Archive for the ‘rockstar’ Category

Blooper vid – rated (M)

Late last year our team had heaps of fun making the Schools Went Crazy video (which you can view on the homepage below left). Creating the video was a great experience, and something we’ll never forget. Filming didn’t exactly always go to plan. Here is a collection of bloopers you can see on our Facebook page.

Starter Pack cards

Did you order a Year 12 Starter Pack, and not receive your student hand-out cards in the post?

You should actually receive your cards in a separate parcel to the Annual + DVD.

Depending on the size of your letterbox, sometimes the postman will leave a post office  “collect” card, for you to pick up the cards. Check to see if they left a card. Otherwise contact your Yearbook Consultant, and we’ll chase it up for you!

Be Our Rock

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We’re looking for another Yearbook Consultant! The new position is a Yearbook Consultant & Marketing Assistant.

To apply, please visit this page.

Before there was Rockstar…

Before starting up Rockstar in 2005, I used to work at a big company. It taught me a lot about internal systems, office politics, and the ups and downs of working with people.

Probably the most useful thing I picked up was the joy of having a free lunch. I remember quite clearly on my first day being taken out to lunch. I could chose any restaurant, and take whoever I wanted! I had a lot of friend that first day. They all seemed to disappear from day 2.

Things were ok at first, but slowly and surely I got the shits. I knew I wouldn’t last very long, as I had never envisaged I would get of there in 1 year. April 13 was the target date. All I had to do was hold on until April 13.

I was a large environment at that company. I felt uncomfortably trapped – like my arms were tightly bound to waist. There was so much I wanted to do – so much I could do – but wasn’t given a chance. I never quite made April 13, and resigned on March 8. It was just really too much.

Not meaning to sound arrogant, or “better than that”, but I am sure that other grads also felt the same – or at least thought it, but didn’t act on it. There was a lot of safety in being part of something much much bigger. They used, quite successfully Friday afternoon free drinks as a way to build the team. Good on them of providing this culture. Pay em peanuts and feed em beer – great strategy.

What I guess I am trying to say is that we only live once. Three years on in 2008, I’m very happy with where I’m at. It felt right, leaving the safety of an established option. I think the message is – if you ever feel right, but it’s not ‘usual’ or ’standard’ – f*** it – just do it.

This post inspired me. A couple of sentences you need to read twice to understand – but it all makes sense.

Your resume

Today we posted a vacant position in our Creative Services Team on Seek, and the applications came flooding in.

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(I’m the monkey on the left, seeking refuge on a random villager. Michelle is the larger money, cause…well… you know.) (We’ll see how long this picture lasts).

Anyway, we actually first advertised a week ago on the Australian InFront forums (which is great, if you like reading opinionated comments), and later contacted several design schools and their alumni base.

Seek definitely has a large audience base and has really opened our eyes to the world of receiving job applications. Here are some tips:

  1. You are a graphic designer – MAKE YOUR RESUME LOOK GOOD…. duh!

    How do you expect us to hire you, if you can’t even make your own resume look good?

  2. Use an appropriate format: PDF.

    Contrary to what your animation professor told you, Flash is DEFINITELY NOT a good format to send your resume. I mean honestly, what are you thinking!!!? A resume is a document to be read, not a crazy experiment to test our patience in trying to open some random file.

  3. Excuses suck!

    Saying things like “btw my folio is out of date – I have done better work since!”… only tells us one thing: You are lazy. If you have done better work, then be bothered to update your folio and show us.

  4. READ INSTRUCTIONS

    If you read carefully enough, we asked you to visit a particular website to apply for the job, not use the seek application process. That was the first test that you either passed or failed!

OK enough ranting. Just another tip though, I think it’s always a good idea to call the number provided as well to leave a good impression – to plant a seed for your name. If you do call the number, have a good specific question to ask. Don’t just say “so tell me about the job”… If you call and be annoying, you’ll just leave a bad impression. It’s human nature after all.

Come again!

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Oh the deserted streets of Sydney were great this past week. No cars clogging the streets, everyone out of town, and another fireworks display!

Even though it takes some of us all of 2 minutes to get to work, it was actually noticeably quicker by train! Which means one thing… we were that much more productive with designing & processing your yearbooks.

You can thank George W for that…

Applications

We’ve been chatting to people all week for positions in our Creative Services team. Overall it’s been fun and really interesting….

A few tips though

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1. Leave some things at home
…like your infectious disease! If you’re not feeling so well just tell us and we can reschedule. Rudolph noses don’t look so good anyway. Now I have one. You give us a cold, and we give you a job? Sorry, doesn’t work that way…

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2. Push our door… don’t pull..
Trust us, first impressions count. If a door won’t move with quite a bit of force, try the other way :)

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3. Answer the question
Being asked a questions isn’t an invitation for you to blabber on. Succinctly answer the specific question being asked. Blabbing on only shows you have an inability to listen!

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4. It’s only coffee
This one goes for some younger applicants. If you’ve been offered a free coffee – just accept it and say thanks. Don’t offer to pay for it yourself. It’s only $2…… Really… we shouldn’t have to fight over who is picking up the $2 tab! The art of giving is often in accepting.

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5. Say you don’t know
We don’t expect you to be perfect. In fact, the more perfect you and your responses are – the harder it is for us to like you. We are far more impressed with someone who answers “I don’t know“, than someone who replies with a textbook response. Providing a textbook response just irks us… it probably also says that you’re great at being dishonest.. something we don’t like at all.

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6. Show us!
Lastly, do you really want the opportunity?! Well then, really show us!

Applications are still open for the next few weeks. Good luck!

Hardcovers

We get reaaaalllly busy towards the end of year.

Last year I managed to get a few videos of our hardcovers being made (without the guys getting all embarrassed). We fully intend to explain the process of making hardcovers on our website in more detail, but in the meantime, here is video of the Cranbrook Year 12 2006 Yearbook hardcovers being made:

oh dear….

We got a new MacBook Pro. Installed Bootcamp, followed the instructions, and whalaa!…

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We’re hiring!

Interested in working in our creative services team?

More information available here.