Overall we narrowed it down to Media, Design, Leisure and Entertainment. We then discussed the places that would fit into these; Lounge clothing which I know the university does a lot with and BigCat marketing. These were two types of brands that were outside of the expertise and skills I had.

It was at this point I realised, that I needed to venture outside what skills and knowledge I already had. This would make me more adaptable and useful to any career I went into, because I would have a lot ok knowledge and connections.

My plan was now to research around Birmingham for places I haven’t heard of and for businesses I wouldn’t think to do some experience in.

I decided to use the mapping task I learn’t during last year to identify some of the key places that interested me at first sight. My next step was to look into them further, or have a look around the area for myself.

I was starting to realise I wanted to see how businesses functioned and not so much about the designing of them. Seeing the roles of each member and how they worked together for different sectors is what intrigued me.

I later found out whilst walking here that it was closed for a while and so I continued to research.

They have 3 separate rooms to hire all of different size and personality. The events they’ve held previously were things like boxing matches, puppy therapy, dance conventions, art shows and artisan markets. It’s diverse use of the space and it’s ability to hold so many different events really appealed to me and I was immediately interested to know what went on behind the scenes and how the team functioned. This was one I wanted to reach out to.

BigCat agency is a marketing and creative advertising agency at the heart of the city centre, right near the arts building. The element that drew me to it was it’s work around pop ups, specifically around the bull ring. I had always stumbled across these and wandered who designed and ran them, and so I was excited to find out this was the company.

Upon looking into it I had realised it’s now an agency joined up with Spottydog, another communications company for marketing. So the two had become a brand new version that was called LeopardCo.

They had worked with familiar brands like O’Neils and Twycross zoo, and so I was intrigued to find out what type of work they do and how this is divided with the teams. I had never thought about a company like this so the idea of having experience within a tech based and research company seemed a good idea. I am fond of research and organisation, and I also thought it was a good idea to explore what existed within the centre of town along with Digbeth. So that i was getting a wide scope of learning and experience.

• LeopardCo - email

• Secret Spaces - instagram

• BBC

• NEC

• ICC

• Hipodrome

• Gallow Glass

• Birmingham Film Studio

I used these as a basis of my list of places to approach as I knew of these and had recognised how big of a company and well known they were to Birmingham. These were more design based companies as I wanted to mix of industry work in terms of organisation and management as well as creativity.

My aim was to gather as many places I could to reach out to so that I had a broad scope of connections and possibilities. I knew it was going to be a difficult chance of getting into one thats why I wanted lot’s of options.

The work consisted of analysing and creating plans for big halls and spaces, and then fitting the stages or designs in to fit the needs of the company. It was keeping in line with my design passions but also my business interests of functionality and management in a very practical environment.

I wanted to explore the way the team functioned through the whole journey of securing and finishing an event or experience. The whole idea of a process is what I wanted to know most about during this placement as it’s something that changes with every company. Being able to merge into different situations and adapt to them with ease is essential for an ever growing industry.

• Grow in confidence

• Step outside of my comfort zone

• Ask questions connecting to my project

• Network

• Complete work to the best standards

• Keeping connection to the company

• Focusing on team collaboration, workload and organisation across the company.

Within this meeting we went through my extremely old CV. I was given points on how to make this a better version, talking of what people in the industry are expecting to see. This was my focal point of the meeting, as I wasn’t sure what any employer was looking for in such a diverse and creative industry.

My main points were:

• The summary must be clear and concise explaining what you want to achieve in the industry.

• Next should be your experience section. The order should go from most recent to previous. The date should be clear and first with the company in bold. Keep the point below not what you did but the skills you used there.

• Achievements - make this more concise not too long.

• Skills - make these the skills valuable in the industry so what software can you use or what knowledge you have.

I have changed the layout to be more concise and sophisticated, keeping it all consistent.

My skills box is a mix of all the skills i’ve gathered at university. Which has also helped me realise what I need to work on and gain during this work experience.

I’ve kept my achievements relevant and clear in what I got from them.

This meeting focused on my struggles on how to approach a company and what to say in an email. I knew I needed to get their attention but not sound to informal. I wanted to appear willing and excited to join but also that I had a lot of knowledge in the work and learning.

