How did you become a designer? – Random Question #2

Posted 29 Mar 2010 - 15 Gratefully received comments

Here’s another opportunity for you to have your say, with another one of my random questions.

The design industry, for better or worse, is unregulated. This means that to be a designer, on the most part, you don’t have to have any recognised qualifications.

For my part I knew that I wanted a creative job when I was still at school, despite this I didn’t actually take a graphics course at GSCE level, instead I took Food Technology as my alternative career path would have led me down the road to being a cook or chef, which is a bit of a trait in my family.

Instead I jumped in with both feet at college level and enrolled in a foundation graphic design course, eventually following it all through for the next 5 years that culminated in a degree.

The downside of a formal design education is that it doesn’t really give you a good enough grounding in the realties of working as a designer once you have left Uni.

The upside for me was that it gave me a framework to work within, which is something I found that I needed. My degree courses didn’t focus on how to be a designer it taught me how to think creatively and armed me with the potential skills that might net me my first job.

I know education isn’t for everyone and know plenty of creative designers that never needed that guiding hand. Most of those designers were just extremely talented others were exceptionally lucky.
I never felt that I had enough natural talent to be spotted, or enough luck to rely on it. So I opted for hard work and effort to make up the shortfall. In this way my design education put me on the correct road, and that work ethic has helped me along the way to where I am now.

I guess question is this:

How did you become a designer?

What was your way into the industry and would you have done it any differently?

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15 Comments

  • Angie Bowen says:
    March 29, 2010 at 10:26 am

    I’ve been an artist pretty much my entire life and tried for a while to make a living at it without much luck. Then I got sick and had to quit my job. After a year or so I realized that I wasn’t going to be able to go back to work and needed to find a way to work from home.

    I started teaching myself and put myself though an intensive 3 year study course. Then I started Arbenting because I had always heard how much blogging about a subject teaches you. And Arbenting just kind of naturally lead to full time freelancing.

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  • Doug C. says:
    March 29, 2010 at 4:03 pm

    Since I was about three years old. I can remember my Mom telling her friends, “Look! My son can color inside the lines! He’s a genius!” I don’t know about being a genius, but I have always had the uncanny ability to conceptualize ideas and images.

    In school I was always drawing things for the other kids – sometimes it was Snoopy on his dog house chasing the elusive Red Baron, but quite often I would draw my own characters. I was really into cartoons. My favorite TV series was Underdog. I used to drive my mother nuts running around the house in my skivvies with a towel draped around my neck yelling, “Have no fear … Underdog is here!”

    Cartoons and comics were a big inspiration while I was growing up. I spent countless hours with the great Charles Schultz, Walt Kelly, and Johnny Hart. Naturally this influenced the direction and style of my work. I think deep down I’ve always been a kid at heart. My work has character and personality. It makes people smile. And in the end that should be the goal of any great design – to make people happy.

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  • Ken Reynolds says:
    March 29, 2010 at 4:53 pm

    Thanks for sharing guys. Such positive stories compared to my own dry story!

    @ Angie
    It’s wonderful to hear that a creative passion has turned into a career after having a hard time. Sometimes it’s seemingly bad things that happen in life that make force you into embarking on the most positive ventures.

    @ Doug
    I love the aim of your work, to make people happy. You must get a lot of joy out of it as well.
    To keep yourself young on the inside is a great trick if you can pull it off.
    I never realised I could be considered a genius by colouring inside the lines! I’ll give it a try. Although I did have a few college tutors that would consider you an undiscovered artistic talent if you could prove that you coloured outside the lines on purpose! :)

    [Reply]

  • Doug C. says:
    March 29, 2010 at 5:09 pm

    Ken, keep in mind that I was coloring inside the lines at three years old, which I’ve been told is pretty astounding.

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  • Ken Reynolds says:
    March 29, 2010 at 6:58 pm

    @Doug
    Point taken, that is pretty impressive. :)

    [Reply]

  • Doug C. says:
    March 29, 2010 at 7:08 pm

    I don’t mean for that to sound arrogant or anything, but it helps illustrate the difference between something learned as opposed to something you were born with.

    Many abilities can be self-taught, but a true innate talent is most often something you are born with. Take author Stephen King for example. He could have tried to be anything he wanted, but none of it would have ever worked out for him because he was born to do only one thing – to write.

    So you see there is a difference between those who have the ability to do something unique and someone who just has a copy of Photoshop and makes beveled buttons and crappy web designs while living at home with mommy and daddy.

    Real talent is not something you can pretend to have. It exists within you and is as integral to your human makeup as say, breathing and walking.

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  • Ken Reynolds says:
    March 30, 2010 at 8:06 am

    I’m not a great believer in the ‘born to do it’ reasoning. It’s all a bit too simple for my tastes. I like the idea that you can do anything you want as long as your desire and work ethic is strong enough.
    Talent alone isn’t enough to succeed. I’d rather say I worked hard for something than say I achieved it because of my natural talent.

