A2 posters with numerous illustration. Although the company ended up not using the posters as they wanted to change the brand direction and the poster concept, our illustrations have been featured on their website. It is a grateful moment when we saw our design used in real life.

The Challenges I Faced
I have learned that it is a hard task to work as a team when a member is away. Even though I enjoy creating cartoons, I still have to consider my team members and the outcome of the project. At first, we are working on all parts together, then we have separated our specific role, in order to smoothen the process.
On the other hand, the communication between me and my team members has been affected during my away. It is mainly affected by different schedules, deadlines and time zones. My members did not reply my messages often; as I know they have tight deadlines in Reading, I frequently approached them that I can help on aspects outside my role, but their replies were always delayed.

The Experience I Gained
I am not confident to use illustrator to illustrate before this real job, as I found illustrating digitally is quite difficult. However, I have gained confidence after forcing myself to apply to this real job. I found it is always good to challenge ourselves, in order to strengthen ourselves.
Also, I have learned to approach our client proactively. Since my departure to the study abroad program and my team members might be busy with the coursework in Reading, we have less contact with our client in the second half of the year. Therefore, as we wanted to provide a more professional look to our client in year 3, we emailed and called her proactively. Unfortunately, our client’s company has been rebranded, and she only needs the illustration, but not the posters.

Final Reflection
Even though there were many difficulties during the process, I have learned a lot from this real job, which could help me to develop my communication skills, such as contact both of my co-workers and client proactively, provide updates to people in-charge progressively, and the way to deal with unexpected situations.
If I could do this real job again, I would set and follow a more detailed schedule for my team, my supervisor and our client. To conclude, it is still an amazing experience to work with my members, supervisor and client, especially seeing some of our illustrations are used in their brand.

Final Design Examples:

Mood Boards References:

• https://www.flickr.com/photos/flopdesign/3600278534
• https://www.radiotimes.com/tv-programme/ymy/horrid-henry/
• https://peanuts.fandom.com/wiki/Charlie_Brown
• https://hero.fandom.com/wiki/Mabel_Pines
• https://imgbin.com/png/X6Ydiugh/sonic-mania-doctor-eggman-metal-sonic-segasonic-the-hedgehog-dr-robotniks-mean-bean-machine-png
• https://homedesignersuite.co/top-3d-home-designer-for-your-perfect-home-design-project/
• http://hasshe.com/cartoon-people-human-5c148cc58719620724a8bd54/
• https://www.pinterest.co.uk/cupcakeshunshin/chibis/
• https://cartoon-image7.blogspot.com/2019/02/attitude-boy-cartoon-images.html
• http://clipart-library.com/boy-cartoons.html
• https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/407857309975059109/?lp=true
• https://www.freepik.com/free-photos-vectors/cartoon-characters
• https://www.freepik.com/free-photos-vectors/businessman-character
• https://www.vecteezy.com/vector-art/77164-cartoon-scientist
• https://www.pinterest.co.uk/nnedv/positively-safe-the-intersection-of-dv-hiv/
• https://www.shutterstock.com/image-vector/traders-going-down-trends-stock-financial-1247669584
• https://www.shutterstock.com/search/mad+scientist+mascot
• https://oceansciences.wixsite.com/core/single-post/2017/11/21/Share-Your-Science-Outreach-with-Dr-Laura-Good
• https://www.behance.net/gallery/704035/Mad-Scientist-Illustrations
• https://www.istockphoto.com/gb/illustrations/young-inventor?sort=mostpopular&mediatype=illustration&phrase=young%20inventor
• https://www.iconfinder.com/search/?q=scientist
• https://www.vecteezy.com/vector-art/160608-scientist-working-at-laboratory-illustration
• https://www.clipart.email/clipart/girl-scientist-clipart-1418.html
• https://www.amazon.com/Forces-Motion-Poster-Laminated-Full-Color/dp/B071LQQXYG
• https://www.pinterest.com/accessbiomed/
• https://www.pinterest.co.uk/dudley1700/
• https://www.daydreameducation.co.uk/poster-light

The Brief
My third real job was to design the Daily Hazard Assessment for the Met Office, which is the national weather provider in the United Kingdom. As the headquarter is located in Exeter, this job was communicated and delivered via phone calls and emails.
The job aims to improve user experience with current user research and testing. As the final product is for future design referencing and the organisation has limited resources with this project, the goal is to create an easy editing document with Microsoft Word that could be edited by any employees.

