Welcome to My International Year Abroad blog

11th of February 2023 back in Rovaniemi – living in the city centre – not a student – but a graphic design intern in a tourism company

On Monday the 13th I was introduced to my office space, a few colleagues and the task of designing a logo. A vague brief with a lot of freedom I assumed.

After a few days, I was assigned to make a brochure presenting the tours that the company offers. I got the photos and the text, designed the layout for it and put everything together. Feedback for my work would usually come around lunchtime, then I would work on it for about an hour until I’ve got nothing left to do, but wait until the clock to hit 6 o’clock.

In my free time, I would do research on website design, discovered and got intrigued by Webflow and its dynamism, I thought about my sad abandoned portfolio which was in desperate need for refinement, and thought of purchasing my first camera.

I started reflecting on my career and what I wanted to make out of it. I ended up with a bit too many answers, meaning there are lots of things I would like to explore and work on – I wanted to be a photographer, an art director, a video editor, a logo design freelancer, a brand designer, but clearly a person with passion.

SuddenIy, it all started to feel wrong there. I tried fixing it by going to the gym, restoring my affinity for competition and street dance, revisiting the university, the library, some old friends… still nothing… I tried working on my photography skills, started using portrait mode on my camera phone haha… maybe I thought I wasn’t productive enough, however, nothing seemed to have any sort of purpose anymore.

It was the same city that had made me a happy exchange student in the first phase, that took the joy out of me in this second phase of my year abroad.

Weird times.

On the 2nd of March, I went to the Faculty of Art and Design where I used to have classes, saw new exhibitions and a lot of creativity displayed on those lively walls. It was inspiring, made me miss the energy of being a student.

Sadly, besides playing around with my logo design task and making as many variations of it as my mind could think of, my work wasn’t as stimulating and creative as I would have liked it to be. I am not going to point out all the things that went wrong at the company, it just wasn’t a match, so I decided to leave.

Exactly after a month, I took a plane back home.