Job Title: Designer
Industry: Printing
Location: United Kingdom
Age: 58
Gender: Male
Salary/Benefits: £8 / hr, 26 hrs per week flexible
Employer Type: Private company
Employer Size: 3 employees
How Long in Current Position: 7 years
Highest Level of Education: University Diploma
Path to This Job: Amateur Fanzine artwork and printing > University Diploma in Printing > Hot Metal Typesetting > Litho Printer > Typesetting on Mac > Graphic Design on Mac > Imagesetting Film Output > PrePress > Graphic Design.
I chose this field because I am fascinated by the processes of printing and design, by the combination of art and science.
A typical day at work:
7:00am: Get up.
9:00am: I have a leisurely breakfast and leave the house at 9am. I usually walk to work.
10:00am: I start work with a large mug of tea each morning. Lunch is taken while I work, at my desk. Every day is different, we are a small firm and we do a lot of small run jobs on digital presses.
I do a range of things from preparing supplied artwork to creating artwork from scratch. I sometimes have to explain to customers why their supplied artwork is not good enough. I often have to recreate existing logos or artwork because the originals are unavailable. We print a range of things from business cards to 72-page catalogs. We do a lot of NCR which is something of a niche for us.
I have enough time in between jobs to read / post on forums for prepress and designers most days. I get on very well with my boss and co-workers but we don’t socialize outside work.
3:30pm: Leave work for the day.
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Photo by Raphael Schaller on Unsplash