Shaping Skills, Creating Impact: My Purpose Lab Journey
Over the past six months, my experience as an Event marketing Assistant with Purpose Lab has been creatively challenging and personally transformative. What began as an opportunity to gain practical experience quickly became a space where I could refine my skills, broaden my perspective, and contribute to work with real impact.
A key highlight of this journey was creating designs featured alongside well-known companies. This pushed me to move beyond visual thinking and focus on purposeful design, ensuring each piece aligned with brand identity and communicated a clear message. Adapting to established branding guidelines challenged my usual approach but strengthened my ability to design with intention and discipline.
Alongside design, I contributed blog posts to the Purpose Lab website, which significantly improved my creative writing. It helped me develop a more confident, structured voice, teaching me to communicate ideas clearly while still maintaining creativity. This balance is something I now recognise as essential in any professional setting.
I also supported administrative tasks and report creation, which gave me a broader understanding of how organisations operate behind the scenes. These responsibilities strengthened my organisation, attention to detail, and ability to manage multiple types of work simultaneously, helping me build a more well-rounded skill set.
Purpose Lab plays an important role for students by bridging the gap between theory and practice, offering a space where young people can actively contribute, take ownership, and grow in confidence. What makes this especially valuable is the level of trust placed in students. We are not treated as observers but as contributors, which builds both accountability and self-belief
Looking back, this experience reshaped how I see creativity and professional development, showing me that growth becomes real when your work stops being just about what you create and starts being about the impact it has on others.
By Janice Sylvester – Purpose Lab student ambassador and University of Chester student