My Graphic Designer CV and Resume
My Graphic Designer CV and Resume from past employment and freelance work undertaken in Northern Ireland, where I describe and summarise jobs. Do you remember any of these companies? Comment below.
Contact information
Name: Philip Topping
Address: 148 Ulsterville Park, Portadown, Craigavon BT63 5HD
Email: philiptoppingweb@gmail.com
Phone: 07786 891862
Personal Statement / Profile
I worked in Pre-Press as a Graphic Designer and digital Printer. In print, I have over 20 years of experience in the industry, working on a range of advertising and promotion to marketing. Some print examples are brochures, books, leaflets, flyers, posters, and stationery; the list is endless.
So I started literally at the bottom in pre-press as a Mac operator (a Mac monkey type job, which was typesetting and Desktop Publishing DTP type work) also know as a Graphic Artist too and worked my way up to senior graphic designer positions in a few printers from 1999 to 2003 and then 2005 to about 2011, with a short break from about 2003 to 2005. Unfortunately, the recession hit and the company I worked for closed in 2008. I tried a couple of jobs before deciding I didn't want to work as an employee anymore, embarking on self-employment from 2011 onwards. If you are still reading this, feel free to check out my website. To summarise education and work history in the early 1990s, I tried a couple of things and then chose art and design, but I wasn't quite sure what I wanted to do.
Graphics and Pre-Press Work Experience
My work history has been quite varied, to say the least, ha ha! I have been employed full-time, temporarily, and as a freelancer in the past. Most were full-time, though.
Job Title: Graphic Designer (full-time), Antrim Printers
Address: Steeple Road Industrial Estate, Antrim
Duration I worked here: About 8 months
In 2009, I worked at Antrim Printers, where I was a Graphic Designer on various commercial printing projects, including brochures, calendars, leaflets, stationery, and flyers. They were printed in-house, single colour on the litho presses, full colour digitally, a large inkjet printer for posters or outsourced to litho printers like W&G Baird. I worked here full-time, and Rodney also asked me to return to help a little when I started my own business in Portadown. I quite liked it here. There was a small team of other graphic designers, also. The company was owned and run by brothers Leslie McCullough, who handled accounts and finishing, and Rodney McCullough, who worked closely with pre-press and printers, managing pricing, ordering paper, pre-press, and print management. Both sadly passed away. Below is my reference from one of the owners.
REASON FOR LEAVING: No work.
Job Title: Graphic Designer (full-time), Summit Printing
Address: 135-137 Gregg Street, Lisburn, BT27 5AW
Duration I worked here: About 4 years
From 2005 to 2008, I worked at Summit Printing in Lisburn. I worked as a Graphic Designer, in pre-press and digitally printed jobs too, on the Xerox. This was great as it gave me another job besides design and pre-press. I worked on a range of commercial and general printing, including books, booklets, brochures, stationery and logos. There was one printer, one part-time finisher and one part-time accounts person employed here, so quite a small company. Peter Scott was the owner and manager, taking over from the previous owner. I quite liked it here and was sad to see it close. Below is my reference from the owner and one of the customers from Newry.
REASON FOR LEAVING: Company closed.
Job Title: Technical Illustrator and Graphic Designer (freelance), Exitex Ltd
Address: Mount Pleasant, Carrickaneena, Dundalk, Co. Louth, A91 HK29, Ireland
Duration I worked here: About 4 years
From 1999 to 2003, I worked at Exitex Ltd I worked closely with the Managing Director (Brian Allport) as a Technical Illustrator in Jonesborough, about 15 minutes from Newry. I illustrated for a range of commercial printing, mostly brochures and leaflets. Also, technical illustrations, whether from scratch or by altering existing illustrations, were created using software called Adobe Illustrator. Some ideas were glazing bars, sash windows and weather bars.
REASON FOR LEAVING: Managing Director retired.
Job Title: Mac Operator (full-time), Optech NI
Address: Maryland Industrial Estate, 286 Ballygowan Road, Crossnagreevy, Belfast BT23 6BL
Duration I worked here: About 6 months
In 2002, I worked at Optech NI as a mac operator, where I just made a few changes and proofed jobs, grouped together and output to a plate.
REASON FOR LEAVING: Dreadful pay, working conditions and no training given by the studio manager or supervisor (Nigel, I think was his name, and as far as I know, he moved onto GPS. If I remember correctly, I couldn’t stand the fella).
