When all your friends are designers too.

The unavoidable part of becoming a designer or a politician or bricklayer even, is that your peer group will eventually be made up mostly of other designers, bricklayers, or politicians. Why am I insinuating that's a bad thing you might ask? Well I would have thought the answer obvious, but that doesn't make for a very good read!

Politicians are probably the best example of this line of argument because this is something that the majority of people have witnessed with their own eyes. Politicians on the whole, get accused of the same thing over and over again, and it is that of being self interested and out of touch with the people that they actually govern. They are purely in the business of making the country a better place for themselves and others like them. That is of course the generalized public opinion and not everybody shares this view but maybe there is some truth in it. Maybe the politicians have become so accustomed to the interests of their party and the company of other politicians that they have no idea what the people are really like. This happens in a number of instances when you think about it.  It has done throughout history. for instance in revolutions and civil wars across the globe. Stereotyping after all is not entirely fictional, or indeed fixed. The generalization must to true to an extent of most people within the named group, that's how it works. The problem is that the job is so all consuming. It is more than just a job that you do for money, it is a role within society that affects people and there livelihoods and it carries with it responsibility, and expected behavior, and so forth, it just so happens that it carries a pay check. What most people fail to notice is that all jobs are like this. Your Job isn't just a job, it is far more than that.

I think a great interlude to this line of thought would be for you to check out this site which elaborates on my point in a wonderful way. http://workisnotajob.com/en/about.

Now coming back to what you do, it is going to affect affect quite a few things in your life and not only that but it is going to affect things for your close and even quite distantly connected peer group. You might be thinking don't be silly, I can see how a politicians decisions are affecting the wider population, but how is me designing holiday cards for "Clinton Cards" going to make a difference to anything. I feel this one is best illustrated with a little story.

Lets say for example you are in fact a freelance graphic designer. This allows you to work from home or from your clients office and at your own pace within reason. It also allows you to charge whatever rates you feel are appropriate, and generally avoid the day in day out monotony of the nine to five. Overall you are happy with your choice to do this but it does have its down sides. Some of your clients are not very nice people and they don't understand or respect what it is that you do. They call you up at all hours of the day expecting you to be fine with this because you are a freelancer, and they try to get away with not paying you wherever possible. Not only this but you often have periods without any work and you are in charge of supplying, maintaining, and updating, the very expensive equipment and software that is required to be a graphic designer. These are all things that affect you personally.

Now of course these things do have a bit of a knock on effect and bleed into your personal life. For example, your boyfriend/ girlfriend often complains that you don't spend the weekend with them as often as they would like because your projects sometimes run over and the deadline is the most important to you than quality time with your partner. You know all about computers and a little bit about programming and markup languages because its part of your job so naturally sometimes you just cant switch off and end up talking about these subjects to your friends. They know nothing about what you are talking about and have no interest in listening to it either, as it has no effect on there situation and subsequently avoid you when that's what you are talking about. In there eyes you are becoming more and more boring and they would like there less geeky friend back. On a more positive front though it also means that you can help with otherwise technical and daunting tasks that your friends may not be able to handle on there own so most people, (your mum especially) now assume that you are there own personal technician and treat you accordingly. Great news for a number of people in your immediate circle and perhaps a few friends of theirs that could sling you some work.

Now you can see where I am going with this but the last one is the more important aspect, and it is how you have affected the company, the employees, and the consumers, of the products via your actual work. Now lets not forget what you do as a graphic designer. You are a conveyor of visual information and a maker a visual reality that may or may not exist for someone other than yourself. In essence, you sell things to people using pictures and words. So where does all this affectation come in? I'm glad you asked! Lets say the Job you just did was a set of labels for a new cosmetic range that wanted to draw in a new younger audience as the company weren't meeting there profit target by only appealing to the over 25's. So you made some funky fresh design touting young faces Photoshopped to look as though they were wearing the cosmetics themselves and beaming with confidence about it. You have just given the company a much need facelift and they have therefore made a huge 23% increase in sales as a result of the new packaging, allowing them to take on more staff and produce more products. This has indirectly created jobs for some lucky people who were looking for work but it has also increased the workload of the lab staff who were already overworked. Because its such a specialist role the company could not afford to hire more lab technicians and just decided that the current staff members could handle it. A young girl who normally doesn't wear makeup passes this new product in the shops and has heard that its all the rage and growing in popularity among her friends so she asks her mother to buy it for her. Her mother who is against makeup refuses and this indirectly contributes to mean comments from those who do wear the product. I could go on but I feel that I may have got my point across with this one.

This story is of course all fictional and purely fabricated to make a point but the point is in how this chain forms from what you do. Your work has a myriad of unexpected chain reactions regardless of what it is you actually think you do, so it is important to remain rounded and aware of the wider audience and affectee's. This is why I think that it is bad to have only friends who are graphic designers. It blinkers your thinking into a mold of the political, ideological, and social, conscious of the design world. It just so happens that graphic designers and other creators can be quite progressive, but even though this is true it becomes easy to forget that there is a whole world out there who know nothing of what you do or why you do it. These people are still very much a part of your world. And there voice and point of view is still just as valid as anyone else's. The minute you stop listening to those voices you become the out of touch politician, and honestly nobody likes that person. So by all means have friends who are designers and do cool designery type stuff with them. We all need people with whom we share a passion because it gives us someone to bounce off of and spark creativity. Just try and make sure that you have a life outside of the design world with people that have nothing to do with it. You know what they say after all, "Variety is the spice of life".

