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