Job Title: Graphic Designer (full-time), RK Enterprises (NI) Ltd
Address: Also called New Homes Marketing, Belfast
Duration I worked here: About 7 months
In 2002, I worked at RK Enterprises, also called New Homes Marketing. Marketing of property development and new build brochures and signs. Reginald Donnell (also called Reggie) was the owner. Worked as part of a small team. This was too much of the same work for me, i.e., property development brochures, so I lost interest after about six months, and if I remember correctly, the work dried up about this time, so I wasn't really worried.
REASON FOR LEAVING: No work.
Job Title: Graphic Designer (full-time), Graceland Print & Design
Address: Also called Eakin Ltd, Carn Business Park, Carn Rd, Portadown, Craigavon BT63 5WG
Duration I worked here: About 10 months
In 2001, I worked at Graceland Print & Design Ltd in Portadown for about a year. Graceland Print & Design is now called Eakin Ltd or Noel Eakin & Sons Ltd. As I recall, there was very little graphics work here, more typing, typesetting, desktop publishing and Mac operator duties, which I wanted to move away from. I worked on pre-press for booklets and general printing. Printing was on the premises, and some jobs went to In-House Publications in Carn Industrial Estate. I am not sure if they are still printing. Simon Eakon (who happens to be the boss's son, lol) was the manager at the time. I was paid off by the owner, Noel Eakin. I don't recall the reason, but I'm not concerned since the work wasn't great. When I started, I asked some staff, and they said most workers and staff didn't last too long, came and went as they went through staff like hot dinners.
REASON FOR LEAVING: Dreadful pay and zero training given.
Job Title: Junior Graphic Designer / Mac Operator (full-time), Dataplus Print and Design
Address: 13 Hill Street, Dunmurry, Belfast BT17 9HU
Duration I worked here: About 2 months
In about 2000, I worked at Dataplus Print and Design. There could be several reasons, for example, the company and business are just too far to travel, the pay is just too bad (so travelling didn't make much sense), the employer said there would be graphics work, but in reality, there wasn't enough, or the manager was a twat. You couldn't get a job without experience, and you couldn't get experience without a job, a bit of a rat race. Some of them are basic typesetting and DTP, which I didn't want to do this kind of work as these kinds of jobs you would get bored with after about 3 months anyway. Some of the companies I worked in were...
REASON FOR LEAVING: Low pay, too many mistakes and things going wrong due to no training given and awful working conditions.
Job Title: Senior Graphic Designer (full-time), Peninsula Print & Design Ltd
Address: Units 1-7 North Road Business Park, Quarry Heights, Newtownards, County Down, BT23 7SZ
Duration I worked here: About 5 months
In 1999, I worked at Peninsula Print & Design Ltd, where I was employed as a Mac Operator and a Graphic Designer. This was my first job, so I didn’t have a clue what I was doing. It was more desktop publishing and typesetting. I was given a silly one week to train, but unfortunately, there was no training given. The owners were Gary Withers and someone else (possibly Don Black?), sorry can't remember his name. I designed various items for commercial and digital printing, all in-house. Artwork was sent to the computer for plate-making. If I remember correctly, there was no direct-to-plate system in place. I designed various print materials, such as leaflets and business cards and output customer and client artwork to print. This was a senior role, but truthfully, I was way out of my depth and shouldn't have been put in this position.
REASON FOR LEAVING: No training was given, which pissed me off, so I just left.
Temporary Jobs
Job Title: Unknown (full-time), Docsol
Address: 7 Monaghan St, Newry BT35 6BB
Duration worked here: About 2 or 3 weeks
Was here about 2009, and I don’t even think I had a job title lol, and it was by far one of the worst companies ever. The owner wouldn’t pay me what I was owed when I left, so I was forced to take him to a tribunal in Belfast for pay.
Job Title: Mac Operator (full-time), Tudor Journals
Address: 97 - 99 Botanic Avenue, Belfast BT7 1JN
Duration I worked here: About 1 month
In about 2002, I worked at probably the worst company I have ever worked at in Northern Ireland, which was Tudor Journals. The owner was a complete plonker and nutter. The company went through a lot of staff, and I can see why, ha ha!
REASON FOR LEAVING: Dreadful pay, working conditions and no training given.
Job Title: Graphic Designer (temporary), Cornell Studios
Address: 12 Armagh Rd, Portadown, Craigavon BT62 3DP
Duration worked here: About 1 week
Can’t remember, but about 2001 or 2002, I worked here on property brochures in an office in Hanover Street.
Job Title: Graphic Designer (full-time), Condor Community Services
Address: Condor Community Services, Dunmurry
Duration worked here: About 2 months
In about 1999, I worked here on map display boards and various printing.
Job Title: Make-Up Artist (full-time), AV Browne Advertising Ltd
Address: Belfast
Duration worked here: About 1 or 2 weeks
Was here about 1998 or 1999 (can’t remember), as a makeup artist, which sounds fancy but far from it. It was just making some changes to a black-and-white advertisement, and that’s it. No training given, and needless to say, I got bored to death. Think the advertising company went bust.
