I decided it was maybe time to make a longer version on how 'this' all started, school to a few years ago because it might be interesting for anyone thinking of going into the creative, IT or marketing and advertising industry.
I grew up in the middle of the Yorkshire Dales, for me I couldn't simply walk out the door and meet up with friends. My parents had to drive me, so a lot of my childhood was drawing, making things and helping at home.
Through school, I had two really cool teachers. Miss Webb and Mr Walker for art and graphics, and because they planned interesting lessons, I fell in love with the subjects. For my Graphics Final project, I designed a 'Game of Life' Board Game spin-off for the UK Drama Casualty. My Art Project was something to do with addiction, and I did some canvases with fast food, drugs and alcohol...fun stuff!
I then went to sixth form college and carried on with Graphics at A level, IT and Media, and loved creating things in photoshop, from posters to magazine covers. During, my free lessons I really got into designing websites
I decided to go to university in Stafford (3hour away from home) and study Web Design, because wanted a mix of artiness and technical. Here I also met one of my best friends who still hosts all my websites, I recommend ZFast Hosting!
At University, I learnt a lot of things about technology, user experience, myself and more importantly others (although, I was to learn even more when I started a job). I had a placement year at a large IT and tech company in Reading, which was lots of fun and an amazing experience. After that was my final year and my final project was a study on Branding and Marketing for specific audiences.
A few things that learnt and that are important to me from my university days:
- Don't hold yourself back, just because someone said different
- Take Chances
- Work Hard/Play Hard (but seriously work harder, play time comes later)
- Exercise makes you happy
I started working for a digital advertising company in 2013 after university, making excel reports for clients. Completely not true, I make dashboards to show clients their online performance, a lot of it is about User experience and I deal with a lot of fun issues/people each day. Currently, one of my focuses is to try and get more females into the Data and Insights side of Advertising. Insights is often misconstrued as a boring team, that just deal with numbers.
After the first year, I started to enjoy it less (all of that excel) and started to think of ways to be more creative. I started making Nail Decals, which grew to handmade cards and then some Fimo and beaded jewellery.
And a few years later here we are today!
