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NEGOTIATED CLIENT PLACEMENT

1: brief

“Undertake a design work placement centred around developing your skills in an area of your choice.”

2: introduction

Following the success of my work at Rights on Flights, Sophie Morgan asked me to join the Making Space team as the social media manager and lead graphic designer. Making Space is a talent acquisition and learning platform for Disabled talent. Primarily based in LA, USA, they aim to align trained up talent with industry partners, bridging the employment gap for Disabled people. My role at this placement started in Easter 2024, and has continued since then, with full time employment lined up for after I finish my studies.

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3: starting block

Following the success of my work at Rights on Flights, Sophie Morgan asked me to join the Making Space team as the social media manager and lead graphic designer. Making Space is a talent acquisition and learning platform for Disabled talent. Primarily based in LA, USA, they aim to align trained up talent with industry partners, bridging the employment gap for Disabled people. My role at this placement started in Easter 2024, and has continued since then, with full time employment lined up for after I finish my studies.

 

With this in mind, it did take me a couple of weeks to adjust and work everything out, especially as my main points of contact were Sophie and Keely, who are both incredibly busy people so a lot of the work was trial and error. Unfortunately due to this, I wasn’t able to capture initial analytics that I would normally share in this report.

When I took over the instagram, there were a couple of issues that stood out to me:

  • Inconsistent branding

  • Lack of posting routine

  • Much more focused on both Sophie and Keely rather than on the community and the impact of Making Space

  • More of a focus on the entertainment industry rather than employment

  • Low engagement

4: aims & objectives

Before getting my hands stuck in, I decided to sit down with both Sophie and Keely to help them identify their wants and needs for social media and to also understand the brand voice further.

4.1:  6 month benchmark

  • Increase reach by 250% in the first 6 months.

  • Increase followers by 1,000 in the first 6 months, with an average increase of 150 new followers every month.

  • Increase content interactions by 500% in the first 6 months.

  • Increase sign ups on the website by 200 in the first 6 months, with an average of 33 per month.

  • Create at least 3 collaborative posts per month with the community or partner organisations

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4.2:  1 year benchmark

  • Increase reach by 600%

  • Increase overall followers to 7,500

  • Reach 15 collaborative posts per month

  • Increase website sign ups by 500 within the 12 month timeframe

5: deliverables

  • 2 instagram posts every week as a minimum, but ideally 3 posts p/w on a schedule

  • 2 of the posts per month as testimonial posts

  • Making Space Media (Making Space Media) branding

  • Making Space Media full website

  • Pitch deck custom designs

  • Graphics for upcoming campaigns and corporate partnerships such as Making Space + Indeed

6: market research

6.1: competitors

In order to get the best understanding of our competitors, I asked Microsoft Copilot to help me identify competitors similar to us. Below are the results that it generated for me using the prompt “Can you please look at my company and see who our main competitors are: ‘The accessible talent acquisition and learning experience platform. At Making Space, we put education at the forefront of the hiring process, creating better outcomes for both employers and candidates’” (Making Space, 2022):

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6.1.1: LinkedIn Learning

​Built into the main LinkedIn platform, LinkedIn Learning is “an online educational platform that helps you discover and develop business, technology-related and creative skills through expert-led course videos” (LinkedIn, 2024). It's a great tool for CPD (continuous professional development) and can help you to explore new skill sets. It's made for professionals by professionals with over 18,000 different courses available, falling into 4 main categories: business, creative, technology and certifications (Hallidays HR, 2023).

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Unlike Making Space, the courses it provides aren’t free for users unless you purchase the subscription or have a premium membership (Hallidays HR, 2023) which ranges in prices, starting from £29.99 a month (LinkedIn, 2024a). On the left you can see the variety of courses LinkedIn learning offers.

6.1.2: Indeed

In comparison to the other competitors featured, Indeed is best matched to our recruitment work. “Indeed is the #1 job site in the world and a global job matching and hiring platform. More people get hired on Indeed than any other site because we put job seekers first, giving them access to search for jobs, post resumes,  research companies and more. With AI-powered technology, Indeed is transforming job matching and hiring. Every day, we connect millions of people to new opportunities” (Indeed, n.d.).