So we went on how to structure and write a cover letter which I could format as my email and not a document. We went through some examples which were extremely helpful so I had a clear idea how to start approaching the companies as soon as possible. I aimed to email before the new year so that I was prepared to start in January, as I knew this was a busy period.

We were able to tailor the searches to art, film production and media.

Responses were varied some taking very long, or very quick but others I still hadn’t heard off.

If I could start emailing by before Christmas time it gave me a head start before the new year and way before the module had started.

My dates were the 18th to the 20th of March, and was also invited to the open house event for networking on the evening of the 18th.

The interview consisted of the usual questions about myself, and looking over my CV to establish what I would bring to the company.

I also had the chance to ask what was expected of my and so we both formed a list on what we would achieve:

• Choose a list of events to attend

• Instagram content

• Photos of venue

• Report Feedback on company

• Set up an event

• Take down an event

• Produce content during events

• Help the team

• Guide them

  
  

These were a wide range of activities happening, and so I made sure the variety was good ensuring I gathered experience in all situations and experience, to see how the place adapted and worked for them.

I was then placed at one of the desks surrounded by other worker, and was introduced to my mentor Amelia Willets. She used to also be an intern and so it was lovely to have a talk to her about how she managed to secure her job, and how she found the work.

After that, I was given my first task of the day.

My task was to write a PR report on a new steakhouse in Solihull. I needed to research the company and it’s competitors and decide how much of it I would use in the report. I was given examples of the same work done for previous companies by the team.

I’d gotten this done after lunch when I sent it to some member and they gave me some feedback.

This involved researching familiar stories like my one to make that connection. This is what the company would do before they send these off, and the team leader would confirm them in a team meeting. These happened regularly to make sure the right changes were made.

I was opened up to a process of the media company in which I had no idea existed. I just thought journalists write the reports in the media and not companies like these at the request of the owners. I learn’t a lot about the processes in this company which were really useful.

There was then an exercise of networking where we could talk to the team, I went straight to the design team as I had spoke to them the least whilst being there, and I was able to get a great perspective on my project work.

I spent most of the morning researching everything about the company and it’s competitors, this was extremely in depth. I then analysed the social media accounts and posts already made to get a feel for the type of aesthetic they wanted and followed. This did take a long time, but I can see why it was so helpful for being prepared to keep on top of events and whats going on. Keeping consistent is the main struggle for companies.

I then planned 5 posts for the month of April for LinkedIn and X. It was good to plan for platforms i’d never really thought about, but it’s so important to stay consistent across all platforms in this industry. I had to be very creative but also informative throughout this making them catchy and suited to that specific platform. My indeed posts were longer, whereas for X they were short and brief due to it’s scrolling nature.

This was all checked off and I was given pointers on what others do for this, and was given examples. I did not have time to put this into the excel document due to the extent of the research required. My document was checked off and I was given lot’s of pointers for the best approach.

It was a very handy tool and I even thought it would come in handy when doing my major project.

I found today very helpful in terms of supporting my major project, as I got to see some tips on how to use social media properly and how to plan for it. Also, I was also to look at the designers work which used similar software to what I’ve learnt, and so it was really beneficial to get a view for more professional advertising pieces.

I went through their system of using power point, which was what they use, to target the Campaign title, brief, audience research, my approach, cascading the comms and measuring success. My main aim was to make sure I created something that fit with the brief, was fun and attractive and also spread awareness and was manageable.

I came up with an influencer event and talk, with Q&A with speakers from different industries and backgrounds. I called this the ‘power hour club’.

I had to put everything together that i’d learnt from the days before to form this. It’s something the team does regularly for each client but to a larger scale and in much more detail. My ideas were brief, but it taught me the notions of getting a brief, to developing it to then seeing the final result pay off.

There was lot’s to think about during this task, but I was told the main emphasis was on creativity by creating an event that would help spread more awareness and bring in more customers. I needed to keep my audience in mind and what the task required.

Again the team would meet regularly and feed this back to the company to make sure they were on board with the idea too. Keeping that connection and progress was really useful in making sure they were getting the most out of the company in terms of what they wanted.

It was great to see how the team functioned together and how everyone collaborated on skills and knowlegde.

