Work Experience at COG media – Katy Smith
What have I learnt this week?
Day one – Logo design
On my first day working here at COG media, I designed some logo concepts for a few companies.
I was inspired and influenced by the logo concept given by the company owner. This included the company name and a few rough ideas of what she liked in other logos that she had seen elsewhere. A common theme that she liked was olive leaves and watercolour so I decided to incorporate these into my rough designs.
I personally enjoyed this task a lot; I enjoyed being creative and using online tools to create digital work like the potential logos for a florist company.
Day two – Web design
On my second day working at COG media, I worked on some website design for Steve Sparkes’ photography website Perfect Pose Photography. I helped by subtly editing some photos to fit the appropriate theme of the website. This particular section was for the ‘lifestyle’ portfolio on his website.
The home page also includes a ‘me’ section. This explains about Steve and what he does with his work. I edited this image to become the background for this particular section which now looks very professional and clean. The grey to white gradient is simple yet effective and looks attractive on his website.
For the ‘testimonials’ page on Steve’s website, I used Photoshop to manipulate and edit the images to fit the given template. Each square image had to be cropped to at least 1200 x 1200 to fit appropriately.
This particular section included reviews of Steve’s work in photography from his customers. This being presented neatly and professionally will benefit Steve’s website by showing the work and reviews in an organised manner.
I found this task slightly challenging at times because of my limited knowledge with the programs I was working with. Luckily however, I picked up methods quickly and followed the correct steps to achieve my given task.
I personally enjoyed this task! I really enjoyed working on a new kind of program that was unfamiliar to me; I picked up how to use it fairly quickly. I’m now much more confident that I could design parts of a website using a combination of different editing programs, like Photoshop, to create a look that suits the theme and given measurements.
Day three – PowerPoint presentations
On my third day working at COGmedia, I converted multiple PowerPoint presentations to fit the format of Martyn’s work.
Their original design was plain and unattractive. This would be very bland and boring during a presentation. There is no logo or any kind of creative formatting on any slides.
The updated version includes a clear format, simple yet effective colour scheme and the company logo included on every slide. This makes it appealing to the eye and pleasant to look at during a professional presentation.
Once again, I found this task enjoyable and fairly simple to complete. I’ve used PowerPoint a lot in the past but with this task I have further extended my existing knowledge. I’ve learnt about new features and methods to make the process of using the program simpler.
Day four – Updating PowerPoint presentations further
On my fourth day working at COG media, I further updated the PowerPoint that I started on day three. This time, I used an image stock library to provide images for the PowerPoint slides. This further improved their appearance and makes them much more attractive to the audience.
I also edited some images to change the vibrant colours to more professional ones that fit the theme of the PowerPoint. For example, there was a businessman avatar with a purple suit which I changed to a grey one using the colour balance feature on Photoshop.
I enjoyed this task a lot. It was fun using software that I already had knowledge on and extended my understanding by using many new features that I had never used before to achieve a more professional presentation.
Day five – Finishing PowerPoint Slides etc.
On my final day working at COG media for work experience, I completed the PowerPoints that I had been working on during day 3 and 4. Once again, I used an image stock library to provide images for the PowerPoint slides. This made the slides look professional and made reading them easy and enjoyable.
During the day, a client came in with a request for a logo design for his company. Martyn went through some potential ideas and logo designs in a brief consultation.
Late morning, Martyn and I went out to Dotcolour to pick up some digital printer that was ready for a client. Whilst we visited Dotcolour, I was also shown the other products that they provide, such as personalised glasses, bottles, pens and tiles etc. I enjoyed this experience and found it interesting to see how some products are made in the workshop environment. After the trip, Martyn took me to get some lunch! We both enjoyed our meals and had a really good time 🙂
From this week’s experience, I am looking forward to hopefully doing some more work for COG media in the summer holidays! When I finish my education in two years time, I will very likely consider working for a graphic design industry full time as I really enjoy the freedom I have when designing media for companies to use.
I’d like to thank Martyn for taking me on for this experience, I’m very grateful that he’s spent time to help me out and had patience with me for the entire placement. I was personally unsure about my future career plans and what I’d like to do after I finish my education, this experience has pushed me to be more confident and I’ve learnt that it’s okay to ask for help when you need it.
Many thanks,
Katy Smith
