Here is how Sennep describe themselves.
Sennep is a London-based design studio specialising in creating digital experiences for online and physical environments. Since our inception in 2003 our passion has always been to create appropriate, functional and beautifully crafted designs. With every brief we aim to expand upon our clients' vision and create something we can be truly proud of.
We don't believe in growth for the sake of it and feel that our team of eleven enthusiastic full-timers is a great size. It means we can provide a range of specialist skills whilst maintaining a 'boutique' service.
You can visit Sennep's website or view their work on Flickr and Vimeo.
Matt Rice has run workshops for the FdA at Camberwell and through these sorts of conversations has made a major contribution to the development of the course.
Here is Derek’s account of his conversation with Matt:
Initially the conversation revolved around how an interactive agency like Sennep would look to recruit a junior. What skills they would be looking for and logistically how they might go about finding someone who had that skill set.
Matt talked about needing a combination of creative and technical skills, but more important to him seemed the ability to fit into the studio. In a small studio an individual can have a massive effect on the group dynamic and as a result somebody who was self motivated, proactive, flexible and gregarious but sensitive to the needs of others would be preferred to a technical whizz kid or creative genius. These sorts of skills are very difficult to assess at an interview and whether a personality is a good fit obviously takes a little time to assess.
Sennep require their designers to embrace play and discovery. They approach each project as an opportunity to do work that is not like work they have done before. They attempt to give clients something they didn’t realise that they wanted and try to explore different processes and skills on each job they tackle. They require an intern or junior to have the same curiosity and open mind. As a result they value these qualities above technical wizardry or the ability to create a slick aesthetic.
A placement would provide time necessary to develop a relationship that would allow a judgement to be made as to whether someone would be right for the studio or not.
A majority of creative studios are small so employing anyone is a massive financial risk so they need to make sure that they get any decision on new staff right.
The discussion then moved onto how placements could be structured and what they might involve.
The placements that Sennep have given in the past have been largely hit & miss affairs, where the interns contribution evolved according to the work that was available. Interns applied for placements independently as a result in a majority of placements there was no third party involvement. We talked about the benefits an organised placement that taken as part of a larger educational experience. Matt talked of the benefits colleges organising a structure for the placement and the need for there to be some sort of checklist for what a placement might involve.
Sennep have also taken placements from Hyper Island who employ a vetting procedure for placement providers along with lots of guidance for how the internship might work. HI also run placements for 7 months and this length of time provides for the development of a relationship with the intern. This approach obviously works for the studios involved and we talked about the potential of setting up a relationship where a trusted institution could pre-select students in order to fit them to the requirements of different employers.
The 7 months of the Hyper Island placement gave Sennep a chance to build the confidence necessary for the intern to become involved in real work and actually start to become involved in the day to functioning of the studio. (One of the problems with placements is finding them something to do!) They really needed to be self sufficient and proactive for the placement to work as often in a small studio without a full time studio manager people were too busy to plan the interns time for them.
There are several possible solutions to this problem and something that Matt found really interesting was giving the intern an R&D role. Projects like the Dandelion installation that was recently exhibited at the V&A are great promotional pieces for Sennep and enable them to move their work into new areas, but they are rarely funded and so happen between time spent on commercial work. An intern could be used to carry out the research necessary to move these projects forward. This would give the intern an opportunity to build new skills and the studio a chance to do valuable R&D.
We then talked about the potential problem of interns and placements being used as cheap labour that could undermine payment structures within the creative industries. Live projects are also particularly problematic in this respect, as often students will be taking work away from professional creatives. Matt took this point on board and stressed the need for people in education and industry to work together to ensure that this didn’t happen. He also pointed out that any project was most valuable to a student for the experience it indicated. Some studios made students sign away their rights to any work produced on a placement and did not allow them to use it in their portfolio and Matt stressed that an intern should be allowed to use any project they worked on in their portfolio as this would benefit the development of their future career.
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