A fledgling in the Advertising & Marketing world, already having a big impact.

After working in a shop for a few years, splitting my time between motivating my team and gazing into the distance knowing I was destined for bigger things, I went back to college. Two years later I was on my way to Bournemouth University, having finished a BTEC in Media Production with the highest grades possible.

At Bournemouth University I study Advertising. I’m currently in my final year. Last year, I was on a placement at Hill View Primary School. Now, I know what you’re thinking – What on earth does a Primary School need an Advertising Placement student for? The answer is pretty simple – they had a communications problem, and I was called in to fix it.

Knowing that they had never had any form of communication strategy before, I was in my element. I had complete free reign over what I did, and I learned a huge amount through my time with them. From web development and WordPress, to Google Analytics, to client-agency relationship management – I had a go at everything. Simple changes, such as introducing a weekly newsletter and reducing the number of individual letters sent home, made huge changes to the way the school communicated. Bigger changes, such as a new website and the introduction of two way communication completely changed the parent’s relationship with the school.

It wasn’t just that though – I became the ‘go to guy’ for lots of things. Computing troubles, individual websites and design and layout jobs all became part of my routine. In fact, I was called back to work for them for another term when I returned to University. My time at Hill View had to come to an end, however, and I prepared to write my dissertation.

Using my well developed web design skills, I created Fohlio and created portfolio and small business websites for clients across Bournemouth. This led to bigger clients, and I found myself creating larger, complicated CMS websites and providing many other services too. It was great to have a ‘side project’ to fall back on when University work was stressing me out.

While at University, a campaign I had worked on was chosen to be entered into the edcom Ad Venture competition. Ultimately, we were named as a runner up in the competition with our response to the brief from Amnesty International being very well received by the judges. Read more about our entry, and see the poster we designed here.