Supercool

Supercool, design and people

07 Jun 2011

Categories: Superinterns,

I always thought design could be a bit selfish sometimes by not filling in the gap between audience and our practice, or at least by not making an extra effort to. This had only one logical outcome: it favoured those who were part of our area and no one else.

If there is something I have learned at Supercool it is that you can create brilliant design work and still get the audience involved. This has shown me how design can be an excellent and creative way to reach the masses by awakening their critical spirit – which should be, anyway, the whole premise of our work.

For these reasons it has restored my faith in design as a social vehicle and for that I am very happy to have been part of the team – even if it was just for a few weeks – so … well done Supercool!

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Rui Ribeiro was a Superintern in Spring 2011

First impressions

06 Sep 2010

Categories: Extra-curricular, Superinterns, Useful/interesting,

As it's back-to-school time, we've been thinking about learning here at Supercool HQ.

Whether it's a second-year student on a work-shadowing placement, an intern with us for four months as part of their course or simply someone who's unfamiliar with some of the design terms agencies use but interested to find out what they mean; we like to be useful and help folks learn. It's good for us too as we always learn something new along the way.

We get sent umpteen CVs every month requesting placements, jobs or portfolio surgeries, all of which we respond to – and within our replies we also like to include some helpful feedback when we can. The problem is that this takes time; and much of that time we find ourselves repeating the same or similar advice, which struck us as a bit daft.

The solution? Some sort of repository which houses the most frequently handed-out hints and tips; somewhere useful we can direct people so we don't find ourselves repeating the same or similar things; something that's accessible to not only the people who contact us but others too.

Initially the project was called Hello Folio (named by Sarah Carter) but the Hello Digital festival started up in Birmingham later that year, so we decided the name had better change. And so Yoo-hoo was born; advice on saying hello to design agencies and making a good first impression.

We've had a number of people contribute to Yoo-hoo so far (including design professionals, students and recent graduates) in an attempt to ensure it's as useful, meaningful and relevant as possible to those it's aimed at helping.

Most recently we crowdsourced advice on how best to approach design agencies from a range of local designers and used their feedback to create a top ten of hints and tips.

We hope this is just the beginning for Yoo-hoo and have lots of plans for the site's development; so in actual fact we may not have saved ourselves any time at all. Oops.

Still, the result should be the sort of thing that would've helped us when we were just starting out, so we're sure it'll be useful to upcoming designers – and we can at least feel all warm and fuzzy inside for having done our bit to help.

Folks who've been involved with Yoo-hoo so far: Caroline Archer; Sarah Carter; James Coleman; Keith Dodds; Clare Godson; Kristian Kaupang; Tina Loekke Leth; Ning Liu; John Newbold; Katie Parry; Aliya Tariq.

A message from Sarah W

21 Jul 2010

Categories: Superinterns,

I had a great time at Supercool during my two month internship.

I really enjoyed working in their pretty office on exciting projects. I was able to create a character for the 'Not My Type' exhibition in Created in Birmingham's Bullring shop. Furthermore I created the look for Diversity 2010 and a logo for Brum Book Club.

Thank you for involving me so much in working on such great projects and thank you for taking me to your meetings, especially Likemind. I enjoyed being a part of your team.

Another good thing for me was to improve my English skills and teaching James the German letters ä ö ü! The journey travelling from my place in Worcester to Birmingham twice every day was certainly hard, but worth it.

Now, I'm back in Germany I miss sitting on the orange chairs, listening to James' background music and getting new projects from Katie.

I had an exciting and inspiring time in England especially because of a great placement at Supercool. Thank you so much! LOVED IT!

Sarah Wilbois

A message from Sophie

25 Feb 2010

Categories: Superinterns,

I've spent my winter in Birmingham.

It was an exciting opportunity for me to go abroad as an intern. Why not? Besides from experiencing being a graphic designer in the real world, I get to discover a whole new country! I just couldn't let that chance pass me by.

James and Katie really made an effort to make me feel welcome. For instance getting my own orange office chair! Sadly I couldn't fit in in my suitcase! My main project while staying at Supercool was branding the Library of Birmingham.*

I was also lucky enough to be invited along for the lovely Chitterlings event with other interesting local creative people and John Berry, who works for Microsoft. That was a really great evening.

I also joined in on a couple of the Likemind events, where I met new people from Brum.

I have learnt a lot both as a person and as a graphic designer and gained new confidence in myself.

Thanks – it's been supercool.

Sophie

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Sophie's internship at Supercool ran from November 2009 until February 2010. She is a final year student at Skolen for Visuel Kommunikation)

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* A project based on a recently circulated tender brief – KP