Isabella Cousins and Chloe Taylor, Year 12 students at Long Road Sixth Form College, recently completed a week of work experience with the design and events team at Conscious Communications. Read their experiences below. 

Hear from Isabella…

At Long Road Sixth Form College, the week before the final week of term is work experience week, so I decided to come to Conscious Communications to work with the design team. I have always wanted to go into the design industry because I’m a very creative person and art has always been my strongest subject and something I love doing. So, when I started college, I took art, graphic design, and photography. Working within a design team for my work experience was really important to me.

On my first day I was welcomed by everyone and told what my tasks for the week were, as well as being shown past projects and what the team does. I was excited to have so much freedom with a design brief and really experiment with different concepts, but I was also a little apprehensive because I wasn’t sure whether working for a design agency was right for me. I started off with developing mood boards and brainstorming my ideas, then using Procreate, Photoshop and Illustrator to experiment with the different concepts I had created. 

Throughout the week I developed these ideas into the assets I had to create under the design brief for an event called “Under the Stars”. I made a save the date, an invite, food menu,  a welcome sign, and supporting social media graphics. The theme of the event was broad enough that I came up with multiple ideas, however there were clear guidelines on what I had to create so I really enjoyed the task. The design team were really great at discussing ideas with me and giving me points on how to improve my work while being there for any questions or concerns I had.

I learnt a lot about the design industry, branding and possible career paths/ degrees I could go into in the future, and also what it’s like working with a team in an office environment. I would highly recommend Conscious Communications for anyone wanting work experience in PR and marketing as it’s such a broad company with so many different creative elements that give you the room to explore lots of options. 

Overall, I had a great time at Conscious Communications and I’m really glad I went because it has helped me so much when thinking about the next steps I want to take. 

Hear from Chloe…

I have really enjoyed my work experience at Conscious Communications, not only was I in the office but I was also out and about looking round event locations, which showed me the great variety of different types of venues. Throughout the week, I got to work on an event brief bringing in my own ideas to life, choosing what theme I thought would suit it best, finding catering, entertainment… which I found very interesting. I also liked designing a presentation for the event ideas. This helped me visualise what I thought would look the best. I learnt how to create save the date and invitations for the guests of the event and was taught how to use Canva to be able to create these invitations. 

On Monday I started my research on the brief I was given and worked with Elle to develop my ideas, we also went on a site visit to the Moller Centre. On Tuesday I was taught how to use Canva by Hanna and presented my event brief proposal. On Wednesday I was out most the day doing site visits with Elle at King’s College, Hilton City Centre and Rectory Farm; this was my favourite day because I love being out and about. Tom then briefed me on a client brainstorm and I carried on with my research. On Thursday we had our client brainstorm with the team, I started my blog and continued with my events proposal. On Friday I presented my completed proposals and my invitations then presented them to the team. I also made social media posts with Canva to promote the event. 

Overall going on the site visits on Wednesday and learning how to use Canva was my favourite part of the week as it was the most active.