Over the course of the last four years, I have been completing my Bachelor of Communication and Media. In these four years, I have begun and witnessed a fair number of digital artefacts. Students pursuing their creative talents and translating them into their university work is one of my favourite things to see during the semester.
A regular activity required alongside these digital artefacts if you haven’t seen them before is the peer reviews and blogs. This is a crucial step for individuals in their digital artefact journey as it helps provide advice and constructive criticism on their progress and work. Treating our work as we are in the ‘real world’ is crucial in my own opinion, to assist us in gaining a true experience of our field.
In this blog post, and throughout another later in the semester, I will be exploring and following the journey of Bonnie and Maddy, as well as providing some suggestions throughout the development of their Digital Artefacts.
Bonnie Stonestreet – Creative Services Team
Bonnie’s pitch for her digital artefact this semester is one that is clear, clean, and concise. Bonnie plans to develop and expand her graphic design portfolio on a professional level. Beginning with this in her pitch is something that stands out to me as a clear objective, and it is not something unattainable. Not to mention, I personally believe this is a wise step to make as this prepares you to have a portfolio available for potential future employment. Bonnie planned to develop her portfolio by working in the Creative Services Team – a team of students creating their own digital artefacts that allow students to seek their ‘services’ in a creative agency sort of manner. I believe that working in the Creative Services Team will allow Bonnie to further expand her digital portfolio in a professional manner, whilst also allowing fellow students to collaborate with her.
Bonnie explored a very important topic in her pitch and related blog post, the idea that there is no particular niche in freelance design. This is something that I personally had to learn throughout my own personal experience working as a freelance designer outside the university, but I have always had difficulty with. The fact that Bonnie was able to recognise this straight away as a key element is encouraging for her digital artefact as she is aware that not following a niche allows her to be adaptable and expand her portfolio in all ways.
Another topic Bonnie explores is the ability to explore the personas she will be working with. As mentioned above, her ability to not fit into a niche allows her to reach a broader clientele, but from here presents another problem of perhaps working with clients and projects she may have not done before. Bonnie presented a breakdown of one of her current collaborations with UOW’s Coffee Society and their audience persona, this is a great idea, and as Bonnie said, she looks to do this with all her clients that she will be working with.
It is hard to create recommendations or suggestions to someone who you believe is on a great track already – and progressing further than yourself, but if I had to say anything, I would be encouraging Bonnie to continue expanding her skills and keeping an eye on current trends in the graphic design field, perhaps through social media platforms, so that she is able to maintain an up to date and aware presence online – not saying that she is not doing this already, but continuing to do so allows her to adapt to clients and future work.
Maddy Hawkins – Socially Maddy
Maddy, alongside Bonnie, is an online presence I have seen a lot online, and I’ve been following Maddy’s journey for a while now. For Maddy’s digital artefact, she also will be collaborating with the Creative Services Team and providing social media management services – this is something that Maddy already does outside of the university, but this semester, she hopes to expand her portfolio of work – similar to Bonnie. Maddy has also planned that whilst providing her services, she will be sharing online social media tips to her own audience and exploring current trends which I believe is a great idea to have some engagement outside of working with the Creative Services Team.
Being in BCM302 means you are at the end of fairly close to finishing your course content for Communications and Media, and I think this is a time when we are all preparing ourselves for the workforce. I think that Maddy’s digital artefact allows her to really develop her portfolio of work for potential work in the future. Via the use of Instagram, Maddy is promoting her services, and Instagram is a great location to store a portfolio of past works and the kind of content that you can create. But Maddy has also mentioned she is going to be sharing tips and tricks as well, so my main point of suggestion would be, perhaps separate that business side of it and your portfolio – if that makes sense? Having one spot for your portfolio allows potential clients to see your range of work, and having that on an account where you (in a way) advertise your business, may blend in with tips/tricks etc.
Maddy also works on TikTok – which is also a positive for her Digital Artefact. TikTok is a platform that is constantly changing every day with different trends and creators. Having someone that looks at TikTok specifically allows clients to come to her for advice where others might not have it. Being such a prevalent platform in today’s generation, it is crucial to be up to date, particularly with the open market of TikTok and space to advertise through video content.
Overall, I think both Bonnie and Maddy are on a great track, and I am keen to see where their digital artefacts take them over the next few weeks!
Till next time!
Alex 😊
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