My Action Plan

Advertising is already known as being a very competitive market and you have to strive to be the best of best and one step ahead of the game. To help achieve this, here is my action plan in which I will do to ensure I’m at a position I’m comfortable with for my career future.

• Skills - I need to continue to learn and develop on the Adobe design suite. In particular InDesign and Illustrator. Doing the Professional Studies module greatly helped me improve my skills on these programs, but I feel this is still not to the level of full usability and comfort. By continuing to look at training manuals and videos, I hope to become more comfortable with the software. I also want to essentially use the manual facilities a lot more to show a broader range of skills compared to just having digital work. 
• The Advertising Industry - I have subscribed to campaign magazine, which has greatly helped my understanding of the industry to an unforeseeable level. The detail they go into who makes the work as well as critical analysis of a selection of adverts has been very useful to me. I need to ensure this constant hunger to find out more information on the industry continues by looking at other perspectives such as The Guardians Monday media issue, advertising journals and books. 
• Feedback - When I have feedback sessions such as the one I will have this week, I need to make sure I take all the information on board to ensure I'm going on the right lines. The main focus would be to polish up and strengths and look at the ways my weaknesses can be improved to make me become a stronger designer in my future career. 
• My Self Promotion - During my time at uni, I need to invest into a personal portfolio website where I can showcase my work and continue to show my skills grow. Giving such exposure on the internet can lead to great possible ventures as well as being in a position where you can show off your skills to the world when required. This would help gain useful contacts which again might be useful in the future. I also need to get more involved into Twitter as this is a fast evolving way to communicate ideas and inspiration quickly to designers as well as following agencies. 
• Work Experience - Finally and most importantly, I feel gaining some work experience during my degree course would set me out against people who haven’t. From the Workshop visit a few weeks ago, they kept reiterating how important work experience was no matter how small it is. It’s within a real life company doing real briefs and meeting people who may be very valuable contacts for the future.