Contact Reflection

Out of all the projects I have done this year, I would have to say this was the one I struggled on the most. Working in an hospitality industry gives me confidence to talk to people in a calm and friendly manner, which was a strong point when I had my face to portfolio critique with Tony from AHD imaging. Throughout my talk I was never nervous, but confident and positive in my approach which he also commented on as he said my manner was very friendly and appealing. That confidence though is much harder for me to get across in emails or phone conversations as it lacks that personal touch. In fact, I found phone conversations much more nerve wracking then actually physically meeting them because I'm constantly on edge that I'm going to interrupt or I'm taking up valuable time away from them.

On terms of my portfolio critiques I would say has been rather successful. I had a number of both email and face to face responses to my work which gave me great feedback on areas for me to improve in my design work, as well as the industry. What I found though was that I limiting my relationships to getting information about my work. With the contacts I made during this professional practice project I missed out on the opportunity to learn more from some of these companies about the way they work with clients, how they pitch ideas and how they work within a team as I was too focused on getting response on my work. If I was to do this project again, I would make sure the initial emails I sent out focused more on building a relationship and learning before I go in for the kill and ask for informative feedback on my design work.

Although I have reached my aims in this project of making  contacts and getting my portfolio critiques, I have come out of this a little disappointed with the strength of my contacts and feel like I have missed out on what could have been a great opportunity. But in reality, I haven't really missed out. Just because this project has ended doesn't mean I have finished. I will still be looking to talk to companies after I finish this degree and after reflecting on the contacts I have made, what I can say is that I have learnt from my mistakes and will have that new found knowledge ready when I am out there in the real world on my own.