PS : Nothing wins over top Amsterdam creative’s

After Nothing came out and grabbed a shit load of media coverage, the effect was immediately apparent because not long after the website went live, a call came through from Het Parool informing us that they are setting up a competition to design the front cover of the PS magazine as part of their 10th anniversary celebration,and we were invited to design. The companies involved included Kessels Kramer, They, 180 Amsterdam and many more.

Het Parool is a newspaper in Amsterdam, which, I suppose is similar to the Guardian as far as content is concerned, not aesthetically of course. But they do have all the supplements and what not, and one of the supplements is ‘PS’, which gives you all the best places to eat, drink, party and also the movie and music reviews etc etc etc.

To take all of the credit would be a complete lie, because I did very little apart from take the photograph, however, it was the photograph that beat the rest. The idea stems from thousands of bollards that protect pedestrians from cars (and destroy the wheels of cyclists), which are scattered all over Amsterdam and are instantly recognisable to all Dutch people. They carry the 3 Xs, which is taken from the Amsterdam coat of arms. Anyway, if I have to explain why we took this image then I guess its not a good idea after all…….just a prize winning one.

Thank you placement year

Letcetera

First and foremost, BIG UP DOLLY ROGERS (ive been listening to alot of dub-step recently)

Remember me saying "Its not what you know, it's who you know?", " and "you get to do some cool shit on placement". Well in the next coming posts I will be elaborating in full on what exactly I meant. Here's the first:

I met Dolly Rogers when they were just plain old Jeannette and Chris back in my first placement at Wellcreative. They took me under their wing as a son they will never have and showed me the ropes of the working world.....and Pride, Dream and WEC (nice one Rogers).

Anyway, after Wellcreative went down the shitter we kept in contact, (in fact, I wouldn't be where I am now if it wasn't for them) and they continued to keep me up to date with cool things that were going on in Amsterdam and even got me involved.

The first of such "cool things", was a Zaishu event, which is basically a gathering of artists and designers who like to draw and paint on some small stool/chairs.Google Zaishu if you wanna know more. The gathering was held in a massive warehouse that housed loads of mental artsy shit and also a massive amphibious army tank.


I came to the event just expecting to breathe in the atmosphere and bank it in my placement diary as a nice experience. But as soon as I got there I was handed piece of chair and all of Dolly Rogers materials, which happened to be a fuck load of letraset (spelling?).
So, I got the first of many beers and started scratching. I couldn't help but feel a tad bit cool considering my general surroundings and the awesome people getting their poem/paint/makeshift BBQ on.Anyway, here's the results of my labour(left facing panel):
Thank you Placement Year.

The launch of Nothing

Check this out!
www.nothingamsterdam.com

I guess if you know me you will have already looked on this site, and considering I only have 2 people (of which I know) regularly checking my blog it renders this post completely useless……..for that matter…this whole blog……….whats the point?….is anybody reading this?……lets end this now……

(before the office was built. Plank of wood for desk, pen and pad for work)

JUST JOKING!

Wooooo, I know how to bring on the heat. Anyway, Ive been working for Nothing since (almost)the very beginning of its existence. Before the cardboard office, before the mass PR hysteria, before any of us knew all of the goodness that’s been squeezed out of Nothing would actually happen. But, all Bas and Michael’s (the big bosses) hard work has paid off and I feel really humbled to be a part of it (no, they won’t be reading this blog)

(I feel like i’m using to many brackets in this post)

(Im gonna keep this short, but if you do go on the website make sure you find my section to see my cheeky face, a little bit about how working here came to be and a short video put together by myself about my time here at Nothing)

(More soon).

Why I wanted an internship and why I chose not to use the University’s help.

When I heard that Huddersfield offered the opportunity to do a sandwich year within the course I immediately knew that I was going to do it for the following reasons

- to extend my time as a student for as long as possible
-
- to find out what working in the creative industry is like so I can create a CV that potential employers will actually find interesting, not just

‘I worked at Sainsburys for 4 years and can pull a mean pint’.

That was it really.

I knew that I would be nowhere near prepared to go into the working world, creatively and portfolio wise, with only another year of study left.

So, I began trying to get my placement by going to one of the placement seminars that the university puts on, getting completely bored and leaving early. From what I gathered, I needed to send out a CV to some companies and sign up to whatever placement links the university already had.

Some might say that I was stupid to walk out on these seminars because of the great links to ‘companies’ just waiting for me, by going to these seminars. HOWEVER, I wasn’t convinced that the links were all they were hyped up to be……..The example of a placement that we were shown in my class, as a taster of what could await us by taking on a placement, was a guy who worked for a church doing graphic design for a year and produced a logo and a style guide for it.

What appeals to any designer about that sentence?

It would be wrong of me to say don’t go to these seminars, because im sure that the university has lots of churches for you to go to and will secure your sandwich degree.

Above is the CV I sent out to my potential bosses, I have no idea how this got me a job, I guess it looks alright aesthetically, but if you want to read the shit that’s on there, drop me a line and I will gladly share it with you.

Some things about placements

First of all, if you have the opportunity to undertake a placement/internship year in your studies as a graphic designer, or any kind of designer for that matter, DO IT!

Why? WHY? I guess you wont know for sure until you’ve done it. But im gonna try and nail a few (of which there are many) of the good points down for you.

+ A diploma probably won't get you a job on its own. Work experience will.

+ You will learn WAY MORE than you ever will as a student

+ You meet lots of nice and more importantly experienced people. The phrase ‘its not what you know, its who you know’ has never become more true whilst on this internship

+ You get to feel dead smug whilst your other shittier peers are back at university

+ Getting paid – you can be -500 pounds rather than -1500

+ Having the opportunity to work on cool shit

+ Getting work published in actual magazines and such, not just your make belief work

I will elaborate on each of these points throughout the course of the blog, which is coming along like a speeding bullet I might add.

The image above is the entrance door to my first internship at a company called 'Wellcreative'. I don't know many offices with a big orange rotating door, but thanks to my internship, now I know at least one.

Ill be back tracking a hell of a lot throughout this blog in order to capture as many aspects of my time here as possible, so if its boring, then you know how it felt tracking bk through all of my photos and memories to create this. Ill try and fill it with as many lovely images as possible because if you are like me, you wont read something unless

1. its really interesting or funny or well written
2. has imagery to back up whats being said so one can understand it better.

My blog will contain none of number 1 and plenty of number 2.

Above is my two female rabbits shagging.

A promise is a promise.

So, this is my first post and I thought I'd start off as I mean to go on by gloating about my success of my placement/internship, illustrated here by the view that greets me every morning as I leave the train station in Amsterdam. Its pretty beautiful and alllllmost takes the edge off having to get up and 6 fucking 30 in the morning.