corporate-design-as-a-dayjob

[kradeelav]

every now and then I think about making a design blog (tm) or book or something associated with my pro work...

and then i realize (1) I'd self-censor all the interesting shit anyway because potential recruiters in the far future might see it and that's why i created the kradeelav/walonvaus handle in the first place lol, (2) i'm not interested in fluffing out medium-esque posts. anyway,

things i wish i knew about design-as-a-career as a college grad: 

• there's roughly three buckets of career types that do a lot to describe how you'll be doing your work.
  
  • independent / freelancer: pros, no Werkin For the Man, absolute freedom in scheduling, much more aesthetic and art direction freedom other than what you're paid to do. cons: fuckin boatload of overhead (have to write your contracts, figure out insurance, have to be really good at negotiating), easily the worst pay, nonexistent mentoring and/or camaraderie unless if networking is a top skill, shit stability.  get most of your bang for the buck for experienced pros, not so much for newbies.
  • agency (~2-20 people) : pros: slightly more stability than freelancing, opportunity to find cool aesthetic niches among like-minded folks without being left out to hang by your lonesome.  usually doing the most cutting edge aesthetically cool "portfolio" work because corporate suits hate "cool" design (note i purposefully don't say good design). cons: typically in recessions these are the first to collapse. can be shittily clique-y and trendy if you're not aggressively good at fitting in or the top 1-2 in college. minimal to no promotion paths or HR. in my experience, excellent for internships if you're still shy and skittish and want to try a lot of different things in a really short time period, or if you got lucky right out of college.
  • corporate (50-50k+ people): pros: the most stability (insurance / benefits / salary), lots of brains to pick if you're stuck on something, great free equipment, most recession-proof in certain industries.  actual promotion paths and HR and other departments if you need to exit a shitty team or situation but don't want to loose the whole stability of it all. opportunity to make good design in the sense it makes many other people's lives easier. opportunity to start amassing your network. cons: dear lord the game of thrones esque politics (tho true chill-keeper teams exist!). suits and managers often veto / ask for inane shit ugly ass shit that is impossible. might get siloed into 'your local powerpoint generator' if you don't push back. potential corporate cubicle inanity. best for ambitious newbies to come into their own skin and learn about the process, imo.

• be kind, be professional, show up on time. there's a reason I mention these three specifically on my about page tips.
• your first five-ten years, you don't know jack shit. full stop. you simply don't have the life(/design) experience to make the judgement calls you would later on; this is the time to absorb everything (aesthetics, tips, philosophies, etc) to the point you can start tracing patterns and systems as to why people (suits vs art directors vs your peers) do what. some designers swear by grid systems as their God, some by instinct, some by kissing boots. find yours by trying out all the things to learn what you don't like.  you will start to realize you're beginning to know stuff when you're having to delegate the "small stuff" to somebody else.
• the big four design genres/mediums are print (flat physical stuff) / digital (computer stuff) / environmental (can-walk-around-in-stuff) / product (stuff-you-touch). pick three to know your way around in, and one to be an expert in.  most recent college grads aim for digital design and fail to recognize lucrative positions in environmental / product specifically.
• artists do whatever they want. designers earn money via projects (aka other people who pay you). knowing the power dynamics can go a long way to being able to work with clients/stakeholders easily. (project managers count as clients).
• there's a life cycle/food chain as far as paid projects go.  you want to be as close to the 'ideation' end of the food chain than 'production' as far as autonomy goes - production is often a red-flag work for assembly-line type of design. (on the flip side of the coin, the one almost guaranteed free position open is packaging production folks who know their shit. jesus christ that shit is grueling.)
• being trendy will get you in the door (with agencies specifically) and popular in college. being above-competent with people, presentations, and processes will get you reliably hired and promoted. i know which i'd rather invest in.
• the first time being hired is the hardest - you're flying blind with your portfolio, you don't have networks, you don't have the innate confidence. internships can help with all three. if you're not hired there's a high good chance it's not you, the interviewers are working off of an incredibly specific checklist that you can't know in advance (needs a specific style for x project, needs to be easy-go-lucky because 'your boss can be a really ... intense.... character at times'' (lol) (red flag in an interview!!)). 
• top two things in your portfolio is contact info and under ten projects you can succinctly talk about the goddamn process with. talk to interviewers (when they ask about specific projects) like they're a project manager - they want to see if you can design without hand-holding and anticipate needs.
• separate your dayjob creative persona with other creative hobbies (if you want them to stay hobbies) and keep them separate no matter what. this one's super subjective in particular - some people have figured out a harmony there, and for cutsey toothless stuff it works. aesthetic styles have a funny way of becoming pen-names of another kind.
• agencies and corporations care about the bottom line, not you. not the design. you make the bottom line happy (and/or their work easier), you make them happy, and inadvertently make them more lenient about more autonomy/flexibility/the hills you want to fight on you want. faster you realize the kumbaya 'make a better world with design' family shit is bullshit, the happier (ironically) you'll be.

go forth and create ~

Comments

[sailorkitty]

How is this a shitpost? It's really informative and I wish they went over this in art school.

[armoredsuperheavy]

damn I wish my university had given me ANY career advice at all.

[kradeelav]

thank you for the kind words! the tag's kind of a catch all for miscellaneous text posts, but you're making me consider a resources tag for something like this. design tag, maybe, hmm.

[armoredsuperheavy]

This is all excellent career advice. I feel you on going and making some kind of Medium article though. No thanks.
I know it's specific to design but the human dynamics are applicable more broadly. It's the old game of "know what this person wants, and feed it to them = success" sort of thing! It's always true!

[sokol]

This is so fascinating to me. I really really wish i had any sort of career mentorship in college. I'm probably gonna DM you some general questions about this - but thank you for putting it out there.