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6.1.3: Coursera

“Start, switch, or advance your career with more than 7,000 courses, Professional Certificates, and degrees from world-class universities and companies” (Coursera, 2024).  Offering a host of free courses (as well as some paid courses as well), it is one of our closest competitors for our talent training and has a host of impressive partnerships.

6.2: Creators & collaborators:

6.2.1: Keely Cat-Wells

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CEO & founder of Making Space, Forbes 30 under 30, disability activist and all around incredible badass, Keely is truly something else. From being at the White House regularly or hanging out with Hillary Clinten, Keely is always keeping us on our toes with all of her wonderful chaos. She’s truly one of my favourite clients (even if it’s impossible to keep a meeting with her!) and she’s a massive inspiration for me.

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6.2.2: Sophie Morgan

“An award-winning disability advocate, paralysed in a car crash when she was 18.  Today, Sophie Morgan is one of the first  female TV presenters in the world with a physical disability. BAFTA-nominated British TV Host Sophie, best known for fronting the Paralympics in the UK and US, also reports on hard-hitting documentaries, live-event broadcasts, and, most recently, fronting a prime-time travel series. She is one of the first female wheelchair users to become a T.V. personality in the U.K. and worldwide” (Morgan, 2024).

6.2.3: 1in4 Coalition

“1IN4 is an intersectional coalition of Disabled creatives currently working in Hollywood focused on long-term institutional shifts to increase employment and authentic representation of Disabled people. Now is the time – to employ Disabled people, to tell authentic stories, and to ignite change for the 1.85 billion Disabled people around the world” (1in4 Coalition, 2023). Making Space works directly with 1in4 to help create a more inclusive media industry. They are one of our main partners for the media side of our organisation, especially for our daughter company “Making Space Media”.

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7: stakeholder communication

7.1: timezones

One of the first major complications when starting at Making Space was learning how to work across timezones. Most of the team are based in Los Angeles and other areas of the USA, and they all travel frequently (both Sophie and Keely are currently in Australia and New Zealand- I think!), so learning how to factor this into my work schedule was crucial. I found out early on that I can add a widget to my lockscreen with the LA time, which has been so helpful to work out when I may get a response from colleagues. I also moved around my work day to accommodate for this and switched to working late afternoons and evenings.

 

This has worked really well for me as it means that I can do my studies during the day and then work in the evenings (which is when I am most productive anyways). In addition, this has been great as a Disabled and chronically ill freelancer who really struggles with mornings. It means I can take as long as I need to adjust to the day and sort my body out and then work from bed in the evening in a cosy and comfortable environment. You can find out more about my work style here.

7.2 Contacts & communication

When starting at Making Space, my main point of contact was Sophie as she was the one who had brought me onto the team and I would have occasional contact with Keely when she needed to approve posts. However this process was super time consuming: we have a whatsapp group chat where they would send a message with a brief of what they wanted making, I would then start making it and send them a link to view it, they would give me feedback which I would then alter the design based on, send it back for approval and then finally be able to post it. This was such a long drawn out process given how busy both Sophie and Keely are.

 

However, in September, they hired another member of the team as I was going back to university so I was reducing my hours to part time again. This new member of the team is called Noa and they are incredible. Their role is as a community relations manager which basically means that they do all of the user research and write all of the copy on my behalf. In addition to this, we have also set up weekly marketing syncs with Hannah, products manager, and Serena, Keelys PA. This has been so helpful for us to all get on the same page and has significantly reduced the time required for the approvals, as well as being less reliant on Sophie and Keely.

 

We still use our whatsapp group chat for myself, Sophie, Keely and Noa as it's our preferred method of communication, and myself and Noa solely communicate over whatsapp as we can bounce ideas off each other more effectively. For wider team communication or any conversations regarding client projects such as our Indeed partnership, we use slack as it means we can have separate threads for separate conversations.

 

These changes and way of working, has streamlined my work process so much and I now feel like a proper member of the team, which was something I was struggling with with only having communication with Sophie and Keely (who again are very busy and don’t always have time with their chaotic schedules and difference in timezones).

