Day #26 | Another Good-Bye!

Photo © Noor Alsaqqa

Another farewell day and another intern is leaving SVENM for this month.

As our interior design intern and social media specialist, Hadeel, is leaving today, we talked about her journey at SVENM.

See below some of the questions I asked her.

Noor - Define the categories that you worked on during the time you spent at SVENM.

Hadeel - I worked along with Sven in developing the Snake Charmer, which is set to be an iconic furniture piece because it is locally made and addresses a local need for low tables in a majlis setting.

I also initiated the student blog with the encouragement of Sonia, and I documented daily activities on it varying from design tasks, to client meetings, to new ideas and special moments, plus some SVENM wisdom.

I also worked on event planning, as I had told Sonia when I was first interviewed that I would like to explore this was my future career. Once the events were planned I was involved in event preparations like liaison with guest designers, room-layout, ordering flowers, invitation design, correspondence, table setting and there was more which made me realise to pull off an event for others and make it seamless is professionally, incredibly demanding and needs attention to detail.

In addition, I was lucky to be invited to observe client meetings learning how to behave professionally and engage with others in a business-oriented state of mind.

Another thing I did when I came back for Professional Placement was developed a mock-up for the SVENM website and got to grips with navigating the SVENM social platforms which was really eye-opening. When you post your personal social media you just don't give it much thought, but to engage with a wider community and share a brand like SVENM you need to really be guided by the company's aesthetic for design and architecture, you need to ask every time you post if you are adding relevant, informative content and sharing nuanced opinions. You can also support other brands by posting about them through a company like SVENM and this made me see that online as in the real world, collaboration and co-operation helps build strategy.

Noor - As a student majoring in interior design, how did you deal with each category?

Hadeel - Well as an interior desin student I felt like they were all related to each other to some extent. After all its all design and creativity that is involved in each of the processes. All were exciting and different as well as some were absoloutly new to work with. Personally, I am not a super duper social media person, but I learnt that a company's social media runs through certain tactics and social strategies that enable the company to shine online. I had never really thought about it before but it does take a huge effort to get the perfect image and representation of your conpany online. You have to define your aesthetic and understand in what way you can deliver that to people ( which really matters as you need to identofy your audience).

Noor - A final question, how did SVENM prepare you for the future?

Hadeel - This is such a biiiiig question. SVENM prepared me for the future in such an incredibly unbelievable way. First of all the person I am today has a big part of SVENM education. The person who walked into the company on the first day was definitely a different person than who I feel I am now. From my experience with adults in the professional world at SVENM, with the opportunity to work with two incredible people like Sonia and Sven everyday, I gained a lot of insight on how to get your work done efficiently and effectively. I learnt how to communicate briefly and get my ideas across. I learnt how to be responsible to the smallest details and most importantly how and when to speak and how to act. I learnt so many things that I can never count and most importantly, I found my voice and I learnt how to be me. SVENM helped me have a better outlook for future and a more positive and stronger image of how in the future I would like to grow and have an impact on the creative sector.