looking for work experience in the creative art industry ! Im a 1st year A level student, studying visual arts & design.

Question

Please let me know if anyone has any knowledge on where to find placements - would appreciate it a lot ! 😁

Geoffrey Bunting · Answer

Is there a particular reason you're looking for a placement? I ask because, given how many emails I get, despite being a freelancer, asking whether I'd take a student on for a placement it doesn't look like an easy thing to find right now. And I'm unsure - genuinely, that's not code for I think it's bad - how much value something like that would have going forward.

Granted, it's been 14 years since I applied for university, but it does feel like people take a bit of a belt-and-braces approach to that kind of thing when they're probably better off just chilling and having a bit of fun outside of school and working on a decent portfolio in school.

That being said, and while the quality of design therein won't be great, if you are set on finding some kind of design work experience, you could check out local printers. You won't want to work at one if you can help it when you're an industry professional, but it might be a place to bum around, learn about the printing process, and get some technical knowhow.

If your A-Level college is attached to other institutions like lower forms classes, you could try and get involved in those from a creative standpoint. For instance, my old - terrible - school had a suspiciously large theatre department that was always looking for posters, set designs, people to build puppets and shit. That might be an avenue for you, also.

I suppose another way to get some work experience of a kind would be to hit up an established professional (on here or elsewhere) and see if they'll give you a project and a bit of mentorship through said project.

looking for work experience in the creative art industry ! Im a 1st year A level student, studying visual arts & design.

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