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Sophie Morgan

TV Presenter, disability activist and CEO of Making Space Media

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Keely Cat-Wells

CEO & co-founder of Making Space

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Hannah Holmgren

Head of products & operations

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Noa Porten

Outreach & Community Engagement Manager

7.3: external client communication

Over my time at Making Space, we have worked with a number of different clients such as Indeed, Grammarly, NBC Universal and Aerie. All of the clients I have worked with so far have loved the design work I have created for them which is fabulous.

8: time management

8.1: posting schedule

Orginally I wanted to post 3 times a week, in correlation to Keely’s goals, which was a schedule I mostly managed to stick to. This was the planned content for each week:

  • Mondays: talent spotlight

  • Wednesdays: testimonial

  • Friday: partnership and disability news content

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This was a schedule that worked really well for the first month or so when I was still finding my feet, but with larger campaigns such as indeed or the Paralympics, this schedule wasn't as useful.

8.2 Adjusting to returning to university

Over the summer I was working full time (which I absolutely loved!) for Making Space, so coming back to university in September was a massive change. I really struggled balancing everything again, and decided to step back from some of my extra-curricular activities such as running a society and my work with the SLT at the university. This helped a lot but it was still a major adjustment. I am still working part time (even in this deadline season!) as it lets me switch off from everything else which I love.

 

Around September was when Noa came on board which helped with the transition to part time again, but I was still busy helping on board her as well as working with the team to make the design process more streamlined. This is why my post output decreased massively, and unfortunately the reach also decreased, which is something I am working to resolve for early January.

9: key pieces of work

9.1: Making Space Media branding

9.1.1: Introduction to Making Space Media

As part of my work with Making Space, I was asked to also help to develop the branding for their daughter company Making Space Media (Making Space Media). Set up as a division of Making Space, Making Space Media handles the media side of the business and “produces film and television, as well as educational and promotional branded content, that change perceptions of Disability. Founded on the belief that authentic narratives can change the world, we are a brand new Disabled owned UK & US media company, dedicated to celebrating diverse voices, telling stories that inspire, entertain, and empower and making space for all Disabled talent” (Making Space Media, 2024).

9.1.2: Brainstorming

Before getting started I wanted to make a mood board for Sophie so that she can check that we are on the same page before we decide on what she wants from the branding. Most of the images found on the mood-board are examples from other production or media companies, as well as Sophie’s iconic pink photoshoot that she did a couple of years ago:

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9.1.3: Sophie's goals

This project was led by Sophie as Making Space Media is her area rather than Keely’s. This was great because I know Sophie’s art style so well which makes the process much smoother. Before getting started I jumped on call with her to work out what she wants from her branding. We discussed and settled on the following criteria: 

  • Using the original Making Space logo as the primary basis of the design

  • Bringing in Sophie’s art style (line art designs which she sells as prints alongside her realism charcoal pieces) and her signature

  • Bringing in pink somewhere into the design, preferably flamingo pink to further bring in Sophie’s personality, potentially also bringing in a barbie theme as they were a previous client?

  • Clear contrast between Making Space Media and Making Space but still evidently in the same style

  • Smaller version of the logo is essential: with the main Making Space logo we have a version of it that is much smaller and just contains the “MA SP” as the first two parts of each of the words, which is used on things like social media posts

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9.1.4: Development of idea

Initially my idea was to just change the colours of the logo to differentiate it, so the first iteration of the design was using the custom typography I had created for Making Space but adapting it to the new colour scheme. I tried it out with 2 of the colours from the main Making Space branding to test how they would work together, as it would still be in the Making Space branding but much more vivid. On the left is the original Making Space branding and on the right is the first iteration of the MSM branding.

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However I wasn't a massive fan of these and there wasn’t a dark mode option for this. Me and Sophie agreed that the pink was also too red and that we needed more of a Barbie pink, which is where the next iteration comes in.

I sent Sophie a grid of 8 different types of pink, all paired with both white and the navy blue from the original logo. The first 4 options are all more deep toned and have stronger red levels, and the second 4 options are more cool toned with vibrant hot pinks. I asked Sophie to choose which one she liked the best and she chose number 7. From here I then created an updated draft with the new pink elements in the logo as seen below.

