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Service Design Academy
Rory Mertes is a new addition to the SDA Team, he is our Digital Media & Marketing Assistant that joined on the 19th of April 2021. We asked him to write about his experience of his first month working here.

Firstly I’ll say how I found out about the Service Design Academy. In January I signed up for Universal Credit as I had recently dropped out of university, I was studying Game Design Production at Abertay, realising it wasn’t for me I wanted to take a different turn in life. I was given a work coach that helped me quickly pinpoint potential careers that fit my interests, I applied for a job at the SDA as many of the roles looked like they’d be a good fit for me.

 

Week 1

My first day was just introductions and learning the basics of what my job would entail, I was given a very warm welcome and was made to feel part of the team straight away.

 On Tuesday I was in a workshop about Co-Design, this was ran by Claire and Chris, all I was doing was observing and learning. It was really informative and both Chris and Claire made the workshop a fun and engaging experience.

For the rest of the week I was learning more about what the SDA does and what I’d be doing. I also began learning how to use the video editing software Adobe Premiere Pro, as my first big task was to create a short video on the workshop that I had attended on Tuesday. At the end of the week I had begun work on the workshop video, most of the day was cutting down the 2 and a half hours’ worth of footage and finding key moments I could use.

 

Week 2

Most of the week was spent editing the video, cutting it down to about 2 minutes of good footage, figuring out how the video should look, appropriate music I should use etc. I had finished my first draft on Friday ready to show the team for the following week.

Also scattered throughout the week I figured out WordPress to create blog posts on our website, and I attended a few meetings, again just to observe and learn how things are done here.

 

Week 3

This week had me doing more blog posts! I also spent my week updating the youtube channel, giving it a fancy banner, and general house keeping making our videos more accessible and adding links to our other social media channels. I was also trying out a new website, Canva, which lets you create all sorts of content, like posters, or brochures, and other similar items. I was tasked with creating a leaflet on the courses we run here, as always using new software is a bit confusing but after a while I became at least somewhat familiar with it and created a decent looking leaflet (maybe it could use some fine tuning from someone who properly knows how to use canva though!).

On the Friday I attended another workshop, this time titled Tools And Methods, it was being ran by Kim and Katie. Again, I learned a lot, Kim and Katie were great at conveying the information in an engaging manner, and the clients got on really well with the activities they were given.

 

Week 4

Using the feedback I got on week 3 to edit and improve on my first video, improving the consistency of the colour scheme and accessibility of the video through more clear fonts. I’ll be showing my improved version of the video next week so I hope it goes well! Assuming my video can go public on our channel I’ll begin work on my next video, a workshop I attended in week 3, now with 1 video under my belt it’ll only get easier from here!

I also have created a few blogs, the last 3 blogs were done by me and there’s more on the way! Lastly I managed to create a few short social media posts, advertising our upcoming courses for businesses, which there’s still have time to sign up to!

 

Summary

Overall I’ve really enjoyed my first month here, I was nervous going into a job where I didn’t know anybody before hand but everyone has been really welcoming! I’m really fortunate that this job became available to me right as I was looking for one. My responsibilities are exactly what I enjoy doing, video editing, creating graphics, blog posts etc, so the days are flying by, and I get to learn and use a variety of cool software I otherwise wouldn’t have access to.

Tgank you SDA for making my 1st month of work a pleasant one!