Internships - What I Need/Next Progression Steps

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In the space of this year, I have worked two different small agencies focusing on digital advertising and branding, working with both small and large national clients. This is influencing a lot of my decision of whether I would want to work and where I can see myself working in post-graduation.

Due to the fact that I thought it was quite normal to leave university and go straight into working in an agency I suspected that this was the only possibility that I could aim for. Although through the application of PPP sessions this year I've learnt a lot about the direction my career and in which direction I could take micro. Due to the fact that I like visual identity and branding a lot and enjoy these briefs the most, as found through extended practice, I decided to focus mainly around the idea of entering within a design role that either works with the branding progression and placement of branding and visual identity in order to gain or grow a business.

Whilst working in an agency environment although every day was different due to the fact that different breeds from different clients were coming in, I felt just as if I was getting into the swing of actually designing for business and coming up with ideas to be able to represent them better and grow, the brief was over I was moving onto the next kind with a completely different style and direction.

Through working in-house I would be able to work with the brand understand the brand and its visual direction and identity, and therefore be able to use my creative skills set to be able to grow that brand and portray it in the best possible light to its audience as that audience changes and evolves. I feel this is where my creativity is best focused, which is evident within the projects, I have completed with extended practice, in which I highly enjoyed giving feedback about designs as well as the creation itself, which I feel like I would have more opportunity to be able to create various development within an in-house setting due to the fact that the brand will constantly be developing in a way that I can understand and have a creative input on.

Therefore, I will be focusing my branding design on a commercial, professional focus, rather than branding myself as a studio will be branding myself as an individual aiming towards going into a commercial setting rather than creating a freelance portfolio. This also will then be the best fitting for the job types and roles, I wish to aspire to be within.

With my experience outside of design think my creativity could be best used within a retail environment, I have multiple years of experience within the retail environment, both in High Street and luxury brands working as everything from sales assistants to a visual merchandiser role. To having this knowledge of the way in which design can affect consumer habits and be set in an environment which can highly influence a brand's imagery I've decided to focus on job roles which would offer me the ability to play on this experience, whilst also allowing me to develop as a creative.