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Next up was to try and expand this logo to also include “media” in the logo. On the left you can see the idea generation process that I did to brainstorm logo variations. Once I did this, I sent it back to Sophie for her to review and choose which she preferred most and she really liked the hand written version. This really nicely ties into her line art work and her signature.

9.1.5: Accessibility checks

Of course being an accessibility consultant and Making Space being centred around Disabled people, we had to ensure that it meets the WCAG guidelines. Unfortunately this means that we weren't able to use the exact hex code that Sophie liked but I edited it to be a compliant colour that is pretty similar, with a different pink for the light vs dark mode version of the logo.

9.1.6: Final design

I’m really happy with the finalised logo, I feel like it pulls all of the elements together and goes well with Sophie’s personal branding (which I am working on with her as a separate project). The two versions also work really well with the light and dark mode of the logos, which ties into the industry standard of dark mode logos. It also is clearly part of the same company as Making Space but has its own distinct personality.

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Following me showing Sophie, she asked if it was possible to also make an animated version of the logo, specifically for our channel 4 documentary (which you can read about further on) closing credits. Both Channel 4 and Hello Sunshine were really impressed with my designs and how thorough the brand book was.

9.1.7: Animated logo:

9.1.8: Brand book

Below you can see the final brand book that I sent over to the team so they best understand how to use the branding created.

9.2: Making Space Media Website

9.2.1: Introduction

As part of the Making Space Media branding task, I was asked to create a basic website that we can use as an information page to sign posts as well as being able to upload private pitch decks to this for clients, with a passworded page. This just needed to be a simple website that fits with the branding, so it is very minimal compared to my normal work, but it's a project I hope to revisit in a couple of months once Making Space Media is more established.

9.2.2: Sophie Morgan's Fight to Fly

Part of my work for Making Space, Making Space Media and Rights on Flights was centred around a major project this summer: “Sophie Morgan’s Fight to Fly”.

A Channel 4 documentary that was co-produced by Making Space Media and Hello Sunshine (Reece Witherspoon's production company) “Sophie Morgan takes direct action to hold airlines to account for the shocking mistreatment of Disabled flyers” (Channel 4, 2024). This was a feature length documentary that followed the Rights on Flights campaign, and starred 3 groups of Disabled people who documented their experience travelling to a European city and how they found flying, which was something that I actually featured in!

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Part of my work for Making Space, Making Space Media and Rights on Flights was centred around a major project this summer: “Sophie Morgan’s Fight to Fly”.

A Channel 4 documentary that was co-produced by Making Space Media and Hello Sunshine (Reece Witherspoon's production company) “Sophie Morgan takes direct action to hold airlines to account for the shocking mistreatment of Disabled flyers” (Channel 4, 2024). This was a feature length documentary that followed the Rights on Flights campaign, and starred 3 groups of Disabled people who documented their experience travelling to a European city and how they found flying, which was something that I actually featured in!

9.2.3: Domain purchasing

Below you can see a cost breakdown per month of the 3 most popular hosting platforms: Wix at the top, Squarespace in the middle and WordPress at the bottom. Cost efficiency was one of the main priorities for Sophie and Keely as we also bought the domain separately via GoDaddy but had to purchase a premium website plan in order to connect a domain.

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9.3: The Paralympics

9.3.1: Overview of project

During the summer of 2024, Making Space officially made history.

“Not only will our very own Sophie Morgan, TV Host & co-founder, be hosting the Paralympics, so will Disabled talent she trained at Making Space for NBC Sports! Sophie, Lacey Henderson and Chris Waddell will be Making History as the FIRST EVER Disabled hosts of the Paralympics for NBC Universal” (Making Space, 2024).

9.3.2: My role

Getting to be a part of this monumental event in disability representation in mainstream media was surreal. Whilst Sophie was on air each day, I was working hard in the background (especially in the month preceding the paralympics where we were drumming up excitement for the games). Thankfully I was able to clear my personal schedule for most of August in order to make space for the level of coverage, which massively paid off. 

