Graduates: A catch up with Joshua, Grace and Andrew of our 2012 class

Ahhh the fresh-faced graduates of 2012…well, not so fresh-faced anymore. A year out there in the Siberian wasteland that is south east London is enough to put you off being creative for life. These guys seem to be ok though, in fact they’re more than ok, they’re doing better than all of us! Here’s Josh, Grace and Andrew on what they’ve been up to since being an It’s Nice That Graduate 2012 and remember there’s just a few days left to apply to be one of this year’s class.

I have beguiled my year with travelling, making friends colleagues and drawing for people. Fresh from the womb of university life I moved into a studio space with fellow graduating illustrators from my course (see nutters in photo) and joined forces to make what is now Day Job an illustration studio based in Peckham. After a few months of working together and making publications, we were lucky enough to take part in Pick Me Up 2013 at Somerset House. As well as a unit I have found place with my personal work and have had great chances to work with great people and personalities.

Alongside illustration-based things, earlier this year I travelled from London to Amsterdam by means of bicycle with three close friends, which turns out to be very hard as we found out when people see it’s a “flat” country, they mean “windy.”

All that aside, I work in a coffee shop in Soho across from a brothel, which keeps things interesting but soon hope to consecrate to illustration.

www.joshuacheckley.com

This is a photo of my desk space in all its fluorescent strip-light and paint stained glory to represent the past year. Within seconds of graduating last summer I used the tattered remains of a student overdraft to move into a studio space with a couple of friends from my course. At some point our frustration with our day jobs developed into forming a collective and naming it Day Job.

I felt slightly doomed after graduating and didn’t expect much to “happen”, but am lucky to have been kept pleasantly busy painting and drawing for a range of publications and small exhibitions. I’ve also been interning part-time at Camberwell Press as their studio manager and working in-house at a publishing company. It’s required a lot of timetable tetris but luckily Google Calendar is one of my top skills, and I’m excited for what’s to come!
www.gracehelmer.co.uk

Imagine a creative discipline spectrum, with conceptual art on the far left and purely functional design on the far right with perhaps Art Attack centre left. I would occupy a pretty shifty stance, with allegiances to conflicting parties. 
 
So one aim for this year was to further gauge where I best fit; there have been two meaty experiences that have guided me on this quest. Firstly from interning at Inventory Studio, working on some great type-based projects. And then a placement at Vault 49 in New York where apart from sleeping in a boiler room cubicle and eating mostly pizza, I got the opportunity to work on some brilliant illustrative projects, leaving me with a very nice taste of the two worlds.
 
My next move is a slight change in course and seems to have presented itself in the form of a good friend who’s got some sweet Microsoft Word skills. We’ve formed a partnership, got a space and are currently sweating over our first brief. The photo is an advert I spotted on the NYC subway; an advert that may well have sparked this latest move. 
www.theduncan.co.uk

Represent

We are very pleased that The It’s Nice That Graduates 2013 will once again be supported by Represent Recruitment who are themselves celebrating being ten years old this summer. The graphic design recruitment specialists have developed a peerless reputation working with designers of all levels and matching them up with the right positions in some of the top agencies around. Represent’s support has helped us grow the Graudate scheme over recent years and we are thrilled they have partnered with us again in 2013.
www.represent.uk.com

Have you got what it takes to be an It’s Nice That Graduate? If you’ve just finished an art and design degree in the UK, enter here for your chance to be part of the Class of 2013.