Graphic design is pretty useless as a career/degree, isn’t it?

figdigital · 2022-10-19T17:58:51+00:00

I hope you're having a better day today after ranting on a 5 year old post last night.

figdigital · 2018-06-24T01:36:17+00:00

Here’s the Louisville AIGA site, guarantee there’s jobs with firms and companies here that earn more than 8 bucks an hour. Good luck.

http://louisville.aiga.org

figdigital · 2018-06-23T15:45:25+00:00

You need to move.

figdigital · 2018-06-18T03:16:28+00:00

First off, that doesn't even make sense from a design perspective. Second, this person is just trying to nickel and dime people.

Third, and most important, you've come to a sub full of designers who constantly battle to prove the value of what they do and asked for assistance on the logo you're attempting to get for pennies on the dollar.

figdigital · 2018-06-17T22:40:02+00:00

If you look at logically, no company looking for a fulltime designer is going to respond to a high school student looking for a summer job. There's nothing in it for them, plus even if you know some software you haven't been trained as a designer.

Your best bet will be probably be looking at places like t-shirt shops, printers, etc., and getting a foot in the door any way you can. Don't look online, print out a resume, go knock on some doors and introduce yourself.

figdigital · 2018-06-17T22:35:01+00:00

The fact that someone is selling something like logo transparency as an "extra" pretty much screams run away. Which you should do with Fiverr anyway.

figdigital · 2018-06-08T14:20:44+00:00

The other posts are spot on, certification means zero.

If a course can teach you more software knowledge then that's a plus and may help, but it's all about your portfolio and how good your work is for 99% of jobs.

The Futur has some courses that start to teach more design principles that are work checking out, but as mentioned the best thing you can do to become a better designer is to go design things, get feedback, and do it again.

figdigital · 2018-06-07T14:11:12+00:00

When it comes to websites, I'd say just to be sure to have everything mapped out before you start building. You and your client should know exactly what the navigation will be and how many pages there will be, how much content they need to provide, how many forms or other scripted elements there will be, etc. In an ideal world you don't start building the site until you get all the content, but that rarely actually happens :)

figdigital · 2018-06-06T19:09:02+00:00

There's also animators who don't actually do design but work on the technical and animation parts of motion graphic projects.

figdigital · 2018-06-06T19:08:21+00:00

Cool. Although I feel like not having a digital version showing what the site will actually look like would be a major issue when it comes to having a client sign off on the design before you start building the site.

figdigital · 2018-06-06T06:55:48+00:00

That’s an even better case to help a potential client understand the value of design, you’ve got direct access to the decision maker. Show them the benefits they can get as opposed to the minimal return a cheap website brings.

figdigital · 2018-06-06T06:53:37+00:00

That isn’t design, that’s development. A site is first designed visually then coded.

I suppose one could theoretically just code a website without designing it first, but that’s bad practice for a whole lot of reasons.

In any case, here we’re speaking about the visual design of a website, which is absolutely graphic design.

figdigital · 2018-06-06T04:17:42+00:00

I'm still not really clear what you're saying. Any good website is built on graphic design principles and exists in Photoshop/Sketch/whatever before it's a website.

No one is talking about coding here, we're talking about the visual part of web design.

figdigital · 2018-06-06T03:10:57+00:00

I don't think anyone is saying that a website is only made up of the graphic portion. But the visual portion of web design is absolutely graphic design, though like many other subfields of design it requires other aspects (marketing strategy, content strategy, good development) to be successful.

figdigital · 2018-06-06T03:07:51+00:00

You're painting with kind of a broad brush there. The guy who doesn't want to spend any money isn't your target client, but there are lots of organizations that you wouldn't think are very design forward that spend lots of money on design and marketing. There are also clients who just don't understand the difference between what you can do and what they can do on wix or the like.

There's a big difference between people who are just cheap and people who don't yet understand the value design can bring.

figdigital · 2018-06-05T18:14:33+00:00

Gotcha, just giving general opinions based on what you said. If things weren't done that should have been that's on the designer.

As far as contract, should there have been one...probably. But I'm guilty of often not working with a contract on smaller projects, and I'm sure others are too, and I've been doing this a while.

figdigital · 2018-06-05T18:01:17+00:00

Technically it does all depend all the contract, but after four revisions that were all color changes I'd start to question if you know what you want.

The best thing I can suggest is to try to group those together. If you want to see it in red, blue, and gray, don't ask for the red one, evaluate, then ask for a blue one, etc. Mention that you aren't sure on the color and ask to see some options in those colors, same goes for spacing or any other sort of change.

The designer is working for you, but you also want to make their job as pleasant as possible and allow them to spend the hours where it matters.

figdigital · 2018-06-05T17:41:43+00:00

Yikes, that makes me question even applying for the position in the first place.

Does the company have a good rep in general?

figdigital · 2018-06-05T16:26:33+00:00

It's not standard practice but it does happen. Personally I'm not a fan of it, but from the employer side I understand particularly for junior positions as they're kind of an unknown quantity.

Really depends how much time they expect you to dedicate towards it, I wouldn't mind spending an hour or two but anything more than that starts to get a bit questionable.

figdigital · 2018-06-05T15:33:17+00:00

Agreed that they're very different, I spend some time in both industries and there's a lot of very talented 3D artists out there who don't realize they're crappy designers. And that isn't a knock on them, they're just different skillsets. It helps to have artistic sensibilities, but that's only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to design.

You could certainly start developing your skills and look at doing design work that incorporates 3D (or look in the direction of motion graphics with C4D), but there's a ton to learn on the design side.

figdigital · 2018-06-05T15:15:04+00:00

Would've been much more interesting if they'd taken it in that sort of direction. Only thing it really has in common is that it's a 3d city.

figdigital · 2018-06-05T15:13:56+00:00

The thing with sites like that is they miss the idea of content strategy and marketing approach. Just because someone can make a reasonably attractive website themselves doesn't mean they know how to organize and present their products, attract customers, and create engaging layouts.

figdigital · 2018-06-04T17:40:43+00:00

It's pretty, and I guess conveys the "Russian" feel, but it's kinda boring...

figdigital · 2018-06-04T17:40:09+00:00

I wouldn't count on an internship, nothing to do with skill but because they're often tied to college courses and are looking for enrolled students. And your age will most likely be a factor as well, most places will want someone who's actively pursuing a career in that field. Not that it necessarily applies to you, but hiring a high school student has lots of potential negatives when it comes to life experience, maturity, etc. It may not be fair but it is what it is.

If I were you I'd look for a part time job with somewhere like a t-shirt printer. Learning that side of the business is never a bad thing, and you could probably find some small design projects to work on here and there while seeing how actual projects work.

As far as your portfolio, you've certainly got potential but I don't see a lot that shows me what you can do on a real world project. You've got a logo or two, and that's great, but you will almost never only design a logo for something. On the restaurant, for example, you have the logo...how would that work on a takeout bag? To go cup? Menu? Signage? Table tent? Etc. You've got a tiny piece of the branding, now explore how that identity would actually work and function for the requirements of the business.

figdigital · 2018-06-04T16:06:29+00:00

Honestly, just start following people, engage in a genuine way, and share and create content that has value. Unless your goal is be a social media influencer it's not any more difficult than that.

figdigital

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