SURF Mountain is the latest local business to take part in the South Eastern Regional College one to one upskilling mentoring scheme.
Chris Stark, website administrator for the leisure activity business received training on Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator to help with the design aspect of his job.
The training was delivered by SERC’s technician in art and graphic design, Tim Black, and funded through the Employer Support Programme (ESP) which is financed by the Department for Employment and Learning through its Further Education Sector Employer Support Programme.
The ESP project, led by South Eastern Regional College (SERC), gives small businesses the opportunity to access funding and expertise for a range of business functions. Working with the FE sector these businesses have access to resources which will help them improve their business with new technologies and remain competitive in a global marketplace.
Chris was mentored on all the techniques needed to create bespoke applications, including using palettes and layers, learning how to crop, rotate and flip images, using text with images and learning simple graphic design techniques, retouching and painting techniques and sizing and file saving.
He said: “The Photoshop and Illustrator training delivered by SERC has greatly enhanced my creative skills which can now be put to good use in designing our website.
“The mentoring delivered by SERC was highly commendable and tailored to suit our individual requirements. Tim thoroughly detailed the various features and benefits of the software. I would encourage other local companies to talk to their local college when they’re looking to build their team and develop its products.”
Surf Mountain proprietor Nick Stevenson said: “This was a fantastic opportunity for the business to gain training from a qualified professional. It was great to be able to avail of the skills of our local college’s outreach programme.
“Having obtained this in-depth knowledge of Photoshop, it is envisaged that we will create a new and exciting website experience for our customers, equipping us with the tools to better engage customers, gain maximum exposure and grow our business.”
IT projects which can be funded under the ESP programme include mentoring for one-to-one support, Research and Development where businesses have the opportunity to get personalised support to investigate new technologies and knowledge enhancement engagements, allowing employees to benefit from industry experts working within their business.
To find out more about mentoring for your business and to get results from SERC contact Jo-Anne Crossley via email jcrossley@serc.ac.uk or call 0845 600 7555.