However, from this I did realise being in an office setting all day was not something I particularly wanted. The workload and content was extremely heavy and I found myself feeling overwhelmed and exhausted at time. Although it was very stimulating and exciting!

From then on, me and the owner Kam established a plan, what did he need help with? And how was I going to be useful?

We decided together as Secret Spaces was a family run Independent small business, building awareness was the most important. So establishing a connection to this and his audience was going to be essential. I suggested an interview or photos taken of the team to introduce on the instagram stories, but he was against the idea of having his face up.

I then suggested I needed to see the space in action and meet more of the team.

The socials consisted of reposts from the companies renting the space, and no of their own original content, which I was deciding to take.

I needed to see the space function during an event to get a feel for this.

I was told the management of all of this was done by the owner himself, who had no experience in any of this. This is when I realised my time here was going to be very self directed and a lot of the evaluative and support work was going to be done in my own time.

I met the person in charge of the building checks and organisation of events who was called John Riley. He did a lot of work ensuring the building was always up to it’s best standards of the client. I spoke to him in depth about how the journey from a client coming in to completing the event. I was surprised to have found that he would set up a meeting after all the online forms were completed, and he would write up and sketch some ideas on the spot. There was no software or research done before, so this surprised me a lot.

Then I met the rest of the team who were students working at the bar. I asked them a series of questions about the work here and issues they had but they all came back positive, as they only worked on the bar. I was looking for more creative roles.

The client would complete a lot of forms, I was told to go through, to register interest. The owner would then back and forth message for more information and specifics. Once confirmed and deposit was made, after this it was two final payments, the owner would log the date into his planner. This was done on his laptop through the calendar.

It was interesting to see this process and I believe it could have been more organised or even over a teams call or in person meeting to not get lost in transaction.

The work and experience helped me understand the notions of how events are run from start to finish and that whole process. It also showed me methods of project management and organisation by actually putting my skills to use and building on them.

I used my guide as part of the working hours I committed, as i spent a long time working on this to present to companies like this who really needed to help and support along with encouragement.

The next job was to open up all of the larger shutter doors were opened at the front and back, for easy access of larger items of set and equipment. It also ensured the entrance of the event could be prepared with the metal gates for any que and a small smoking area.

We then guided and supported with the unloading and spacing out of equipment to the places already established in the building.

There was then the setting up where things were either being built or arranged.

We then made sure everything was secure and out of the way of any entrances or fire exits.

The final checks were the toilet.

Then it was time to debrief with the teams. These were security, bar staff and event clients.

Again, it depended when the scheduled removal vans and cars were set to arrive, but usually, if there was an event happening the morning after it needed to be done straight away. For example, the boxing event ended at 1am and the Holi event was scheduled for 9am that same day and so the stage and everything needed to go immediately. The best way of figuring out and solving this problem was to move and work as fast as possible. I kept asking what I should be doing to ensure all help was given. The jobs consisted of helping carry things to removal van, cleaning up, moving tables and chairs around and then once more completing the health and safety checks before leaving again.

For the bigger events like the boxing and Holi events the clients came in the afternoon before to set some of their things up. For example thing ring, stage, runway and DJ was all set up a day before the event, so that when the event time came around there wasn’t any delays.

Also, with the Holi event as they were having a lot of food, in which they were cooking outside throughout the event, they needed a lot of prep time and areas around the building. This meant that we had to clear and block of a lot of areas allocated to these specifics.

It’s very easy to see that with each events there was a lot of different specific details that needed to attended to and worked around. It was this quick thinking ability that you needed to have to work around issues and cater to them.

The entrance/reception room was used to hand out the community tshirts and there was also a huge photo wall where photoshoots were going on. The bar room was used to promote some of the companies supporting the event and where the bar was. Then the main haul was where all the food, dancing and seats were. There was a huge stage in the centre and seating around the edge. It was a very lively and fun event with so much colour and excitement.

Again with my content I focused on how the rooms were being adapted to fit with their use, and showing the potential to suit every customers needs especially as this one had such a large food catering element.

I really enjoyed the module and I am happy with the work I put in, I feel like I got a lot out of it and am excited to keep learning and experiencing more to build myself further.