| Author | Messages | |
 | | 03/05/2007 5:16 PM |  Alert
| How to get a job in the design world
Do you want to be a professional designer? Make a living of your hobby? Here are some tips to get you there! No, I won’t teach you how to make award winning photographs, the most funny animations, the advertisement that everyone wants to read or the most amazing illustrations (maybe in another tutorial).
In this tutorial I will just tell you a little about the design world, so it will be easier for you to become a part of it too.
Study
The easiest way is to complete a study. (communication, design, web design, multimedia, art academy, etc.) At school you will get all the information you need, and with a completed design study on your CV it isn’t very difficult to get a job. I understand not everyone can do a study tough.
If you already have a job and want a career change you probably can’t afford it to go to school for 4 years. A very good solution is distance learning. A website with some very interesting courses is this one: http://www.study-online.net. They have a LOT of design studies, and you can follow them in your own time, after work. They maybe don’t look as good on your CV as a real study, but it still looks pretty good!
If this costs too much time or money, you can also try to learn the programs yourself with some books and online tutorials. This way you can’t put anything on your CV, but if you continue reading this article, I will tell you why this doesn’t have to be a problem at all.
There are other ways to convince design companies that you are good enough for the job! I know a few bosses personally that give employers a chance who don’t know much about design to learn it.
Here are some of my favourite self-study books:
The Adobe Illustrator CS2 WOW Book
CSS Mastery: Advanced Standards Web Solutions
Adobe Photoshop CS2 for Photographers
If you don’t know what programs you should learn, I will give you some ideas what programs design companies use. You don’t have to learn them all, but pick the ones you think are useful, for example as a desktop publisher you don’t need Dreamweaver, and as a webdesigner you don’t need Indesign.
- Photoshop:
Edit photos and illustrations, making website layouts, making banners for websites.
There are a lot of programs that can do these things too, for example PSP or Xara, but photoshop is the only professional program! -
- Indesign:
All print design. Advertisements, magazines, flyers, etc. (QuarkXpress is also a professional program for print design, but Indesign has much more options and it’s cheaper, so most companies use Indesign.)
- Illustrator:
For making vector illustrations and logos. (Freehand and CorelDraw can do this too, but Illustrator has more options and most companies use it because it’s part of the Adobe Creative Suite, so it’s cheaper.)
- Dreamweaver:
Making websites, but only the coding. The layout should be made in photoshop. (Notepad ++ and Frontpage can do this too, but have less options. You should learn the computer languages HTML and CSS too, else you still don’t know anything.)
- Flash:
Making animations and websites. (If you want to make animations you should learn Illustrator too. If you want to make websites learn Dreamweaver first.)
Tips for your CV
Ok, so now you think you know enough to get a real job. It’s time to write a letter or e-mail to a few design companies to apply for a job! I would choose e-mail if they have a website. If you are reading this article I think you don’t have many design jobs on your CV already. Surprisingly enough, this is easy to change!
Add Zymmetrical and other stock sites on your CV! (if you have your work on more stock sites, add them as one job). Maybe you don’t earn very much with your stock images but it does show your interest in the design world, ability to make high quality images and experience in a part of the design world (stock sites will teach you what sells and what not for example).
Don’t forget to add a list on your CV with what programs you know. You can add the simple programs like Word, Excel and Powerpoint too. If you know Photoshop and Paint Shop Pro, only put Photoshop on your CV.
If you want to be a webdesigner add a list with all the programming languages you know too. If you have a portfolio website, tell the link in your e-mail or CV. If you don’t have a website, upload a few examples of your work (5 is a nice number) and add the 5 links to the bottom of your e-mail.
Portfolio
Finally, the most important part, your portfolio! If you want to be a baker they never ask to show photos of the breads you made, if you want to be a doctor they never ask for “before and after” pictures, but if you want to be a designer you really should show pictures of your work!
Even if they don’t ask you to bring your portfolio with you with the interview, they expect you do. Make sure you always have a printed portfolio. If you want to be a webdesigner, you really need an online portfolio, but this is not handy to show during a conversation, so you should have a printed portfolio too.
Print out the work you have and put them in a nice looking folder. Make sure you can easily remove and add papers to your folder. You don’t need to add text next to the pictures, just remember yourself for who, how and why you made it, so you can tell it during the interview.
Buy some tab pages to make your folder more organized. You can separate print design, webdesign, illustrations and photos. If you only have one kind of designs you can separate them by industry, for example: “restaurants, medical, entertainment, etc.”.
If you are able to make different kind of designs, look at the portfolio of the company. If they don’t make any websites, remove all the websites from your portfolio except one. They are probably more interested in your other work, but you can tell them you can make websites, so if they want to offer websites too in the future, you can help them.
One webdesign in your portfolio will be enough to prove that. If you go to a webdesign company, you need more examples of webdesign of course. Your portfolio is too small? You can always make designs for yourself, but it looks very unprofessional if you don’t have any design for someone else in your portfolio.
