Mick Greer

Today, Mick Greer came in to to talk to us about graduating, getting jobs and how to go about it. Mick studied Graphics at Blackburn University, although after graduating got into Advertising and from then on became an award winning Copywriter.

Involved in copywriting is looking at the text that goes alongside the image or art in a piece of work, and making sure its placed and is used correctly. This means that Mick also works alongside Art Directors and Designers. 

He raised the issue that when students graduate, there are too many graduates and not enough jobs. So that is why it is important to do something different that creates an impression. He kept revisiting the point of how important it is to be tenacious and passionate, and to build relationships up with many designers is a must.

When getting the placement, you have to make yourself invaluable, and to 'work on the shit that noone else wants to do.' 

There is a myth that students think designers should see the finished article, when they go to visit them. When the truth is, designers want to see intelligence and ideas that they can nurture. So rather then producing the finished article, the piece of work can get to a stage where it can be understood then move on to the next project. 

I found the lecture very honest and compelling. It seemed that Mick didn't tip toe around our feelings and gave advice without bullshit. With this in mind, I decided to show Mick my work for my Major Project.

My Major Project is to persuade the general public to be an organ donor if they are not already. I planned to do this through a poster campaign, however, my path led me to creating sale posters reading 'Huge Savings' and 'Massive Reductions', with a catchy strapline for instance 'whilst stocks last' to bring the idea together. This idea had mixed reactions, with many of my fellow peers liking the idea, whereas the response from designers in the industry was different and this made me not to sure about the idea. Therefore, alongside this concept I produced another set of posters - A ticket dispenser and a bingo ticket with the strapline '3 people a day die because there number didn't come up.

Mick looked at both ideas and gave me his honest opinion, which was that the Huge Savings idea wasn't working. The critical advice didn't dishearten me, I realized I had 2 weeks to put together a new idea, but my work is going to be viewed by designers in the industry and so I want to do the best I can to succeed and impress with a really good idea. 

My works cut out but I believe it can be done.