The Client
The first client meeting was communicated via phone call, and it went well; we were able to understand a lot from the client side, most importantly, the constraints from the organisation as they wanted an approachable and clean design that can be easily edited by employees who did not study design.
During the process, our client has been changed twice. Our first client had left the organisation, and it was handed over to a temporary client. However, it was handed over again to a new employee of the organisation, as he needs time to adapt his duties, our schedule has been pushed back. Our clients were so nice that they were willing to accept our request to end the project as soon as we could in order to submit this as part of our real job submission, and we finished all the materials by early May.

The Process
In the design process, we have first made initial layout sketches as the layout has considered the main issue to solve. With a clean and organised layout, it helps users to be able to identify their target information intuitively. At the same time, we had studied the user testing undertaken by the organisation. We have noticed the order of the information being seen, and the existing information order is not parallel. Therefore, we reordered them, starting from the maps, then summary and details, and ending with future issues.
We have tried complicated and fancy designs at first. However, we figured out the usability is lower with these concepts and layout. After discussing with our supervisor, we then focused on making the design as clean and clear as possible, with less decorative elements.
Afterwards, we have focused on refining the typographic issues, such as text length, rephrasing terms and copy editing. This is a new challenge for both of us as we were usually only correcting simple typographic issues like punctuation, readability and hierarchy with the provided text. We gave many thoughts on using the correct terminologies and erasing the unnecessarily needed sentences.
During the Friday real job meeting, we have also discussed our problem with our lecturers and getting comments from both our lecturers and fellow classmates. These feedbacks are useful as the document is for emergency use, which the first impression and intuition of the information are important.
My partner and I have consistently refining small details of the document in the later part of the project. As our client was happy with the layout and concept, we tried to refine the document as error-free as possible, in order to make the document to be used as smooth as possible.
In early May, we have called our client for the final phone meeting. Our client has expressed his joy in receiving our design, which he thinks the document we created would definitely help and influence his team for future document design. He also stated the clearness and linkage between sections work well, while the way we ordered the sections are well considered.

Initial Ideas Examples:

Developing Ideas Examples:

The Challenges I Faced
As this real job was promoted as a digital product, my partner and I thought it would be an app or website. However, we later figured out it is a word document that contains images made with powerpoint. Since we usually design fancy products with Adobe Creative Suite, this job is a challenge for us, as the aim of this job is to create a clean and approachable design with Microsoft Word.
Moreover, as we communicated via phone call and email with our client, sometimes we might not receive their reply as quick as we wanted. Therefore, I have learnt that we should approach our client proactively when we want a quicker reply, as they might have other duties to work on and lower the priority of this project.

The Experience I Gained
As we rarely use Microsoft Word as the tool to design, it is an exciting challenge for us. We had overcome it by the help from our supervisor and lecturer, Matthew and James. As images and text can be placed freely in Adobe Creative Suite, Microsoft Word has limits with this. This might due to the software’s target audience is the general public, while Microsoft aims to design the software with an approachable and fixed setup. Since most users used Microsoft Word as a text document, images have to be locked to prevent moving along with the text, while text should be placed in a table in order to create a less problematic file for our client for their future use.

Final Reflection
Even though there were many challenges during the process, I have learned a lot from this real job. For example, as our client is working in a big company, the volatility of its employees and department structure change are high. As a designer, we should expect sudden change and allow more time for them to give us replies and comments. In addition, the employees might have many duties to follow up; the priority of the project might be affected as well.

Final Design: