Still more advice for design students and grads
This post is a followup to Advice for Design Students & Grads.
I asked my network of fellow designers and creatives for the advice they’d give, and received some insightful responses.
Q: What would you tell a new design school graduate?
“Learn to draw. Put down photoshop and illustrator, grab some charcoal and some conte crayons, some good paper and spend some time learning composition and form. Its often not covered adequately in design schools anymore, and is treated as an afterthought in many art schools, but drawing is fundamental in making your ideas come to life. If you can’t sketch out an idea well in paper during a client meeting, you may find that you loose the jobs to those that can.
Nothing limits your professional growth and options more than learning to only think through the eyes of Adobe products.
Learn the tech behind realizing your designs. Too many designers think that they shouldn’t have to know code, or technologies behind displaying their ideas, but the ones that will make the most money, find the best jobs, and work with the strongest teams will be the ones that can talk to the coders, techs, printers, or manufacturers responsible for translating their ideas into the real world, in their own language.
Under no circumstances deliver final products in InDesign. Nobody wants InDesign files in the real world. It costs jobs. Seriously.
Drink beer. It seriously helps.”
– Kim McCann, synercom/edi
“Getting a steady job will not necessarily keep your portfolio current or relevant. Don’t get complacent. For every 3 client jobs you do, do one for yourself so that you’re always ready to go if/when the employment ends.
Beer, yes. And coffee. Much coffee.”
– Jana Curll, janacurll.com
“Expect to have your ideas completely rejected in the worst way. Don’t take it personally, just have more ideas.
Also, expect that the people you’re working with/for don’t actually know that much about what you do. It’s a battle.
But also….it’s really cool to see your work out there in the wild. That feels awesome.”
“Step 1: Make things
Step 2: Keep on making things
Step 3: Put those things on a portfolio site
Step 4: Make more things.”
– Ryan Casey, ryanscasey.com
“Show some humility. You don’t know everything and there is a tonne to learn from experienced practitioners.”
– Brad Swerdfeger (bswerd.com), Blast Radius