    I think talent is a huge advantage to some, as long as the person is predisposed to use it, and is willing to work hard to nurture it. Some of the most talented designers I’ve met now work in supermarkets because the work didn’t make them happy, or they couldn’t be bothered to follow it through.

    Natural talent is a start, but it isn’t the be-all and end-all. Talent alone certainly doesn’t make an instant career.

    Thanks for commenting Doug, it’s an interesting point you’ve raised.

    [Reply]

  • Doug C. says:
    March 30, 2010 at 8:29 pm

    No where in my comment did I imply that talent is “the be-all and end-all”. All I was doing was merely illustrating a fact – real natural born talent isn’t something you can “learn” it is something you are born with.

    This has nothing to do with whether you’ll be more successful than the grocery stocker. You wanna stock groceries then knock yourself out. I did it for years. But it has nothing to do with what I was talking about.

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  • Ken Reynolds says:
    March 30, 2010 at 8:46 pm

    Hi Doug,

    I’m not trying to be provocative, honest!
    I thought I’d just expand my thoughts on the points you raised. I was just trying to illustrate the fact that design (probably more than illustration) comprises a combination of skills that a person can learn. You can even train your mind to think creatively.

    It’s simply my opinion that what you might call talent in a person can be attained through hard work and experience over a long period of time. The advantage of ‘talent’ is that it takes out a certain amount of time and learning because a person already has an aptitude or sensitivity to certain skills or thought processes.

    I think it’s an interesting debate that I might well turn into my next blog post: Talent Vs Skill.

    Thanks again for commenting, and I apologise if you think I’m being argumentative, it’s not my intention. My favorite part of this blog is getting a dialogue going in the comments sections of the posts, just like this.

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  • Doug C. says:
    March 31, 2010 at 12:59 am

    “It’s simply my opinion that what you might call talent in a person can be attained through hard work and experience over a long period of time.”

    That statement there is where we are running into our trouble. There is a huge difference between someone who was born with a talent and some who wasn’t. That is all I was trying to say. It was just a simple statement, not something I wanted to turn into a national debate.

    If I was born with blue yes and you weren’t there’s no amount of learning, working, or practice that would get you blue eyes.

    [Reply]

  • Ken Reynolds says:
    March 31, 2010 at 6:47 am

    Yup, that’s pretty much where we disagree. Of course I think natural talent exists, but like everything there are varying degrees of it.
    If you have a modicum of natural ability I think hard work and extensive learning can always fill in the gaps.

    Doug, I hope you’ll come back to read the article you’ve inspired by having this discussion with me.

    [Reply]

  • Doug C. says:
    March 31, 2010 at 7:02 am

    Heh, I’ve never inspired an article before. Yes, I’ll definitely be looking forward to it.

    [Reply]

  • Mart says:
    March 31, 2010 at 6:27 pm

    Why not be both? Why not be born with talent and improve on that , take Lebron James for example (Cleveland Cavs NBA superstar) Came from high school, missed college and went straight to the NBA and this guy gets better and better.
    Was born with talent (being a great basketball player) and has used his hard work ethic to improve his game.

    Can’t designers do this?

    Myself as a photographer have a good eye for photographs however find myself evolving my talents to keep up with the trends; film, digital, HDR, RAW, histograms. These are things i have to learn not born with.

    [Reply]

  • Ken Reynolds says:
    March 31, 2010 at 6:32 pm

    Cheers for your thoughts, Martyn.

    I’ll be posting an article on this debate tomorrow, so it’d be great to get your reaction to it. I’ve put some thoughts down about athletic ‘talent.’ So I’m sure you’ll have plenty to say.

    In an effort to get this comment thread back on track, why not let everyone know how you got into photography. Don’t forget to mention what a positive influence I’ve had on you! ;)

    [Reply]

  • Iain Fergus says:
    April 9, 2010 at 4:01 pm

    I’ve wanted to design since school. I was always interested in art, but couldn’t draw/paint/sculpt and I found I had a natural talent for Graphic Communication/Tech Drawing. It came very easily to me. I liked the precision and minimalism.

    I was the first (and only at the time) pupil to take on the new Advanced Higher course that started during my sixth year. That course introduced different elements such as 3D Modelling with Autocad, and DTP albeit with Publisher from what I recall.

    I ended up applying to only one course, and brand new one that was due to start at Glasgow Caledonian after the summer. I got in, and it exposed me to elements of print design, web design, UI design, Learning Tech and Cognitive behaviour and strangely Product design.

    It was that course that led me down the Web & Print route.

    [Reply]

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Who's Ken?

Picture of Ken I'm a freelance graphic designer living and working in Suffolk. I've been using Illustrator, Photoshop, InDesign & Quark Xpress since 1999 but I've been using pens, pencils, paper and most importantly my imagination for a lot longer. I'm always looking for new clients to work with and interesting projects to work on.

 

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