Australian Infront

What are the most important skills I need?

Posted 12.04.2012 @ 11.19PM

Hi All!

I'm thinking of making the big move and heading over to the sunny land of Australia for a change of scene! I'm currently living in Ireland where I am from and am working as a Graphic Design in an eLearning company in Dublin. I've been working here for just over a year now.

I've been freelancing for around 7 years- never a huge amount of work, just bit and bobs every so often. But enough to have built up an OK portfolio.

I'm wondering, what is the state of Graphic Design jobs over there? Is it difficult to find work? I'm more than likely going to be in Sydney as I have friends there.

Is there any specialist design areas in which studios are lacking? I'm thinking of doing some more training, maybe getting proper certified in Adobe inDesign or Illustrator, does it make a difference being certified in them? Im comfortable with them aswell as being pretty good with Photoshop, but thinking the Adobe certificates just might give me a boost in getting work. At the moment I just have a certificate in Interactive Media and am also certified in Apple Motion 5.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated! If you want to see examples of my work you can see them here! (http://www.majassive.com/personal/GD_portfolio.pdf)

Thanks all!
Adam

Posted 13.04.2012 @ 12.17AM

Unless you are looking for jobs in training or teaching the CS software I can't see how a certificate is going to improve your job opportunities. It certainly won't mean less opportunities and extra training would be great but a piece of paper prob won't do much for you. Just my opinion of course.

If you want a look at the technical skills set required, do a search on seek.com.au for "graphic designer, web designer, visual designer, art director, designer" and you'll get a feel for it.

E-learning isn't my area but from roles I've seen advertised, they suggest either experience or some certified training (ie "Certificate IV in Training and Assessment") as a minimum.

I would also suggest optimising your PDF for web (smaller download) and working towards a site based folio rather than just a PDF. Might be ok for emailing but recruitment agencies here often demand a "website".

Posted 13.04.2012 @ 12.31AM

Hey! Thanks for the reply!

Yep I have a website (www.majassive.com) but remembered I had emailed my portfolio to my current employer so just linked to it as it is layed out a bit better!

I'm just concious of going over I case I can't get work! But I guess that's always going to be a fear. But want to make sure I can do as much as possible to best my chances :)