Oliver Tomlinson, Reading graduate and user-centred information designer, spoke at Baseline shift on how users interact with their environments and objects in daily life.
Category: events
Lucinda Scholey: Freelancing and Launch Studio
Lucinda Scholey is founder and designer at Launch studios. She offered us 'Six things to know before taking the freelancer leap of faith'
Life after Reading: Mecca Pictograms with Joan Zalacain
Joan Zalacain discusses his career in wayfinding and pictogram design, and his Mecca wayfinding project in particular.
Aseil Amgheib: Design Wolf Studios
Aseil Amgheib, the owner of Design Wolf Studios, provided insights into launching a brand design business in a 21st century crisis.
I am, we are … Different By Design: Manifesto
On this week's Baseline Shift, the University of Reading’s Different by Design team, currently consisting of Lamar Kaki and Minh Nguyen, joined us to give a talk about what it means to be inclusive in design.
Experimental publishing and new archival initiatives
This online event on 27 January at 5pm is free and open to all. Search 'Experimental publishing reading 2022' for details
Feedback jam: Magazines & packaging
Rob Banham and Mattew Lickiss joined us in one of our feedback sessions. Our feedback sessions are dedicated to helping students get additional feedback from tutors on a particular project of theirs. We had part 3 students sharing their work on their magazine designs as well as their packaging.
Motion and branding for Sky Sports: Katarina Duvnjak
This week, the Baseline Shift team welcomed Katarina Duvjnak for a talk about her career in motion and branding for Sky sports, and her experiences after graduating from our department.
Branching out
After graduating in 2012, Katarina decided to study abroad for a semester in Australia. She went to Monash University, Melbourne, to study illustration. Shortly after that, through networking and successfully nailing the interview for Sky sports, she got into motion and branding design at Sky, even though she had little to no experience in using motion software at the time.
From these early steps as a graduate to an invigorating career as a senior designer at Sky Sports, Katarina learnt that developing multiple skills in different sectors was helpful in making her work visually captivating and different. With her experience in illustration at … university and her graphic communications degree from Reading, she has since landed multiple successful projects for Sky, such as the royal wedding of Megan Markle and Prince Harry, the Brexit countdown campaign and the Madeline McCann documentary tracing back to the early moments of the investigation.
The department’s Real Job scheme is an opportunity to do this searching of news skills during our studies at the department; the scheme offers an introduction into different areas of design– through the wide array of different opportunities and clients and working on different projects with different deliverable requirements. Real Jobs are a good way to test out multiple avenues, develop new skills and have a better idea of what we like and dislike. But there is so much more out there that we can explore; looking into different avenues outside of the department is part of the journey of being a successful designer. Trying to study design in a different country for instance could be a potential way for self and creative development!
Learning doesn’t stop at university
From the start of our studies at Reading to our first job interviews as graduates from the department, we will acquire a decent amount of technical and design skills, as well as relatively good knowledge of design theory. Even though Katarina had successfully graduated from the department and had acquired experience in Australia, her expectations of the interview with Sky were those that we’ll all get to experience at least once. Stressed, feeling like she was on trial for something and being blinded by the need to impress an employer. Feeling unworthy of a good professional opportunity is a trap we’re likely to fall into, especially as young designers who have just entered the industry.
However, Katarina’s talk was incredibly encouraging in that prospect; as designers, we have all the base knowledge we need to manage landing a good job. If we have a good design process and can show that we can solve design problems, we are very much able to get a job.
‘If you can sell an idea and you can show the research behind it, you’ve got a winner’
While Katarina started off at Sky with no knowledge of the motion software, she learned everything while being on the job, learning from senior designers, her team, through mistakes and being determined to keep going.
‘Always aim high and love what you do.’
Conclusion
As students, we still have a lot to learn. The course and doing real jobs are motivators in getting ourselves out there, finding out what we like and practising our skills in the real world. But Katarina’s experience shows us that learning doesn’t stop at university; we could travel, do something entirely different to graphic design, and still have so much more to learn once we land our first jobs. The journey to becoming a successful designer is through exposure, talking to peers, making friends, doing things that we love and showing how we got there.
Student quotes
“The talk was very interesting and exciting. Seeing designers who move to work in different disciplines is very helpful” – Part 3 student
“The way Katarina explained her design choices and reasoning helped me understand her thought process. As I have been watching Sky for years it was interesting to see the depth behind her design work and look past the end product. I also found her experience of studying abroad in Australia interesting and it has encouraged me to look into doing that later in my studies.” – Part 1 student
Alumni talks: Human centred design and setting boundaries
This week, the baseline shift team organised another Alumni Talk session. This week, we welcomed Jonathan Saunders and Luke Carter. Jonathan and Luke had plenty of well-meaning advice to give us during the session; from looking at the intricacies of studying a user problem, to the preservation of one’s health as a designer and knowing how to set boundaries.
Arjun Khara: Design philosophies to live by
With a fresh start to the academic year, Baseline Shift hosted its first session of the year online to welcome Arjun Khara, PHD student and design researcher at the University of Reading. Arjun presents key philosophies in regards to design, all discovered through his years as an academic within the design field, a businessman as well as a student of Life and its shortcomings.