ROBOT FOOD

Steph Oglesby came and did a talk about the company that she works for called Robot Food. Robot Food are a design firm that mainly focus on designing branding in the food and drink industry. They go beyond the brief and make solutions for clients, sometimes giving the client advice or presenting ideas that the client wouldn't have thought of. Their take on design is to find inspiration from different industries and styles to create unique and fresh ideas that haven't been seen in the catering industry.

Steph is a design director at Robot Food and I was really inspired by the way she built her way up from university onwards. She started to take on design briefs and won awards for entering competitions. She then got various internships and work for a large design company. Robot Food actually reached out to her because of one of the awards she won. They asked if she wanted to work for a smaller company but make a bigger impact. The company she was working at she wasn't making much of an impact but was determined to. At the time she was skeptical but after a while came around and joined Robot Food as a Junior Designer. During her time there she started to realise that she was more of an ideas based designer and loved to be in charge of creative direction during projects. Because of this drive she was able to build her way up to become Design Director. She gave us some advice about being in the design industry:

1) Find your thing, don't compare yourself to everyone else

2) Think about the commercial side of your portfolio, show examples that can work in real life situations (e.g. packaging/advertising campaigns)

3) Find the right fit for you, research what's best for YOU!

4) Make people feel special about their work and talk about their work when networking or in interviews

5) Work hard! The first year in industry is the hardest, keep on persisting

6) Be creative and think outside the box. Take risks!