The Graphic Designer’s Best Friend

Illustrator is an amazing tool. It’s one of those pieces of software designed in such a way that it can do anything you’d like and there are several ways of doing it, too! In a sense, it is similar to After Effects, but for static graphics. It’s considerably easier to make a tool for a certain job than to make one for any kind of job and that’s exactly what Adobe Illustrator is. A revolution in graphic design which, for 27 years since its release, has been increasingly taken for granted. Luckily, Terry Hemphill tried to resolve that by making this amazing documentary about the 21^st century’s graphic designer’s best friend. And I must say, he did a pretty good job! Enjoy!

How I Got Here

How I got here? It all started with a dream. Yeah, I know, you’ve been listening to loads of people who describe their success/failure stories, partly to boast, and partly to share their experience. But I think there is a valuable lesson to be learned from every story you might read about someone, because it helps you empathise with that person and learn from their mistakes. What were my mistakes? What did I do right? That’s up to every single one who reads this. So, here it goes, my story.

I have been passionate about video ever since I can remember and everything I ever did, I think, was related somehow to this passion. So, after the excitement of studying what I love at a great university wore off, it was time to think about a placement year (working for a year in the industry). Pretty straight forward, right?

I knew about Euronews for quite some time. Basically, the EU decided that there had to be an equivalent to the CNN in Europe, so every national television in the Union chipped in and the result was Euronews, based in Lyon, France. They broadcast to hundreds of millions of households around the world, are best known, probably, for their no-comment section which allows the viewer to think for himself, instead of having a presenter talking, and they are a huge player on the media market. I know what you’re thinking, it sounds like the perfect workplace. So, what was the problem?

The trouble with working at Euronews is that you can’t. Well, not exactly. There are people working there, obviously, but they don’t advertise much work. This is, from what I gathered, because, on one hand, it’s not in the private sector, but rather owned by several national television stations around Europe, and on the other hand, because, for new positions, they do a low profile search before, if this fails, advertising the position publicly.

Thus, there were only to journalistic permanent positions available. In addition to needing a technical job, I was also planning on working there for a year only, as I had to go and finish my studies afterwards. No problem, I said to myself, I’ll just e-mail my résumé and tell them what I want to do, and they will surely be interested! Right? Wrong. No one has ever, ever responded to that e-mail.

On to plan B! How to draw their attention? Calling didn’t work. If anyone has ever tried to call someone in a corporation they didn’t know, through the central reception, you know it’s not an easy endeavour. So, what do you do? There have been a number of people who had previously used social media successfully to get a job and I said “why not?” So, on the 26^th of May, Help Paul Get Hired went live. The plan was to bombard Euronews with the campaign and, hopefully, be able to get in touch with someone from there.

Many weeks had passes, during which I had posted various examples of my work, tweeted constantly on the station’s Twitter profile, and I had sent the campaign to literally hundreds and hundreds of people (celebrities, Euronews employees, other people from the media industry). Just when I began losing hope, the guy in charge of their Facebook page and another employee (I’m not going to give out names or positions) contacted me at the same time, saying that they were impressed by my determination and that they forwarded my case to the relevant people who will be in touch with me. Success! Not quite.

The relevant people did get in touch with me, but it was another two and a half months of waiting (during which the aforementioned relevant people also went on vacation) before I could get an answer. During that time I continued with the campaign and I kept sending e-mails and messages, asking about my situation.

I’m guessing that, at this point in the story, everybody’s guessing what happened next. Well, they did give me an answer, in the form of an invitation for a Skype interview! Sound like good news all the way, doesn’t it? The interview went quite well in my opinion. I was asked how I heard of Euronews, why did I want to work there, and we discussed possible positions for me, and salary arangements. I was left with the promise of the HR department doing the necessary paperwork. I was finally unbelievably close to achieving the desired result of months’ of work and stress.

But, a few days later, the final, awaited, bewildering, flabbergasting, shocking answer came. There simply wasn’t anyone who could supervise me during the placement. I’ll leave it to each one to figure out what this means. I tried appealing to them, but to no avail.

I cannot describe the bone-crushingly sensation that went through me when I heard that. It is positively, unbearably tough to have so much hope accumulate in you one day, and have it shred to pieces a few days later.

But I’m not here to agonise about this. I’m here to tell you about the whole experience, to invite you, if you’re interested, to have a look over the campaign, learn from it, have a say about what I did right and what I did wrong, and make your life easier. If you can gather at least one thing from this post, something that would be of help to you, then the 900 words you just read have achieved their goal.

In any case, I don’t see it as a failure. I mean, it’s true I didn’t achieve my goal, but it was a great experience, I have personally learned a great deal from it, and now I have a Facebook page with over one thousand supporters, which never hurts to have.

P.S. I have left the most important things last. I want to express the deepest of my appreciation to all the people who have supported me during this journey, especially my friends, family, certain people from Euronews, and, most importantly, my girlfriend, without who none of this would have been possible, or, if it were possible, it would certainly have been a completely meaningless experience.