Jobs I tried
I was asked by the employer, manager or boss to call in for an hour or two to check out their set-up, but for whatever reason, most likely, the pay was dreadful, or it was too far away from Portadown, which didn’t make sense. This included
Job Title: Graphic Designer, Clanrye Press Limited
Address: Newry
I was here for a morning or afternoon in 2009, but I think this was too far for me to travel each day.
Job Title: Graphic Designer, Sam Robinson Printing & Business Systems
Address: Lisburn
Also called SRPBS Lisburn. I could clearly see that they went through pre-press staff like hot dinners!
Also
Lisnasure Interiors, Dromore
There was absolutely no training, so I only stayed here for about 2 days.
Note on Jobs
There could be several reasons why the work didn’t last, for example, the company and business are just too far to travel, the pay is just too bad (so travelling didn't make much sense), the employer said there would be graphics work, but in reality, there wasn't enough, or the manager was a twat. You couldn't get a job without experience, and you couldn't get experience without a job, a bit of a rat race. Some of these were basic typesetting and DTP, which I didn't want to do this kind of work as these kinds of jobs you would get bored with after about 3 months anyway. Some were temporary or freelance.
Full-time means you're working there all week, building up holidays; part-time means you're contracted for a certain number of hours each week, also building up holidays; temporary means you're working just for a bit, so it could be two weeks or two months; and finally, freelance means you're called in every so often just for some work.
Education
Education consists of full-time and part-time courses. Full-time courses were paid for by the local council in Armagh, and in higher education, I received a small grant. Sadly, you have to pay for these courses yourself and receive no grants, how times have changed.
Course: BA Hons Visual Communications (full-time)
University: University of Ulster, Art College. Also called Belfast Art College
Duration: 1995 to 1998
BA Hons Visual Communications from the University of Ulster, Belfast campus, also called Belfast Art College. This isn't an Ulster University review or anything like that, but my personal views. I was very much looking forward to this course, but after about one year, I couldn't wait to get out and work in the real world, so to speak. There are a few reasons for this, but I don't want to go into too much detail here. I thought the lecturing was awful, with no support or career advice. I don't want to appear sour as I'm not providing you with an in-depth University of Ulster review or anything like that, but maybe on reflection, an HND or 2-year course would have been much better, but again, isn't hindsight a wonderful thing? I’m not 100% sure, but I believe the Irish actor Glen Wallace was in this course at the time, who I thought was an arrogant prick at the time, really up himself and just a dreadful person in real life. Of course, people change and improve.
Course: BTEC National Diploma Graphic Design (full-time)
School: Lurgan SRC
Duration: 1993 to 1995
I completed the BTEC National Diploma in Graphic Design at Southern Regional College, Lurgan campus (formerly known as Upper Bann Institute of Further and Higher Education). On reflection, I might have been better off skipping this and going for a Foundation course, which was one year, but isn't hindsight a wonderful thing? Before this, I completed a First diploma in art and design (on the same campus). While here, there were subjects like (obviously) graphic design, French (not sure why this was in the course), and photography, amongst others. One of the lecturers and teachers was Sean White, who ran the course. If I remember correctly, there was next-to-no Mac-based computer work, which was a shame as the Mac was and is still essential for graphic design.
Course: RSA DTP (part-time)
School: Portadown SRC
Duration: 1991
Desktop publishing on the Mac computer with a very small monitor. If you have worked on a Mac in about 1991, you will know what I'm talking about, haha. As this was a practical RSA course in the Portadown campus, there were a lot of practical projects to learn from and really no pressure.
Course: BTEC Business Studies (full-time)
School: Portadown SRC
Duration: 1991
First diploma in Business Studies at the Southern Regional College (known as Portadown College of Further and Higher Education at the time).
Course: BTEC First Diploma in Art & Design (full-time)
School: Lurgan SRC
Duration: 1990
First diploma in Art and Design at Southern Regional College, Lurgan Campus (was called Upper Bann Institute of Further and Higher Education at the time). There was a broad range of subjects in the course, including drawing and art, graphic design, textiles and pottery. There was very little graphic design on the Mac computers then. One of the teachers was renowned photographer Victor Sloan in Portadown.
Skills
I use Adobe Creative regularly, including Adobe InDesign, Photoshop and Illustrator and am proficient in these applications. I wouldn’t say I know everything, though, as there are so many things to learn, especially in the age of AI. I mostly use these for designing print but have also used them for social media design, including creating reels and TikTok.