You have to show you can work with real clients too. (my boss always says “design would be the perfect job if there were no clients” ) Here is Zymmetrical handy again! You can put all your work for Zymmetrical in your portfolio too! If you want to be a Desktop Publisher, try out flyerstarter.com too. If you search the Internet you will find many sites where you can make designs for. You will have your portfolio filled in no time! Examples of websites: (with these examples you earn real money for your designs!)
- www.zymmetrical.com (photos, illustrations, graphics, fonts and videos)
- www.flyerstarter.com (flyers)
- http://forum.deviantart.com/jobs/offers/ (all kinds of creative little jobs, including webdesigns)
- www.worth1000.com (photoshop, photography and logo contests)
- www.threadless.com (make and sell your own t-shirt designs)
A Small example of my portfolio:
Illustrations
http://www.zymmetrical.com/images/tutorials/2/portfolioillustrationge2.jpg
Websites
http://www.zymmetrical.com/images/tutorials/2/portfoliowebvq4.jpg
Games
http://www.zymmetrical.com/images/tutorials/2/portfoliogameok6.jpg
Freelance
You can also be a freelancer. This is especially a good idea for photographers and illustrators, because they are not needed every day at a design company, but as a desktop publisher, webdesigner, etc. you can become a freelancer too.
When you want to start freelancing it’s handy if you still keep doing your daily job. Just do some design projects in the evenings and weekends, this way you can find out if you can handle it. If it goes well you can try working less days in the week, to spend more time on your projects.
It would be really handy if you have a partner who still works, so you will be sure there is income. It’s also handy if you have some friends who have some design knowledge too so you can ask advice to them. These friends can be online too.
Make sure you don’t underpay yourself. You have to earn more money an hour than with a normal job, because you have to pay your own computer, computer programs, workspace, insurance, self-promotion, coffee, etc.
Also don't overcharge, the client may accept it once, but for the next project he will choose someone else. I wish you all the luck with getting a job in the design world!
If you have any questions, feel free to ask in this topic. Greetings, nancy | | | |
|
| | 04/30/2007 11:01 PM | Alert
| | I'll accept that the softwares pointed by you is necessary to be learned in priority to enter the multimedia world. But, the cost of the books you have shown is somewhat high and impossible to afford this much from a student. Better try to get the free e-books list, with some good content relative to these softwares. | | | |
|
| | 05/01/2007 7:40 AM | Alert
| I'm a student too, so I understand you. I don't know any free e-books that will teach you the same things as these books tough. My opinion is that these books are seriously great, and you will probably earn the money back by making better designs! Save up money for them, or ask this book for your birthday/christmas/etc. , and try to sell your designs you made with the knowledge of these books!
You also probably don't need all 3, just pick the one you want to learn.
I do webdesign, illustrations, photoshop, flash, 3D, etc. but I think it's better to focus on only thing.
But if you know any free e-books that will teach you design things, feel free to post them here! | | | |
|
| | 11/01/2007 4:30 PM | Alert
| | Nice! but easier said than done. Getting a job in the design world has more or less been wrapped around feelancing these days. And when it comes to freelancing, there is alot of competition out there. | | | |
|
| | 11/01/2007 5:32 PM | Alert
| Yes, but I don't think freelancing is a bad thing. Especially for creativity it's very good! A lot of design agencies are not very creative anymore, but do the same job every day. Small non creative jobs that has to be finished within 30 minutes.
Freelancers are most of the time more motivated and more creative. You can pick your own clients (ok this has a limit of course, you don't earn anything if you turn everyone down) and this helps a lot.
For the competition.. there is always a market for quality! But if you don't like competition, start learning actionscript and flash, there are way too less actionscripters worldwide. :) | | | |
|
| | 03/19/2008 9:51 AM | Alert
| | Many clients are now in fact are opting for freelancers. Freelancers are more creative, with less turn around time. I am not only talking about the design industry, this shift is observed in other fields too.
| | | |
|
| | 04/15/2008 10:43 PM | Alert
| | I'm still a student, but I'm thinking of freelancing one day. Photography is a hobby for me, but I have never thought of it as a real occupation. I think I'll follow your advice and freelance along with a daily job... Thanks for the tutorial! | | | |
|
| | 04/19/2008 2:34 PM | Alert
| | This is a very helpful thread, thank you. One of the main concerns of anyone in the visual arts industry is how to get a job. In my undergraduate design classes, everyone was worried about getting a job and we must have spent at least 3 weeks going over how to build a portfolio and things like that. | | | |
|
| | 05/06/2008 8:49 AM | Alert
| Thanks for the replies :)
Zerzis, yes you are right. I haven't noticed this myself yet, but I heard about the shift in articles and the news. | | | |
|
| | 08/14/2008 5:17 AM | Alert
| | Very nice informations you've given here for us.Webdesigning job is the hottest one in the market now.To get a job in webdesigning anyone can go to getafreelancer.com to grab some freelance works.For this you must have a good knowledge in webdesigning. | | | |
|
|