9.3.3: Results

The history making didn't stop at the talent hired to present, “a record 15.4 million total viewers watch Paris 2024 Paralympic Games across NBCUniversal” (NBCUniversal, 2024). This was an increase of 31% from the previous 2021 Tokyo games with US viewership reaching a Paralympics record of 15.4 million total views across NBC, Peacock, USA Network, CNBC and Telemundo.

 

These record numbers were reflected in UK viewership as well with Channel 4: “Twenty million watch Channel 4 Paralympics TV coverage, as channel secures biggest audience share in 12 years/one third of the TV population – and delivers Channel 4’s biggest weekly share of TV audience since London 2012 Paralympic Games” (Channel 4, 2024).

 

During the games, I was in charge of putting together a number of promotional posts about this. I was not expecting NBCUniversal to accept our collaboration request on one of the posts, but they accepted immediately and shared it on all of their platforms! This was a massive pinch me moment and they followed up with their contact at Making Space saying how impressed they were with MY designs! Whilst I didn’t have direct contact with NBC, I did have multiple streams of direct contact with USA Paralympians to develop our collaborations with them, which was incredible. The entire month of the campaign (the run up to the games and then the 10 days of games) was truly one of my highlights of 2024 and I can’t wait to return to full time freelancing again so I can work on more projects like this.

9.4 Social media posts

Personally, I love working on social media because its an easy way to see my design skills develop over a period of time. When I look back at some of the content that I made for Making Space when I first started, I am not impressed at all, but seeing some of my more recent projects such as Aerie, I’m so proud of my work and how much it has developed over this time.

 

Below is a grid of some of my favourite social media posts that I have created on behalf of Making Space. If you require a screen reader to access these images, please head to our instagram page @_making_space_ for the alt texts.

9.5: Pitch deck designs

Part of my role at Making Space is to be in charge of the graphic design side of the marketing. Thanks to this, I get asked to design the pitch decks for our client meetings on behalf of Sophie. She gives me full creative freedom to design however I want, as long as I stick to the brand guidelines and the tone of voice is professional corporate. This means that I can truly just create designs that I love. 

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One example of this was a pitch called “Roll Models: leaders of tomorrow” which is a groundbreaking docu-series that aims to inspire and create Disabled leaders by showcasing real examples of Disabled leadership. For the design of this, I decided to use mockups to best demonstrate how the course would look so the design features things like an open laptop with the course loaded up or the movie posts for companies such as Netflix and Apple TV+. This helps stakeholders to be able to envision the final product, making them more likely to invest in it. You can see the full pitch deck below:

9.6: Aerie

9.6.1: Introduction to client

“We're all about being REAL! Aerie is women's clothing, like high-waisted leggings, activewear, swimsuits, bras, bralettes, women's underwear and more! From the softest fabrics to the cutest prints, we've got you covered” (Aerie, 2015). Aerie approached Making Space around spring of 2024, wondering if we would be interested in a collaboration. 

 

“We’ve partnered with Aerie to spotlight Disabled entrepreneurs who are pursuing dreams, pushing boundaries and making a real difference in communities. Together, we are spotlighting six Disabled business owners who have transformed passions into impactful ventures — including the founders of Making Space. 2020 Aerie REAL Changemaker Keely Cat-Wells and television presenter Sophie Morgan, both Disabled trailblazers, created Making Space and Making Space Media to address the disability employment gap and representation for the Disabled community” (Making Space, 2020).

9.6.2: Brief

For the main part of the project, Making Space hired out a studio space for the day and brought one of Keely’s photography friends onto the team, as well as Anna Sarol who is a disability advocate and social media content creator to help with the filming and production. This was great as it meant that we had a ton of professional level content of disabled people that we work with. The aim of the shoot day was to do video filming of the 6 disabled led businesses, chatting with them about their experiences and writing a blog post for Aerie for each pair, going further into who they are and expanding on their video answers. This blog post can be found here. Below you can find a collage of the raw images from the shoot.

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9.6.3: Outcome

The team asked me to use some of the images captured from the shoot and turn them into social media graphics using some of the key themes from the blog posts. This has to be one of my favourite projects I have done so far, I loved watching the designs come to fruition and see my hard work pay off. Both the Making Space and Aerie team were in love with my work and I was even featured in the article, which was so exciting. This project was solely design focused and I had complete creative control, so was able to get fully stuck into it.

