Student placement – A week with Expro’s Marcomms team

On Monday morning when I first came in to the office, Ria, the team Marketing Coordinator, and Kay, the Marcomms Manager, both greeted me and made me a cup of tea which was very welcoming.

The office was quiet and it was quite nice because it helped me focus and think about my ideas for the infographic poster which I had been set to design. The poster highlights HSEQ objectives that will be put up in all Expro’s UK buildings. I had gone to a health and safety induction and afterwards realised how important HSEQ was to the company, and even though I’m only here for one week, I still have a key part to play.

By the end of the day I felt comfortable around everyone. On Tuesday, I had time in the morning to finish my idea for the poster, and then I showed Graeme, the Designer, my plan for it and I was pleased to see that he liked it. He started doing the digital design and by Wednesday it was finished. We had a meeting with the UK HSEQ Manager who seemed to really like our poster concept.

Sarah, the Communications Coordinator, had asked me to help write an article for Expressions, the in-house magazine, about an apprentice designer who had recently graduated. I started planning for that and finished writing it on Wednesday. I struggle with English at school but Sarah said the article was great and that I kept to the right amount of words so I felt quite happy and proud I managed to write it.

I had also been asked to develop a design for goodie bags that will be used for Expro’s schools programme. I spent some time brainstorming ideas and then on Thursday, I had a meeting with Kay and Ria about the designs. We discussed the type of bag it would be put on and whether it would be portrait or landscape, and how this would affect the design.

Steph, the team’s Marcomms Assistant, asked me on Thursday to pick out a photograph from Expro’s archives for #ThrowbackThursday to post on all of Expro’s social media accounts. The picture was of a man working with a piece of equipment in 1998, and it got 136 likes overall (view it here). When I was choosing the photo, I looked through two boxes of old photos and it was pretty interesting to see how far Expro has come and how much it has developed, especially in terms of health and safety during operations.

I’ve really enjoyed my week with the Marcomms team. I learned a lot about working in a business but also about what career path I may want to follow. I’ve contributed to quite a few projects at Expro that people will see, and not just those based in the UK. I’m really going to miss coming to work in the morning and the team I’ve worked with.