Internships

If you haven't seen Mr Bingo or his work then you should. He is damn fine illustrator and as you can see above his view on working for free is pretty clear. Spot on. What happens though if you're just starting out? Maybe this time last year you had a brain fart and decided to follow a dream, thereby consigning the last 15 years of a career into the bin marked "STARTING AGAIN".

In this recession? Are you kidding me? Squeekybumtime.

One of the scarier moments during London Design Week was being told by an design agency that in order to get 'my break' I would have to accept working free internships, maybe for the next 12 months before getting my first design position. I'll be honest in saying it frightened the crap out of me.

To be fair there are a lot of paid internships inside great design agencies but they sit alongside those three months internships where they offer to kindly pick up your lunch tab. Yeah, well thanks. As you'd expect though competition is high - I mean how do you measure a three year course against a three month one?

Fortunately I'm writing this at the end of December. The interviews did start to come, though it took a good four months to happen. I've been lucky, I'm working a paid three month internship until the end of February at Oceanbarefoot.

It's a full service branding and creative agency and I'm loving it. It's a steep learning curve, but I'm gaining valuable experience and within reason, some space and time, to learn a new career. I'm getting faster in thought and process and I guess more importantly, I haven't broken anything so far..