DailyDOOH

Gail Chiasson, North American Editor

Calum Walker is senior designer, Amigo Digital, London. UK

1. Describe your personal work space.The Amigo offices are fairly small and they are in an old bookbinders building in Highbury, North London. I would describe my personal space as ‘organised clutter’ with numerous tacky holiday souvenirs bought for me by co-workers spread around. My personal favourite is a bespoke ‘Muppet’ we call Kelly, who is coincidently my ‘Creative Head.’
2. How do you get to work?I am quite fortunate to live close to where I work so it’s a short walk and a 15 minute tube down the Piccadilly line. Occasionally my boss picks me up on his motor bike and I rock a leather jacket and mirrored aviators as we bomb through Finsbury Park.
3. What is an average day like?An average day in the office really does depend on the projects I am working on, but I am quite fortunate to work on at least two or three things at once. Typically my work involves anything from conceptualising ideas to designing/animating all the way through to client delivery.
4. What is essential to you being able to work happily?I think for me variation is the key and that is the one thing I like about working at Amigo. In the morning I can be pitching ideas to a large technology company and in the afternoon I can be putting together designs for small regional digital signage screens. Finally, in the evening, I can be singing in a Lucky Voice karaoke bar with all of my co-workers for a de-brief.
5. How flexible are your working conditions?If I have been working late and starting early my bosses are pretty good at giving me days-in-lieu. I think this industry is all about taking the rough with the smooth which I guess can be both good and bad.
6. What do you think your employer looks for in its staff?My employer would tend to like someone who is not only a creative thinker, but someone who can find relevance in their creativity, and someone who can understand a client and individual creative processes. Ultimately, you really have to enjoy being with the people you work with. When individuals are brought in to the company, it is an equal measure of skill set and personality. I think my two bosses would find it hard to work with someone who could not take a laugh and a joke.
7. What suggestions do you have for your company?I think it would be beneficial to re-design and re-develop Amigo’s website into an easily updatable blog – which is something we are looking to do shortly. Sometimes, your website can be an after thought, but with effective SEO it can also be one of the main driving forces for new business and opportunities.
8. Do you have any frustrations you would like to share with us?It can be frustrating when a client declines better ideas on the basis of cost or simply wants “the same thing as last year”. I think as much as a creative company needs to be forward thinking and embrace new technologies, a client should be, too.
9. What do you like best about your job?Personally, the thing I enjoy most about my job is the people I work with. We are all very close and we get on incredibly well inside and outside of work. I don’t think many people can say they have been on holiday with their two bosses – you have to determine if this is cool?!? In a more professional sense, I like being part of the whole process from the time my pencil hits the pad to the delivery of a final video, and working in a relatively small team enables me to do this.
10. How open is your company to new ideas and suggestions?Our company relies on individual input and brainstorming sessions. In these sessions ideas and concepts are always being driven forward and discussed. We all regularly go out into the wilderness and find our true selves by reciting ancient scriptures and taking part in sacrificial ceremonies… In all seriousness though, everybody in the company has a voice and has the chance to explain their new ideas and suggestions.
11. How much responsibility have you been given?I have worked here approximately 2.5 years and throughout that time I have been lucky enough to work with an increasingly varied list of clients and individuals, all of which have taught me things. The team has grown significantly in the last year, and from being one of the earliest recruits, I have found that I am having to develop my supervisory and management skills even further. In short, I am trusted with more and more responsibility the longer I work here, which is challenging, but exciting, too.
12. How green are you and your company?Well pretty much everybody here uses public transport to get in to work but we could be better at recycling paper. Must try harder I am afraid 🙁

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 23rd, 2011 at 00:01 @042 and is filed under Will Work For Love. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.