Mike Rigby

Today Mike Rigby came into college to talk to us about his experiences within the industry and his journey from university to where he is now. Mike currently works at True North but is set to leave soon and become the Creative Director of a design agency in Australia.

After doing a 4 year degree course at Preston, Mike got himself a 6 month placement at Imagination in London. After deciding that wasn't for him he had a placement at The Chase in Manchester. When Mike finished his placement he was offered a job at The Chase and then worked there for 4 years before deciding to go traveling. Mike found himself in Australia working at Landor.

When Mike returned back to the UK he worked at Pentagram and Mark Studios before he found himself at True North.

Mike talked about the positives and negatives of Graphic design and showed us some work that he had done as a student but then also some everyday work he had done whilst working at agencies, to show us that its not always all the glam jobs, that we tend to see in the design magazines.

Mike gave us some useful advice but one thing that stuck out in my mind was that he said he approaches briefs with one thing in mind, what is the brief trying to communicate?

He gave an example of work that he did for a flooring company, where he used this method of working, and he came up with this brilliant packaging to get people to buy underlay, which then extended across all the different varieties that the company do.