Here are the interview questions and answers from our meeting:
1) What is your official job title?
Most recently I have stepped back and become part of the packaging design
team but for the past nine years my title has been Senior Designer at Disney.
2) What key duties and tasks does your
role involve?
In my team we work on the online side of design, especially now that the
packaging side of things is beginning to die out, a lot of what we do is moving
online as technology continues to be developed. Our job is a long process, we
manage digital media, packaging and online. This involved the social side of
things too, so even Facebook banners and interactive media. Most of what I do
is adapting the American design to fit Europe, we tend to use a lot brighter
and modern colours than the US. Its mostly a seasonal thing, so we design all
online Disney for Christmas, Easter etc. There are a lot of tight deadlines as
we have to co-ordinate all the translations across the European countries we
cover. There is constant pitching and redrafting throughout the process,
sometimes the brief changes during the creative process and we are thrown back
to square one.
3) Does your role require any qualifications?
If so what?
I don’t have a degree.. I completed a term of University before dropping
out to pursue my career as a musician in a band. I have completed a foundation
course in art but I would say that in this industry you will find that the
people you know and your ability is more important than what qualifications you
have. A degree will help you get your foot in the door but if you can’t
deliver, then its pointless.
4) What path did you take to arrive at
this role?
After dropping out of Uni, I started working at BT as a source of income
to support myself whilst focusing on my band. Music is what I wanted to do. I’ve
always been interested in art and design, I was a keen drawer, eventually I started
designing the flyers, posters internally for BT, not the actual public
advertisement ones. Eventually I took voluntary redundancy, I bought a Mac and
started free lance design work as well as working in a pub. I worked loosely
with a few companies doing pretty standard boring stuff like designing business
cards, business posters, logos etc back then the tools available were much more
limited so printing letters was such a long process. But all the experience
made me really fast and efficient at what I did. A lot of these jobs I secured
through friends I think it is important to mention to you. One friend who I had
worked with previously started working for Disney and when they were looking
for new packaging designers, I was able to get a job because of this contact. They
were also looking for product designers(Senior designer) at the time which is what
I was more interested in but someone who had been working within the company
already was given that job. I was just really happy with what I achieved
because I never thought I’d get into design. Eventually they split us into teams
so one team took care of physical packaging and my team took care of online. I
was then promoted to packaging manager, but I found that I didn’t want to be a
manager, the company then decided to downsize the department and I took
voluntary redundancy (again) but I knew they wanted me to stay. So I started
free lance design again as my teams jobs had mostly been given to the USA team
for a brief period. Disney then offered me a job again as part of the packaging
team. And that’s where I am today.
5) Are there opportunities to move
forward into a different role? I have been given opportunities in the past,
like when I was the manager of the packaging team but I feel like I have gotten
much further than I had planned and I am very happy with the opportunities I have
been given. I decided to step back because I don’t want such a high pressure
job at my age. I want to still enjoy what I do, by being part of the design
team again, I can focus on the creative side.
6) Do you enjoy what you do?
Not as much as I used to, things are a lot more commercial and profit
driven, timescales are much tighter and we have to clock in and out which
tricky when your in a creative industry. For me it puts a cap on the creative
process, so I don’t find it as enjoyable as I used to. It’s less social, there’s
less room to manoeuvre and less freedom.
7) What advice would you give to someone
wanting to get into design?
The printing industry is a dying one. So if you want to get into design
I would recommend considering something which is new and growing for example
the gaming industry is a very strong one. Or at least some kind of online
designing. Or film/animation. I would also say when taking on a job with a
brief, it doesn’t go unnoticed when you go the extra mile. Create something which
fits the brief, then create something that follows your vision, then create a
version which is somewhere in-between – people like options and it shows you
are genuinely interested. Contacts are everything. A lot of voluntary work pays
off. If you help people out, they remember it. A lot of my success in getting
jobs has been through helping people previously and then they pull you up with
them when they succeed. Also be punctual. It’s important. And if you need to
put in extra time to get it done right, then do so.
8) What drew you to the role?
It’s funny because I ended up here more by chance than being drawn to a
specific role. I didn’t have a direct path. I enjoy design.
9) What would you change about your
profession? It is very school like, punch in punch out timings which doesn’t work
well when you’re being creative, you need time to research and get inspiration,
speaking to people and finding appropriate resources. Also often we are not
given the full brief straight away which makes things tricky when working with
deadlines, often we have one day to make big changes to design which can be
stressful.
10) Would you consider your job to be
fulfilling?
Yes
and no. It depends what I’m working on. There are things I would change but,
being in design itself is fulfilling because of where I came from.
11) What main skills do you need in your
role?
Charisma, mores as a freelance designer but in any role really, you need
to get along with people, to get people to want to work with you. Creativity is
a key one. Being about to work as part of a team and being a keen learner.
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