From crafts to computers

- Maja Bech Kristensen, Grafic Designer with Lynx Media

The Design, Technology & Business (Graphics) education became the way to a job in a media company. Maja Bech Kristensen works in the Aalborg department of Lynx Media of Copenhagen and handles graphic design of magazines, books, brochures and teaching resources and she has done so since she graduated from her study programme.

How she got the job

She got the job without even writing a job application or doing anything else to get a job. One of the executives from Lynx Media was the external examiner at her final examination, and shortly after they had met at the exam table, he called Maja and offered her her present job.

“Our Art Director, who was the external examiner, took the opportunity to see what was going on among graduates, and apparently he liked what I presented at my exam. I had prepared a visual identity for Madame X, a women’s lingerie shop, and it turned out that he liked my drawing style and he thought that my personality would suit Lynx Media,” says Maja.

“When I started on the Design, Technology & Business (Graphics) programme, I had a clear expectation that I would be learning more about working with my hands and being creative that way. I have always been knitting, drawing and painting and I was expecting that I would be learning a whole lot more about that. I had never been particularly interested in computers or what they were good for. But I soon learnt how you can be creative on a computer, and once I got hold of the basics, I realised that it could be both fun and exciting to work with the possibilities that the computer has to offer,” says Maja
 

Maja´s background

She got into the programme with an upper secondary education with a mathematics specialisation and a year’s stay in Norway. At the moment she is working on a collection of books that will be used in teaching.

But she gets all kinds of graphic design tasks.

“My work place publishes an array of magazines. The most famous one is probably the youth magazine Tjeck, but we also have many other clients. For instance we have been in charge of Jyske Bank’s youth client magazine “12:17” for several years. And the target group for a lot of the material we do is young people,” says Maja.

“We are known for being lively and possessing a style that matches what young people like. But we make many different things. We can also do more solemn and serious work if that is what suits the task best.

“I usually handle my tasks from start to finish. From the first sketches and to the final work is given to the printers. If I work on a brochure or folder, that means it is one of the tasks that our sellers has won for us, and then I may be in meetings with the client where we plan the look,” says Maja, who can be very busy at times.

“It takes approximately three weeks to produce a magazine and during that time we are usually busy. But luckily we also have periods with less stress on the job.”