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Confessions of a Recent Design Grad: My Path in the Design World

My path through the design world has not always been smooth. I’ve taken some detours and risks that I wasn’t sure would pay off, but I’ve learned from all of my experiences, and I don’t regret any of them. I don’t purport to be a seasoned pro—I’ve been in the business for only eight years—but I know the early years can be some of the most challenging. This is the time when you’re searching for your niche, and it may take several tries before you find it.

Knee-Deep in X-Acto Blades

When I graduated from college with a bachelor’s degree in English, graphic design was appealing to me because it seemed to marry my passions for writing and for visual art, blending the verbal and the visual. Plus, I’d heard you could actually buy groceries every week with a design salary. After college, I went to an intensive two-year design program at Portfolio Center in Atlanta, Ga. Like so many other aspiring graphic designers, I had dreams of designing album covers (only for bands I liked, of course—no teeny boppers), edgy posters with experimental typography (again, probably for progressive bands) and maybe every now and then a Web site for an upstanding nonprofit agency.

I didn’t realize at the time that those gigs usually end up costing you money. That didn’t stop me from taking them on, mind you, but it did mean that I had to find a job that would pay for the other 99 percent of my groceries. Not to mention that when I got out of design school—knee-deep in student loan debt and credit card debt from buying a laptop, a printer, countless jumbo packs of X-Acto blades, an emergency room bill for the time I dropped the X-Acto knife on my barefoot, eight different kinds of glue, a cutting mat, five different kinds of tape, inkjet paper that costs $2 a sheet and piles of balsa wood—the first thing on my mind (no matter how many times they republish the “First Things First Manifesto”) was not integrity or principles.

Fuzzy Bunnies

I graduated from Portfolio Center and moved to San Francisco to try to find a job, armed with what I thought was a pretty good portfolio. Unfortunately, this was during the Internet bust, and almost no one in the design field was hiring. I’d heard that several of my classmates had accepted jobs at Hallmark in Kansas City, Mo. My first reaction to this news was, “What are they thinking?” But after three months of sleeping on my friends’ couch and getting deeper into debt by producing 15 minibooks a day, my frame of mind began to change. When I told my friends on whose couch I was residing that I had been offered a job at Hallmark, they thought accepting it was a great idea. My mom seconded this opinion. So I moved to the Midwest to start my new job.

For the first couple of weeks, most of my ideas were rejected as “too sophisticated” or “too modern.” However, I soon learned to rein in my aesthetic so it wouldn’t clash with the sensibilities of the company’s more conservative target audience. Eventually, I developed a broad design repertoire that ranged from fuzzy bunnies to yellow daffodils to heart-shaped keys. But to my surprise, I became a much better designer during this time. Thanks to the company’s impressive archives of historical prints, patterns and fabrics, I was able to experiment endlessly with color and pattern. It’s doubtful that I’ll ever again have an employer that gives designers access to such rich resources. In addition to the historical archives, there was a vast online database of imagery, a library, an art store where I could get any supplies I needed, and a large group of in-house lettering artists, illustrators and photographers with whom I could work at any time. It was a stable job. I was treated fairly and paid well.

But I knew I couldn’t stay there forever. I never quite fit in, and I longed to explore design in more depth. After a few years there, my desperation had subsided, and my debts had decreased. My ambition to work on projects I believed in had returned, and I was ready to seek different challenges.

A Safe Space for Navel-Gazing

I returned to San Francisco to attend California College of the Arts, which had a fairly experimental graduate program that taught students to think about design not only as problem solving but also as problem making. In other words, the professors encouraged the students to take charge of both design and content. We discussed the cultural and social implications of design and learned theory and discourse. We did engage in some stereotypical art school frivolity, such as throwing Vaseline against the wall and admiring ourselves for the complicated theoretical problems this brought up, but even that was a refreshing change after my years in corporate cubicle land.

The experimentation paid off. My former classmates are engaged in a wide range of pursuits, designing exhibitions for Old Navy, Web sites for Apple and apparel for Gama-Go—and even starting their own businesses for furniture design and textile design. They all say they reaped the same benefit from the program: confidence. Confidence to take risks and start businesses, confidence to voice their opinions, and confidence just to exist comfortably in the design world. We were given an ideal setting, a protective environment in which the process was as important as the product and we could explore possibilities without fear of failure.

New Eyes, Stronger Legs

Graduate school also renewed my sense of excitement. I feel as if I’m starting over again—not in a regressive way but in a clean-slate kind of way. Of course, I’m retaining all the lessons I’ve learned from my previous experiences, but now, thanks to the time I had in graduate school to make my own work and push boundaries, I can look at design with new eyes. Among my former classmates, I’m the only one who took a full-time teaching job. I’m an assistant professor at St. Cloud State University in Minnesota, teaching all levels of graphic design. Teaching has given me a new perspective, or, rather, has helped me to pin down just what my perspective is. Teaching forces me to articulate my beliefs in order to communicate them to my students. Because I have to get up every day and speak in front of my classes, I’ve become a better communicator, which can only lead to becoming a stronger designer.

My journey in design is far from over. I’ve learned a lot from teaching, but I’m not sure it’s my calling. I miss making things too much. I may not have found my niche yet, but I know there are more opportunities in design than ever before. Boundaries are receding, and possibilities are growing. I’m excited to get out there and stumble some more.

Which Internship is Best for You

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