I think I had a great education on my design school, as some of my best partners, I had good teachers, good subjects to work on and a good source of inspiration on my library. Every day I learn something new, something important for my professional life or for my development as graphic designer. However, after my first year in real world, working as a freelancer in my country, I learnt so many things, that nobody on my design school told me ever, and my design knowledge increase on a really new way, in some subjects that I’d never heard about on my student time.
For that reason having a design school background is really important if you want to be a designer, but the experiences you make in professional life are worthless, so here you have only 7 of those things I didn’t learn in design school.
1. Your Diploma Is Nothing.
Only a great portfolio will find you a good job on your design future, when you are a freelance, your client only wants to see what you have done for other clients, or what they said about your work, they do not care about you knowledge on history of art, they are interested on what you can really do or not for them.
Obviously an educational background is a good base for and artist and a diploma is a proof of it, but until now I never had to show my Graphic Designer Diploma to find a job, nor even on the agencies I’ve worked.
2. A Great Design Is Not Made In One Night.
Deadlines in design school are basically made for you and your other tasks (family, student jobs or even hobbies) so the teachers give you enough time to make a good final design, because they know the creating process, they know how to get great design.
But your client works on his own time and you must learn how to work on his time, normally; he will need the job finished ASAP (as soon as possible), because they do not have time to lose and they are normally in a hurry.
When I accept a work with an unrealistic deadline, I know it will not be my best design, so now I try to take only projects with realistic deadlines, or I just say no to the client.
3. You Are An Artist, But They Don’t Know It
As a designer you can create great things from scratch, just having an idea and the domain of some techniques you can bring a great design piece, that is what an artist makes, it could be a logo, a painting, a website, whatever you work on, but for your client you just help him to sell more and more, he doesn’t care about the artistic touch you give a that piece, he is more interested on what he sees right now, not the process behind a great idea and the artist behind.
When I have a client with this problem, I am patient and explain how a design proces works and what things can be most important in the creation of a design.
4. He Will Criticize Even Your Best Design
When you make a great design in your school most of the people there, are going to recognize it, your teachers or your classmates, even if they can disagree with some point of your piece, because they have with you something in common, and that is: you all have at least basic design knowledge about it, because you are all in a design school.
But your average client doesn’t have any design education and he bases his critics on personal likes, trends of the industry or even comments from others and you have to be able to handle this kind of issues all the time, be prepare if your client doesn’t like your work, this moment can be hard to pass on.
I am sure you hear a lot of things that can disappoint you, but don’t forget, they call you for your designer skills, if they were designers they would’ve made the design by themselves.
5. Save as/Backup As Often As Possible
When you are close to finish your work, it’s late or the deadline is really around the corner, the probability that your computer crashes, are higher than at the beginning of the project, that it’s Murphy’s law. This one is also learn in university, but there you can just bring out with an excuse to your teacher and you have another week to present it but in real life is not like that.
So don’t wait until the last opportunity to have a copy of your progress, every time is a good time to save your work, don’t wait until the last moment, it could be so late then.
6. Becoming A Designer Is A Never-end Process
When you obtain your diploma you should be able to make some good things with what you learn in design school for the last years, but 6 months later you can be out-of-date if you disconnect of your field evolution. As a designer you must stay up-to-date with the latest software updates, new trends on the market, news and web blogs, magazines, artists, etc.
If you don’t, you can quickly be lost in a new whole world. The design community goes really fast, every year you have a new release of design software, so if you still work with Macromedia Flash it’s time to change, you must improve your design skills also to became more productive.
7. Networking or Nothing!
After you get your diploma you must start the promotion of your name to get that dreamed first job. You can be the best designer in earth but if nobody knows about you, no one is going to hire you.
So the last advice is: Be sociable, be active on art communities, write in forums, post on blogs, create a blog, use Social Media Sites to promote what you do, don’t lose the opportunity when you think someone could need your skills on a job, but don’t try to oversell yourself either, find a middle.
When I finished school, some years ago Internet wasn’t such important, but in this time, Internet is a great source of jobs all over the world, opportunities and inspiration, use it all you can, because is the principal tool of a designer, in the processing of marketing your self.
How To Be Prepare For The Change?
You have to stay awake all the time if you want to became really good in your work as a designer, the process is never finish in this area, and the best you prepare your knowledge and skills to this change better you’ll do after.
All this things come from my experience as a designer but are not the only truth. You can have different aproach about this subject, so let me know what else you learn only after your design school or what other subject I forgot in this post
great article thanks for share your experiences..
.-= joyoge designers’ bookmark´s last blog ..Mark Prints for Self on Other’s Blog =-.
Everyone can have some similar experiences if they don’t know about the life after school, I wish i had this kind of information when I finished school.
Fantastic info.Thanks.
I will note down some relevant points and use it after I graduate!
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[...] Exx Corpio el mejor blog de la semana por su publicación “7 cosas que no aprendes en la escuela de diseño” o “7 Things You Dont Learn In Design School” que son muy ciertas y no sólo para esa, sino para todas las carreras. Debes socializar, eso te abrirá miles de puertas en, tu trabajo debe ser responsable, y con eso tendrás éxito en la vida. [...]
7 Things You Don’t Learn In Design School…
When finishing design school you will learn so many thing your teachers never told you. Here you have some of those things.
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This was a great article. I found it so informative and you’ve given some excellent tips for designers who are just starting out. Fantastic Job!
.-= Elena´s last blog ..Interview with Aimee Hoover =-.
Nice post, your comments are so true.
.-= Brant´s last blog ..Online Productivity Tools =-.
Although I graduated school in computer science, these are the same 7 things that you learn when you get out into the developer field…or anywhere else for that matter
@Elena: The idea is to help the new wave of designers.
@Kendall: The first idea is for designers but it can work for anybody, I’m glad you think the same coming from a diferent type of school.
It could work for everyone in some kind of way just have to find the little differences.
@Brant, @Ahan: Thanks for your comments
Great write-up! Some extremely useful advice here. Thanks!
.-= Rob´s last blog ..A Collection of Cheat Sheets for Print Designers =-.
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I disagree with #5. I learned to Save As and backup up at a very early stage in my design education. The rest of the list however is spot on.
@Ezra: Is better if you learnt it in your student time and even others have made it to, but some other learnt it the hard way.
@Rob: You’re welcome
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Good list. To #3 and #4, I’d add that You are MORE than just a designer and an artist.
The designer is also a key part of the communications program, and should work closely with the brand managers and marketing team to make sure that the designs properly represent the brand, the company and the message. It can be a tough sell, but sometimes you’ll need to convince clients of the strategic, not just artistic, value of design. FWIW.
.-= Davina Brewer´s last blog ..If your friends Jump the Shark, you may as well too: A newbie’s dive into Social Networking =-.
I enjoyed the article and find it pretty true :] Ty!
Very nice site!
good tips and realistic
The designer is also a key part of the communications program, and should work closely with the brand managers and marketing team to make sure that the designs properly represent the brand, the company and the message. It can be a tough sell, but sometimes you’ll need to convince clients of the strategic, not just artistic, value of design.
Nice article
Ah, interesting one – I must agree the most to the point where you understand your diploma is nothing..:)
Nobody cares about diploma, only portfolio and skills are what matter! Lovely post!
.-= Dainis Graveris´s last blog ..35 Websites To Teach You How To Use CSS Effectively =-.
Thank you for great post!
Hey, hopefully someone can make use of this J
Awesome post man. I was wondering from where do you get all this stuff!!