10: Handover documents

As I am still continuing this placement after the deadlines, writing a full handover document isn’t as relevant to me, however I did do a handover when Noa joined the team and I stepped down to part time. The following is what I included in the handover:

10.1: Social media

  • I have a google doc with all of our social media logins which I shared with them

  • I also shared the scheduling tools which I use, and gave them an introductory call regarding scheduling and posting

  • I have a Canva team which I added them to so that they could access all of the social media graphics, as well as sending over a live link that they can view to watch me work on the graphics and give feedback when needed

10.3: Graphics

  • As mentioned above, I have a Canva team where all of the Making Space graphics are, as well as them all being in their designated folders for simplicity and ease. Once I have the finished graphics I send them over via WeTransfer to Sophie and Keely (if I am not posting it) so that they are able to post them in their own time. I also ensure that they tag me on any instagram posts for credit.

  • Of course I also send over things like the Brand Book for Making Space Media so that they have a comprehensive understanding of the design guidelines that they need to follow.

 

When I eventually decide to leave the organisation (won’t be for at least another year or two!) I will be doing a gradual transition to help on board the new hires so that it's as smooth as possible. As part of this I will also be checking in with the new employees to see what is their preferred learning style. This will mean that I can tailor the training and handover to them and their needs. For example, someone who is visually impaired may prefer to have an audio version of the handover, for which I would create a video guiding them through, and those who are neurodivergent may prefer a written PDF or powerpoint so that they can revisit it as many times as they need. For this reason, I haven’t created a full handover document for this assignment as I would prefer to tailor it to individual needs. 

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11: Sustainability & ethical issues

11.1: AI and environmental impact

With the accelerated rise of technology, AI is becoming a far more prevalent part of our everyday lives, but it comes at a cost. AI algorithms are known to steal artists' artwork as part of their intelligence training (Marr, 2023). But this isn't the end of the issue: electronic waste, excessive water consumption and massive use of electricity, means that AI is a contributing factor to the severity of climate change (UNEP, 2024).

 

Unfortunately, this means that the campaign work that Making Space are doing with Indeed is unsustainable long term, and our audiences are picking up on this. Whilst its important that we learn to harness it as best as possible and it’s a great accessibility tool, we also have to be mindful of the cost of this. As a result, I am trying to limit the amount of content we put out about AI so that we don’t start to experience a loss of engagement and followers based on this content, but this will only be possible once the campaign with Indeed is completed.

11.2: SDG 12

This conversation ties in perfectly with SDG 12 which is “ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns” (United Nations, 2024). 

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  • As Making Space is a free platform for disabled people, we are breaking down the access barriers that can come with over consumption of paid goods.

  • Due to their work requirements of needing to travel for networking events, meetings and events, both Sophie and Keely have to travel a large amount. However, they both travel economy for every journey which is helping to reduce their spend and carbon footprint, but still isn’t great. Both of them are disabled and find what little public transport LA has, to be very inaccessible for their needs so they require taxis and ubers to get around the city.

 

However, we as an organisation acknowledge this and are currently exploring alternative transport options that are most sustainable long term (as well as cheaper!).

12: Conclusion

Since I properly started at Making Space at Easter 2024, I have loved every single second. I thrive in chaotic environments and the media industry is certainly this! No two days are ever the same (even 2 hours in a day!) and the fact I get to work with such as diverse clientele without having to be part of an agency is incredible. My entire team are so supportive, especially Sophie and Keely, and because they are all disabled like me, it means that they all understand if I can’t meet a certain internal deadline or come to meetings etc due to my disabilities. This is also the same for assignment seasons as well, where they are happy for me to take a week or two off before the deadlines so that I don’t burn myself out completely.

 

The feedback I have received during my entire time at Making Space has been invaluable. I always receive advice on how to tweak a post or copy, and they are always the first people to hype me up when I am not feeling confident in my design abilities. They are genuinely some of my favourite people and I have loved every second working here, and am looking forward to continuing my career with them!

13: Live CV

Click here to view my live CV

14: References

6: Market research

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8: Time management​

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9: Key pieces of work

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11: Sustainable and ethical

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