Anna-Lena Hallqvist completed the National Certificate Interior Design and Decoration course this past June.
Originally from Sweden, she was training to be a nurse before she started studying two evenings a week at Leeds College of Art. In the meantime, Chris Shaw who owns Overview Photography and specialises in room set work, needed a permanent in-house stylist as they had previously only employed stylists on a freelance basis.
He approached Pauline Keenoy, who is the course leader for the Interior Design and Decoration course, and asked if she had anyone whom she thought may fit the bill. Pauline recomended some students from the course who Chris then interviewed. As part of the interview process, Chris gave them a photograph of a basic kitchen and asked them to come up with recomendations for colours and styles for the kitchen. Although impressed by all the candidates from Leeds College of Art, after a second interview, he asked Anna-Lena to join his company.
She had made a great impression with her recomendations and started work there only a few weeks later. Anna-Lena said, “Although I sometimes had to juggle my daytime job and my course work, I thoroughly enjoyed the course and if I had the chance to do it all again, I most certainly would.”
She went on to say, “It's been full-on since I got the job. I even went with Chris to meet a client on my very first day, but I’m loving every minute of it. During the course I tried a number of different specialities within interior decoration and enjoyed them all. I was not sure which job to focus on afterwards, but this seems like the best mix for me.”
