Written by Danny Daley, one of the student winners of the Wired Sussex prize for 'best final year digital media project' as part of the Wired Sussex guest blog month
Danny on the left alongside his 'business brother'
How I came to be part of the project
During the third year of my degree I was given the opportunity to undertake a placement year in London. I was placed within the marketing team of Axis Europe and one of my responsibilities was to liaise with digital agencies. One of the problems that I discovered when seeking digital agencies was finding one that would work within the smaller budget that the marketing team had.
After finishing my placement year I then went on to launch my own digital agency, Fruitful Digital. This helped fund my final year of university. I then discovered how hard it was to find a first client without having any portfolio work or testimonials.
For my final year project I decided to create a solution for both of these problems by creating a service named “Agency Box”.
The project was to develop a website that provided advice for both companies seeking a digital agency and also the digital agencies themselves.
The digital industry can sometimes be very secretive; Agency Box creates a level of transparency within it, and in doing so also creates opportunities for clients and agencies to work together.
The agencies can request an invite for an Agency Box profile that when filled out will display information that clients need to know when making a decision on who to hire for the job. Clients using the service will then be able to search for agencies based on the services offered along with their location
The project also aimed to keep up to date with the most recent digital trends such as mobile responsive design.
The history of my journey
During my school years I had always wanted to be an architect. This soon changed when I didn’t get in to the college of my choice due to not attaining the GCSE’s that I needed. This was the best thing that ever happened to me as I decided to start a completely different course at college, a “BTEC National Diploma for IT practitioners”. My failure at school gave me the drive to achieve the highest possible results on the course. I achieved a triple distinction and I was runner up for the young achievers award in 2006.
I then became an IT support Analyst at Cengage Learning. It was here that I discovered my passion for the digital industry whilst learning basic coding skills from the in house web developer. I then decided to apply for a digital media course at the University of Brighton where I achieved a 2.1 Hons in Digital Media.
How I came to win!
I was given a mark of 85% for my project and received a letter the day after my results confirming that I had won the Wired Sussex award. I was ecstatic.
Where it’s lead me
Having the award on my CV along with my degree increased the amount of interviews that I have been offered. These are still on going and I am currently looking to work for a digital agency so get in touch!