Meet Toby, our work experience Designer

by Faith Veale on Tuesday 10th July 2012

• Cubeworks News

This week, we are delighted to have on board with us, Toby Wilkins, a young student studying design at Chailey School, who has joined Cubeworks for a week of work experience. During his week with us, Toby will be updating this blog on a daily basis, reporting about his work and his time spent with the team:

Hello! My name is Toby, I’m a fifteen year old student from Haywards Heath. I absolutely love everything to do with art and design, and Cubeworks was exactly what I was looking for when in search of a unique work experience placement for the week.  I’ve always been very keen on designing and creating by hand. I enjoy Art and spend a lot of my time sketching small ideas I’ve had, and amusing myself with little doodles! In the past few years I’ve helped my younger brother, who’s very confident with design & build of websites, advising on layout and content. As well as this, in my early teenage years, I spent a lot of time putting together and editing videos on Apple software.

I was so happy to hear back from Cubeworks once I’d applied for the position. They were very helpful and friendly in all preparations beforehand, and I couldn’t wait for the week to come! During this week I have been set a design project, and with help from the team, I look to learn new skills and improve as a designer. It seems such a lovely atmosphere here and I look forward to working here and gaining experience from it.

Monday  I very much enjoyed my first day of work experience at Cubeworks. I was made to feel very welcome from the start and I liked having a look round the office, which is rather cool I must say! There is such a friendly, calm environment which is great. The work taking place is all very interesting and I was happy to try and complete similar work myself. I was introduced to the task I will take on this week. After deciding on the subject of my mini website, I set about researching some existing sites, noting down the good points and the bad. I then began designing the basics of my homepage layout, receiving help throughout. I look forward to the rest of the week!

Tuesday  My second day’s work involved continuing what I had started on Monday. I received lots of help from Danielle, one of the designers at Cubeworks when it came to using new programs. I used Photoshop for the first time, and once I got the hang of it I began building the homepage for my project. I had to design a logo for one of Cubeworks’ internal projects, and this involved sketching out quite a few ideas before I created something that worked. I then used Photoshop to design the final logo, which I was pretty pleased with! I had a really enjoyable day again, using programs I’d not used before and progressing in my week’s project. I’m very happy with all the support I’ve received and the friendliness of all the staff here.

Wednesday It hasn’t taken me long to feel part of the Cubeworks team this week. This morning, I had the privilege of sitting in a meeting amongst some of the designers here. I enjoyed listening to them discussing a project – it all sounded quite challenging but exciting! I was very interested to hear all their ideas and the different jobs they’d each do in the project. I then continued to work on my own design stuff, planning and building upon a homepage I’m creating for my local football team. It’s coming along quite well. It’s a shame that I’m over half way through my time here now, I’ve enjoyed each day so much.

Thursday My fourth day at Cubeworks  – and another enjoyable one! This morning I had a good chat with Jesse (Cubeworks’ Head of Design), about his career in relation to what I’d like to be doing in the future. It was helpful talking with him, as he has masses of experience in design and does a job that I have a lot of interest in. He showed me some very impressive work he did early on in his career! Later on I talked with one of the developers, Karl, who works more with the setup and coding of websites. It all appeared pretty tricky, so it was really nice having Karl explain it to me. It’s fascinating how much work goes on behind the scenes of a website. I also spent time with Andy (Account Director) in the afternoon, and he showed me how some of the sites are set up and the complex layouts involved. In what was a pretty busy day, I managed to squeeze in more of my own design work – sketching on a tablet, that enabled me to draw by hand on the computer, which was really cool!

Friday I had a really lovely final day today. This morning, after some final preparations, I presented my webpage to some of the designers here. They offered plenty of encouragement and helpful feedback. I later had a nice lunch with a few of the team. It’s been such a useful week for me, I couldn’t have asked for a more suitable place to practice and learn new skills in design. It feels a shame to be leaving, it all went very quickly! I’d like to thank the whole team for having me this week, and for helping throughout my work. Thank you to Danielle who looked after me so well. I’d recommend Cubeworks to anybody interested in art and design, and anybody looking for a brilliant place to spend their work experience. Congratulations to Susan who beat me at table tennis.. just.