Frequently Asked Questions If you are sat reading this, then you are probably one of many inexperienced young design enthusiasts who are in need of help. At Creative Protege we aim to provide advice, guidance, and most importantly, the experience you need to improve you portfolio and CV, allowing you to secure your dream job. You no doubt have questions, as many of our registered design crew once had, so here we have created a section that will hopefully answer those for you. Ian Rigby, the creative visionary behind the company, will hopefully provide you with all you need to know.

What is a 'virtual agency'?

How Do I know It's genuine?

What am I paying for?

What's the difference between doing the single briefs compared to being signed up for a 3-month stint?

How many briefs can I do?

How do I submit the work?

Will my work be sent to the clients?

Why should I have to pay for work experience?

I can get free briefs from places like Design and Art Direction, why should I pay to get them from you?

When I sign up what will happen next?

Have people got jobs after working with you?

It’s the same as a normal design agency but without any offices. Now that might sound a little strange but, because of technology nowadays there is a huge trend towards working remotely, which we utilise to overcome location, space and time/man power issues. This also means that if you work during the day (full or part time) you can still do the work in the comfort of your own home in your spare time.

We are an official UK registered company with offices based on York St. John’s University campus. Take a look at our testimonials page and examples of our work on our blog-it’s constantly being updated and you can even follow us on Twitter and on Facebook. Did we also mention that we are in the final for ‘business of the year’ for best link with higher education?!

The enrolment fee covers the running costs of Creative Protege. We have a dedicated team who are available Mon-Fri 9-5 to answer all your email enquiries or questions. When you sign up you get an account manager who will be in touch regularly to make sure that you are getting what you want from your work experience with us.

As part of the 3-month package you will get a personal account manager who will be able to answer your questions and they will be in regular phone and email contact about how projects are going, plus you have an employer on your CV for 3 months. From our experience we’ve found that it can take people at least one brief to ‘dust off the cobwebs’ before they get back into the swing of things.

As many as you can handle. You might want to spread your creative wings and take a stab at website design if you haven’t had the chance to in the past or maybe a bit of illustration. We have over 50 briefs; from a variety of sources and disciplines, in our archives and always getting new ones in.

Once you sign up you will receive a welcome pack containing information about us, and an InDesign template for work to be submitted on. Once you have done your work all you need to do is fill out the form, export it as a jpeg or pdf and email it to us. It’s as simple as that!

All work submitted for live briefs will be submitted to the clients and will not be altered in any way. If you choose an archived brief because it is something you wish to have on your portfolio we will be unable to forward the work to them due to the passing of the deadline.

This is a question we are asked frequently, but what we want people to see it as is an investment in their future. Independent market research revealed that those currently registered with Creative Protege were also sceptical of the payment before they joined, but following the benefits of working with us, all agree they would definitely recommended us to friends.

The difference between competition briefs like D&AD and us is that we are providing you with work experience catered specifically to make your CV commercially viable as well as getting support from our team of account managers. A competition entry can get lost in the ether and you never get any further with it.

If you sign up within office hours during the working week (Mon-Fri 9-5) you will get an email with your welcome pack and a phone call from one of our dedicated team to set you on your way with your first brief! If you sign up over the weekend we’ll get right on it when we get back to the office on Monday morning.

 YES definitely! We have found that people who have worked with us have gained the necessary skills and portfolio to impress in an interview. We also provide personal references for the time you have spent on our books. Others who have used our service have received direct paid freelance work from clients as well as work placements.

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