During my job research I have looked at three major industries which I hope to work for in the future after I finish my two years of college and years at university.

 

The first company I have taken interest in from an early age was Nintendo, a popular game industry that produces new consoles and game franchises every year; just to name a few: Fire Emblem, Super Mario, Legend Of Zelda. After taking a look at the websites describing the process of application for Nintedo I have noticed these are their usual requirements for recruiting new members of staff in the Designer position: previous study of art, graphic design, computer science, fluent knowledge of both English and Japanese (written and spoken) as well as being able to work in very limited time and under pressure. If I wish to become one of the employees at Nintendo I will have to certainly learn a new language and take an additional year in computer science, however the last requirement is mostly required for those who wish to work more in the programming aspect and not the character design part like myself. To achieve the standard I am more than willing to next year or after take an additional course and learn Japanese from scratch and continue to learn in college as well as future university to improve my ideas and make them more creative so that they stand out in my portfolio.

The next studio I had the pleasure to research was DreamWorks. They have created many popular films throughout the past years such as Kung Fu Panda (2008, my favourite series of films to this day), Shrek (2001) and Prince of Egypt (1998). On their website they specified art, animation, digital media studies, and computer science, with an emphasis on computer graphics were the main interests and finished courses they were looking for when searching for new applicants. Their website (thankfully) has also specifies a list of Universities they prefer for their employees to have finished, one of the listed examples was Bournemouth University in United Kingdom in which I would love to study computer animation arts or 3D computer animation. As well as for the last stated job above it would be preferred that after this course I take on a computer science course then continue on and go to university, I am also convinced it will require a brilliant portfolio and years of previous experience to work for DreamWorks, because of this I am planning on taking many side jobs and free lancing offers in the mean time while I study so that I am able to later show a presentable CV for the company.

The final third workplace that I have looked at was Studio Ghibli, studio that created animated films such as: Grave of the Fireflies (1988), Howl's Moving Castle (2004) and Spirited Away (2001) just to name a few. Unfortunately there was no real insight on how to join the Japanese famous studio since their website or social media had close to no information on the topic. From popular forums however, people often talked about extensive knowledge of the Japanese language, vast imagination and of course, a fantastic portfolio, both with digital and traditional art. 

From what I have learned by looking at those three places of work I have come to the conclusion I will have to finish my college with above average grades and possibly do a year or two studying computer science if I wished to go into programming and animation side of the job industry, however since I am perusing my dream of becoming a character design artist, I should study both traditional and digital art to extend my knowledge of it, which I am currently doing while studying in West Thames college as well as possibly take classes to learn other languages than the two I already know (English and Polish) since two of the studio's require such knowledge. Undoubtedly because I wish to design characters I would have to also study fashion and time eras, as well as sociology to be able to not only design the character, but understand what the outfit they'd need and how they'd wear it depending on their personality. These jobs undoubtedly are also looking to take someone with expanded past work experience with good recommendations from both the work place as well as their past educational places. Taking on a university course would greatly help with this as well as taking on jobs for smaller companies or freelancing so that I would have a portfolio and people to put on my CV that would advertise me.