Date:24/09/14
Speaker: Gemma from WellMade
This speaker gave a general negative but seemingly honest feel about todays jobs in the creative industry. She first explained that during and after university that her life and career had many ups and downs, which eventually led her to where she is now. She was very upset and angry towards the idea and concept of 'free pitching. This is where a designer, or multiple designers, come up with concepts and ideas, these are often multiple, and give them to the company, unpaid. She really tried to explain that to get out into the industry, this is something that we shouldn't do. She stated that 'Our ideas make who you are and are part of us', therefore our ideas made us special and taking them away made us worthless.
She then went on to describe internships, particularly unpaid. She claimed that it was 'the slave trade except working in front of computers'. She went on to make multiple points, including:
The company gets the benefit and the money from your ideas.
2 Years experience means no money and the intern needs money from parents and other sources. This then leads to a single type, not unique type of designers,
That if we, the future of designers, refused to become interns that the companies would have to pay staff.
She also suggested that working alone, and starting a company, is the best way to get into the industry. She also stated her viewpoint on university. This was that it was the best way to create links and networks and allows you to explore and be creative with our ideas.
She outlined a few ways to get work in the industry. She first started with a blog, on tumblr. This showed her and the company, being honest and pulling apart images. This led to more people seeing and joining the blog and her reputation increased. This led her to gain clients.
"90% of our clients are through word of mouth".
She explained that word of mouth and links is the main way to get clients. She described how she met potential clients first, without even mentioning the work, and built a relationship with them before. Pushing on to the work and not building relationships only works temporarily. You need relationships to build word of mouth and really communicate with the client.
gemma@wellmadestudio.com
