Looking to work in design? How I did it…

Posted by iamemily on Tuesday, June 1st, 2010

I knew from a young age what my strengths were. I was colouring in and drawing from being a little girl and throughout school, I never excelled in the so called ‘academic’ subjects I was always better at what I was interested in and that was Art, design and Media. I did my work experience at a local advertising agency to get an insight into the design industry which really laid the foundations of what I was to become in the future.

After my GCSE’s I stuck to my strengths and did A Level Art and Design, Design Technology and Media Studies. My art at this stage was experimental and I enjoyed looking at other artists and what had influenced them and using their techniques and fusing them together. I went down the fashion route in Design Technology designing and making a ‘space age’ dress for the Millennium and researching the fashion industry through the ages and in Media we covered everything from films and newspapers to advertising and iconography which got me fired up and interested in the media world.

After completing my A Levels I did a Foundation Course in Art and Design and a specialist college in Leeds, Leeds college of Art and Design or Jacob Kramer as it was then called. I opted to do this course as it covered a variety of disciplines under the banner of Art and design and I wanted to try out different areas before making a career decision. After doing several modules covering a multitude of topics from fine art to interior design I chose to  give Graphic Design and Interior Design a trial. I discovered that I wasn’t as interested in Interior Design as I had first thought and it was too technical and structured with all the 3D drawings and planning, I realised that I wanted to be an ideas person and have flexibility with my work and combine graphics and techniques and this was better suited to Graphic Design. So I had now chosen my specialist area and completed my course concentrating on this discipline.

After my foundation course I went on at the same college to do a BA Hons in Visual Communication, I knew at this point that I wanted to focus my efforts on advertising and Graphic Design and although the course catered for this, I found that it was pushing you to do advertising as a student rather than showing you what goes on in industry and giving you the computer, technical know how to survive in business. I decided after completing my BA to do the 2nd year of a HND in Advertising which I had overlooked before as I assumed the accolade of having a BA would be higher on a employers list, but I was wrong, what an employer looks for is the quality of your portfolio and your ability to show how you can apply your thoughts, ideas and designs to their client base.

At the time I felt I had wasted 3 years on a BA when I could have done 2 years on a HND and come out with more but it was all a learning experience so I decided to battle on and my goal was to get a decent portfolio together so I could walk into an agency and be confident that I could get the job.

An important and valuable part of the HND course was that you went into advertising agencies and saw exactly what went on in the industry, worked on live briefs, understood the technical side of things and the hierarchy within an agency. I was prepared when I left to walk into an art workers position where as before I blindly thought I would walk into an Art Directors position!

The evening of my final show I put my portfolio out and a joint project I had worked on with a friend which landed us both art worker jobs in a busy studio doing automotive adverts for car supermarkets and also the likes of Ford and Renault. It wasn’t exactly what I had hoped for and the pay was appalling but it was my foot in the door in what I knew was a cut throat industry. Whilst I was there I learnt very valuable mac skills and how to design quickly and with precision, we had to meet strict, tight deadlines and deal with getting adverts to press, but I was constantly looking for jobs in an advertising agency that had a variety of clients and I could push myself further.

After 6 months I got a job offer with an agency in Leeds who had a client base of Halifax, BT, Lloyds TSB and Damart amongst others. I started off as an art worker but had a fantastic Creative Director who wanted to see me succeed and make it as an Art Director (my ultimate goal). He taught me everything he knew about Direct marketing and gave me opportunities to push myself up the rankings. I worked on the creative side in the PR department, I worked with printers, art buying, model sourcing, attended client meetings and after putting my all in and having great mentors within the agency I was rewarded with my dream job title of ‘Art Director’. I got my own clients, I presented at client meetings, I pitched for new business and loved every minute of it. I stayed at the same agency for 6 years and that was down to the people who worked there and the variety of clients and opportunities I was given. The only reason I left was a move down to the South of the country when I decided to branch out on my own.

Looking back it’s been hard work getting where I am today but it was worth every single minute.

The one key piece of advice I would offer anyone of any age is to do work experience. Don’t ‘think’ you know what goes on in a particular industry, see for yourself and talk to people in those jobs already. A lot of further education courses are taught by people who have either never been in that particular industry or were in it years ago and times change quickly and you need to see that for yourself. I was privileged enough to have a tutor who’d worked at Saatchi and Saatchi and kept himself informed of what was happening in the advertising world.

I would also urge anyone wanting to get into graphics and advertising to brush up on their mac skills, as this is where you will be starting out life in an agency. You will take other peoples designs and art work them, which is a valuable experience and should never be sniffed at, people who do this are talented individuals and it’s a key part of the process but if you want to be more of an ideas person you’ll need to prove yourself in this area first the majority of the time.

I hope this helps anyone looking to get into the design world or deciding what they want to do in further education. Whatever you end up doing it is all a learning experience and nothing is ever wasted it just moulds you into what you become in the future.

Photo by laffy4k courtesy of Flickr