Alumni Phil Delves wins football kit design competition for Red Star F.C. Paris

Alumnus Phil Delves shares his experience of his time here at the University of Huddersfield. He also highlights how his industry experience lead him to designing the French pro football team Red Star F.C.-Paris football kit.  

"Quite simply I wouldn't be where I am today without my time at the University of Huddersfield. Like many people however, my journey has been anything but linear.

I graduated in 2015 having studied Music Technology as a sandwich degree, and it was my placement year that shaped my future career most of all. As much as I enjoyed my course, I was met with a massive dose of imposter syndrome early on. Many of my peers seemed to be completely sold out for music tech in a way that I wasn't. People were getting industry work as early as their first year, spending more than twice as much time as I was in studios etc. Going into my placement I was feeling quite daunted about my future, but my year in industry turned out to be exactly what I needed.

Working at a creative marketing agency, I was exposed to a range of skills beyond music tech. Graphic design, social media marketing, analytics; I found myself enjoying these areas as much, if not more than music. This gave me the confidence to realise that there were opportunities for work beyond what people on my course would be expected to do. After I graduated I stuck around in Huddersfield to look for work and took up a job as a marketing assistant in Manchester, working for a health and safety software company. From there I transitioned to a role at a football price comparison site. My experience at university gave me so many transferable skills for both jobs, despite me doing next to no work in the field of music.

A few years ago I decided to take what I had learnt in industry and work for myself full-time. I had previously combined my hobby of collecting football shirts with my role at the price comparison site, and though it was a risk I made the leap having established a profile in the football shirt community. As the community grew so did my opportunities for work, and I now work with a variety of brands and companies in the football shirt space, doing everything from presenting to writing to social media work. More recently I won a competition to design a shirt for the professional French club Red Star FC, and I am now planning to lean more into the design world.

I can't imagine doing what I do now without my experiences at university, and since graduating I've been keen to encourage young people to recognise that most career paths take more than a few winding turns before they reach their destination!"