ANY GRAPHIC DESIGNERS?

[London]

wild wiskey I have a different perspective on graphic designers. I have hired plenty of them over the years at various agencies that I've worked at. I don't really care if they have a degreee or not, as long as they are good and can visually illustrate my strategy on time and within budget that is all I really care about.

[arcticfox]

Those who are self-taught tend to create sub-par work with designs that appear very uncomfortable. You can tell the work of someone whose educated versus someone who is not.

I'd have to disagree with this statement. Some of the leading designers I know and work with are all self taught which includes myself( I should say though if you are going to be self thought fall in with an excellent designer and it'll progress you along a lot faster). Maybe going to college would of made it easier to learn certain aspects of design such as grid systems & typography but what I find is that a lot of students just adapt their lecturers styles & thought processes which can be quite restrained at times. Been self thought frees you from the restraints of the system(and believe me I'm a person who respects everything that has gone before me). I guest lecture in art colleges and I see how uninformed and regulated design students are becoming. Its becoming washed down with a generic thought process just as a lot of other facets of general design are. Maybe I'm one of the lucky ones who had the ability to compete with educated designers but I believe my work & client list proves it was the right path to follow...

Anyway, back to the question at hand, as somebody else said, put yourself in the mix,

I work on music & fashion graphics and I've spent a lot of late nights/early mornings just been in the company of people I wanted to work with. If you are going to freelance try work out of a good studio with other freelancers who do similar work. My studio is made up of photographers, illustrators and designers. That way I have a pool of people I can draw inspiration from and work with. If your going to do web work do the same, find good programmers, back-end people, coders, you can't do everything yourself and if you can you'll get bored. Try keep a regular schedule, 10-6 or 7, late nights will kill you, not good for the head or body. Do something else, most designers are in bands or dj/promote. I promote bands, I find its a good release from everything. Appreciate every type of design and always look at something and think you can do better and when you create a piece always try and inspire or at least make people think about it.

Pm me anyway if you've any more questions...

[Lucas0607]

Yeah...

In art/design

and being in an art school you won't really learn anything to become an artist / a good designer. You just have to be good. You just have to have it.

What you learn in school are the skills and just really be exposed to stuff you don;t know yet. I am self taught myself in graphics.. I mean, I know the stuff, but I'm majoring in Industrial Design, yeah it's a big plus.

[mr genki]

my advise:

study josef muller-brockmann, wim crowel and erik spiekermann. buy grid systems (i cant remember the author now) and learn it till your eyes bleed.

[arcticfox]

my advise:

study josef muller-brockmann, wim crowel and erik spiekermann. buy grid systems (i cant remember the author now) and learn it till your eyes bleed.

Grid systems - Author - josef muller-brockmann

[mr genki]

i actually meant the one by Kimberly Elam (she was a university teacher of a university i cant remember) but that one by muller-brockmann is also amazing.

look at that perid of swiss design and you'll see where everything today gets its inspiration from (including a certain £400,000 logo from wolf olins... hahahaha)

[handheldbooty]

Does anyone know of any schools that teach motion graphics that arent 80k to go to? And will these 80k art schools accept my jr college general education credits? It seems like every university offers a graphic design degree, but not motion graphics. Maybe I'm looking up the wrong degree? Please help. Thanks

[werdtoyourmoms]

i just graduated

http://www.ericwrenn.com