University as a networking opportunity

How you look at your education in my honest opinion is entirely up to you. University costs a lot of money and should not be wasted. It takes three years to complete an undergraduate course or four if you have a foundation or placement year strapped onto it, which might sound like a long time but in actual fact is not. Well you know what they say, time flies when your having fun, but the thing about University is perhaps not that you are having the best time of your life all the time and thats why it goes by so fast. Its more like there was so much going on all the time that you've managed to get to the end of your degree course without actually fully realising what it is you were supposed to get out of it in the first place. This is one of the few things me and my University friends can agree on, and it can be quite a scary prospect. Don't listen to all the people that say I had to go through it, its just a natural part of the process. It really isn't at all, it doesn't have to be so painful and all it requires is a little bit of prior knowledge to get you going.

So what I am going to suggest here is probably a bit controversial but I honestly don't care! Your grades don't really mean anything if you are studying in an art or design related course. What I mean by that is that they don't really mean much in terms of your career. You will of course need to pass the units to progress through the course and onto the subsequent years but that is about it. What you should be focusing on is networking your ass off. I didn't start to do this until about half way through the summer of my second year and I did it by accident. (It was a happy accident if you will). I did an internship or two and managed to bag myself a few freelance clients off the back of them. This was brilliant news for a number of reasons being: 1.) It showed me that I could indeed nab freelance clients off contacts that my internship boss had, provided it was done transparently and tactfully: 2.) I should probably start to treat more social activities like an opportunity to network: 3.) There is an art to talking yourself up and if you do it well people will offer you various opportunities: 4.) I'm gonna need a business card and a website if I'm serious about this networking malarky.  There is a secondary underlying point here which is that arts courses don't focus on getting you a job really, they focus on getting you to think about whatever your field is in the most creative way possible in order to pave the way for the future. This is a fine notion but I find it to be entirely lacking in its application. I didn't start to get really creative until I got a bit of real life experience, and that came via work. You need to meet people and experience things, and that requires socialising, which depends on money and time, hence the getting a job thing. (We all have to start somewhere). Then you can take all that input and put it back into your course, which will allow you the opportunity to get a portfolio together, which will in turn get you more work. Now there is a symbiotic relationship between these two things and I hope that I am explaining this in a way that makes sense because if you get the balance right it can take you to some really interesting places.

coming back to networking Its all really about practice, because you will talk to all kinds of different people in various stages of their careers and levels of seniority. There are do's and don'ts to it, so I'll throw you a few examples now to help you along the way.

Do's

1.)  Do talk about your work to people, make it interesting, and sound enthusiastic.

2.)  Do have a business card and a website to show off your efforts and prove that you are serious, even if it is just a blog of your University work that is fine.

3.)  Do take an interest in other peoples work when they talk about it and make an effort to understand it if you can. It will give you new perspectives for your own work.

4.)  Do make the most of social media like Twitter and especially Linkedin groups as it will allow you the opportunity to generate contacts.

5.)  Do make sure that you are articulate when you are talking in person or over the phone, and especially make sure that your spelling is correct whilst emailing people.

6.)  Do mention your collaborations with other students and colleagues (nobody wants a lone wolf on a project).

7.)  Do seek out and go to the social events, exhibitions etc. that the influential artists and designers go to.

8.)  Do return the favour if somebody gets you an in on a project of any kind.

9.)  Do enter into debate about creative practices with people (without insulting anyone) it shows that you are keen and have an opinion of your own.

10.)  Do mention that you are looking for opportunities.

Don'ts

1.)  Don't go straight to the Managing Director and start pushing for a favour, they are busy people and there is a hierarchy you must get through first. (Wait till you are invited to talk openly with them and then drop it into conversation).

2.)  Don't beg or seem needy (even if you are desperate for the money) this will be just as damaging as being too pushy and make people doubt whether they want to work with you.

3.)  Don't talk like you are a professional who has ten years experience if you don't, they will see through it and automatically relegate you to sales calls and promotions. (Nobody looks at those its just spam).

4.)  Don't accept absolutely anything that comes your way sometimes people are just trying to get something for nothing and you will have to be discerning about this.

5.)  Don't over subscribe your time at the expense of your degree there will be other opportunities.

6.)  Don't talk about yourself endlessly, networking just like any other conversation is give and take so listen as well.

7.)  Don't tell people your life story they honestly don't care.

8.)  Don't namedrop unless it genuinely is relevant to the work you are discussing.

9.)  Don't give out business cards to anyone you ever talk to unless you think they might actually contact you. They do after all cost money.

10.)  Don't just turn up uninvited this defeats the purpose of what you are doing (which is trying to get an invitation).

Now coming back to using University as a networking ground I think it is worth mentioning the interdisciplinary nature of your University campus. You effectively have access to world class equipment, books, and venues and lets not forget talent, that all can be utilised to your advantage. Every different course offers you more chance of gaining an opportunity. Most universities have an open emailing system which you can post out to every student on campus. This is very handy if you are looking for an illustrator, designer, extra for a film. Aside from extra curricular activities though (you might not have the time) there is the general getting to know of your class mates. For some reason everyone seems to forget that everyone comes from completely different backgrounds and that by that virtue alone they are probably going to have all kinds of interesting insights for you to make the most of. So please I implore you to stop creating little cliques and worrying about who the in crowd is so that you can reinvent your post secondary school self. There will be plenty of time for that once you have made it big in the creative industry which is pretty cool in itself. You will have to become an expert investigator and find out who knows what and wether they can or are willing to swing you a favour and share there contacts with you. This comes form graciously and patiently getting to know the people on your course. And not just your own course but other related courses too. That is what you should really be doing at uni realistically, because, and I hate to be the one to break it to you, the world is still very much all about who rather than what you know, and the what you can always find out after you have your in.

So now that you know this information I suggest you get started as soon as possible and start fraternising with the enemy it will only help you in the end.