And so the learning begins….
They say that one of the best workplace soft skills is resilience. The concept of making it through challenges and not letting them get you down. After my first week on my internship, I predict resilience will be one of the key soft skills that I develop.
This may seem like a strange way to start a blog about my internship as a content creator, but allow me to begin my story.
In December last year I quit my job as a high school art teacher. Being a teacher has been my professional role for more than a decade. So, when I left it all in order to pursue a career in multimedia design, I was well aware that I was taking on risks and challenges. But I was ready (or so I thought) to taken them on.
My education was relatively smooth. I felt comfortable. Things felt achievable. After all, education was my jam. Fast forward to this past week, and things have very much shifted. I came into grums wide-eyed and keen-spirited and ready to start working. I produced some content for grums, both SoMe and product photos. Then came time for feedback.
There were so many things that I had failed to take into account (how the heck do I hide likes on Instagram?). There were also many things that I did not have knowledge about, and it was through my experience of creating the content and getting feedback that I was able to learn these things (hello lighting for product photography!) This is, of course, the point of an internship. To experience and learn. However, something else was happening. My own expectations about what I was and wasn’t able to achieve with ease are changing. I am coming to realise that I must put my own ego and expectation aside in the name of earnest learning.
In other words: I no longer feel comfortable. And I think that is a good thing.
With that out of the way, let’s get on with my learning goals. First, a quick recap of my five learning goals:
1. I want to learn how to plan a campaign for Grums based on User Research.
2. I want to learn how to execute, maintain and evaluate a campaign for Grums.
3. I want to learn how to plan and execute Reels for the company’s Instagram page.
4. I want to learn how to photograph products in a way that best captures the visual aesthetic of Grums.
5. I want to learn how to use specific effects in Adobe After Effects (such as rotoscoping) in the creation of a storytelling video.
In my first week I was able to start working on 2 of my 5 goals. I first want to talk about Goal #4. I was extremely keen to work with product photography. I began by going through all of grums’ existing product photos.
I then did some research on product photography trends which may be applicable to grums. This was done mainly through Pinterest and Instagram. From this research I was able to make some moodboards which captured the vibe of each trend.
From here I was able to work on producing my own photographs. I decided to go with the ‘repeat grid’ aesthetic, since at the time all I had access to where the products in their packaging, so I felt this was the trend that fit the best. However, I quickly learn that achieving the lighting I wanted was gong to be very difficult, and I was not happy with any of the photos I took, even after editing. This will be something I will revisit in the future to continue working on.
The second goal I worked on was Goal #1. I was asked by my supervisor, Rasmus, to start working on a Kickstarter campaign for a new product that Grums is launching. In order to work on this goal, I set about doing a lot of research on Kickstarter and started to make a plan for how Grums could create its own campaign. So far, I have planned some of the ‘Pledges’ which define what ‘rewards’ investors will receive if they pledge money towards Grums’ campaign.
All in all, my first week has been an intense learning curve, both in terms of my education and career development, but also from an emotional and self-growth perspective. I am looking forward to tackling new tasks and getting more comfortable with this new role!