Dear Anna,

My name is Rory and I am a graphic design student in my final year at Loughborough University. I am in the last stages of my degree, working on my final projects and preparing for the next steps of my design career. However, as you can imagine in the current climate of the world of work, there is a lot of uncertainty facing not only people in work, but graduates hoping to take their first progression into a creative career. With the potential cancellation of my degree show and other networking events such as D&AD New Blood Festival, as well as the slow decline of the job market, I feel at a loss as to what to do. Is there any advice you could lend upcoming graduates?

Thank you very much for your consideration and I look forward to hearing from you.

Rory

Dear Rory,

What a time to be alive, eh? I could list all the sayings about adversity making us stronger, but leaving education for the creative industries can be challenging at the best of times, so I feel for you and all new entrants to the world of work right now.

That said, I’m a big fan of reframing things where we can to find creative advantage. That’s not a simple case of finding a silver lining, because there’s still a whacking great cloud taking up most of the space in that analogy. What I mean is thinking around a challenge in a way that gives us scope to be more innovative.