The Apprentice Diaries: Grace’s Fourth Month

Part Four: Our apprentice, Grace, continues her account of what it’s like learning on the job at MYC… Read the first part here, the second part here, and the third part here.

“Design is the intermediary between information and understanding.” – Richard Grefé

Graphics and infographics are a great way to get key information over to your audience. Concise, bold designs allow readers to skim over content easily and pick out the relevant reasons why they should use your products or services.

This month, along with training and exams, I’ve been focusing on how to use graphics for ads, brochures and presentations. Here’s a couple of my highlights.

Experimentations in design

Before joining MYC, I completed a foundation degree in Art and Design. My creative flair has always been one of my stronger points, which is the reason I decided to become a digital marketer.

Exploring a range of tasks here at MYC has allowed me to develop my skills and find my niche. I now do all our design work, and I love it. This time last year I couldn’t imagine doing a job as amazing as this one, surrounded by an inspiring team!

I’ve created a range of graphics for social media, presentations and brochures, as well as MYC’s Facebook ads. I’m excited to get stuck into more.

Explorations with new tools

As I develop my design skills, I’m getting to grips with a wider variety of software, including Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator, and Affinity Designer. I’m constantly searching for ways to improve my abilities by teaching myself through online courses.

But it’s not just design tools I’m turning my hand to – I’ve also had the chance to analyse social media data for our clients using business intelligence software, Cyfe. My reports allow our social media managers to determine what works well, and what we should do more of next time. It’s interesting to find out which aspects of our marketing could be improved.

Even more classrooms

With my Level 3 Certificate in Marketing Principles exam quickly approaching, this month was full of classroom and revision sessions with Apprentify.

We’ve been focusing mainly on digital strategies, the need for content, and utilising SEO to increase traffic to websites. The training providers, Charles and Dale, both go into great amounts of detail and are excellent at presenting, making sure we understand a subject fully before moving on.

Interactive games, which involve research and teamwork, has also allowed me to develop my fundamental skills during these sessions. With Apprentify, I can also access all the material online, which helps enormously when it comes to revision.

Preparation for exam season

Even though most exams are taken in June, I have the pleasure of doing mine during the winter months! In fact, my first exam has been and gone – I passed with 75%.

This was a great result, but I’d like to do even better in my next exam in November. It’ll be on coding, which isn’t my forte, but an interesting subject nonetheless. I have a busy few weeks ahead of me that’s for sure…

As next month looms, I’ve started planning all the workshops, events and exams I have coming up. Stick around for the next blog to see what I get up to!