How the time goes by...

4 house moves, a month in London, 2 months in Manchester, 6 months in my first design job, a Post Grad in Creative Business Management, various freelance clients, and a new job later, I find myself at the degree show for the graduates of 2011!  Wow, it has gone so fast, but looking back I have achieved a lot and couldn't have wished for a better graduating year.  I have learned so much, but it was only when standing 1 year later on the fourth floor looking at the wonderful work, did I realised how much has changed.

Now I have just started a new role at Cotton Traders (those of you who know about Rugby will know the England legend that is Fran Cotton and the iconic rugby shirts they produce, see below).  As I am sure we all know, finding a job in the design industry faces tough competition, and I decided to leave my previous role as Junior Graphic Designer to move back to Manchester to gain some experience in the marketing side of things.  My new role (Marketing Production Assistant) means I work closely with the creative team to brief them, implement marketing messages and strategy, as well as competitor analysis and maintaining the marketing plan/schedule.  Compared to the tiny marketing budget I worked with at Panaz, this marketing team spends over 14 million a year on marketing, so they really do play with the big fish.

You may have seen their recent TV ad which aired a few months ago, a first for Cotton Traders and a huge success in terms of driving traffic to their website and sales.



However, this by no means marks the end of my design career, in fact its just the beginning.  I am working on a number of projects on the side and hope to be able to share these with you in the very near future!

Watch this space!