About me

To Whom It May Concern:

I am writing in response to the vacancy for a Graphic Designer. I have attached my CV and work samples, and would like to take this opportunity to tell you about myself.

I have just returned to England, after travelling Asia and Australia for a year, therefore I can relocate to any area, and start work ASAP.

Travelling has made me realise I have a strong desire to learn and face new challenges. It has also made me independent and increased my motivation and ambition as well as adaptability. Hampshire Media have offered me my old position back but I understand now that part of the reason I wanted to travel was because I was unsatisfied at work, I worked in the same position for 8 years with no real variety in my workload. I would love a position that challenges me, where I can learn new skills and progress.

I am applying for a junior position as my main experience is within advertising and page layouts. I have no digital design experience, but I am a very fast learner. I feel the best way to advance my design skills would be to learn from others and have the opportunity to bounce ideas around rather than working alone. Although, working alone has taught me to prioritise and manage my time efficiently.

Hampshire Media was very fast paced, I was the only designer producing all the artwork for three weekly publications and one quarterly. When I joined the company they employed four designers who due to the recession were cut back, so I had to produce the same amount of work alone. I thrive in a fast paced environment.

I am able to work in high-pressure situations and I am capable of thinking and producing ideas independently as well as within a group situation. I use my initiative and hold a strong focus to whatever tasks I am assigned.

I am eager for challenging work and confident that the skills I have can be applied effectively to this vacancy. I have a graphic design degree and over ten years experience working within a design office environment.

I supported a team of six sales representatives and I designed adverts to weekly deadlines, each sales representative considered their clients the most important, so I had to manage my time efficiently and prioritise my workload. I helped decide which features went into the newspaper, edit them to the relevant size and proof read. The newspapers at Hampshire Media have been published for over ten years and part of my position was to archive all the newspapers and image files.

I have excellent skills in Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, PowerPoint, Quark, MS Word, Outlook and Excel and I have limited experience of Dreamweaver. I can also touch type. I am used to working in highly stressed situations particularly when the deadline is imminent. This can involve changes, last minute proofs and advertisers pulling out adverts and new ones being sold in the last half hour, that still have to be designed and signed off by the client.

Thank you for your time.