Jobs

[Chris Jakob]

Haha, nah. It's a traditional Dutch company. And I just do the carrying.

[Brienneoftarth]

I work as a planner at an Ad Agency. It's not bad. Pay kind of sucks but otherwise I can't complain. I just want to make like 20% more money and live some place else.

I can't say I see myself working on Advertising forever. At this point I don't think it's sustainable. Unless i switch to the creative side which I'd be better at.

[GoatJuggernaut]

My job is fucking awesome.

I work for a software startup in downtown Palo Alto. We get free breakfast/lunch/dinner, beer, soda, juice, wine, snacks, etc. Anyone you want that they don't stock? Put a request and done. I asked for fresh coffee beans from my favorite coffee shop in Seattle...done. Someone asked for a pizza overnighted from NYC...done. In 2010, the company went through about 133,000 pounds of food for 300 people.

We get a free message each week, free laundry/dry cleaning, free gym membership (that I never use), free parking, $500 monthly rent subsidy if you live within a mile from the company. I visit the onsite chiropractor about once a month and he pops by back and neck into place. It feels amazing.

We had our annual holiday party at the SF MoMA. Rented out the whole place, open bar, 80s cover band, ice sculptures and all that shit.

There's an annual ski trip to Tahoe which the company pays for, including food, cabins and ski tickets.

I come into work whenever I want (usually around 10:30 or 11am) and leave most days by 7:30pm. Although I've worked as late as 10:30pm, it's not a regular thing.

Sounds like you work down the street from me. Palantir?

[CBreaze]

unemployed college student

[jake431]

Got a new job. Was in advertising, got sick of it. Gonna be starting here soon:

http://www.pritzkermilitarylibrary.org/

[bencap]

I'm interning (aka working for free) at a design/architecturally minded travel magazine, focusing on "luxury" locations/products. It's called artravel: http://www.artravel.net/

I do some basic photo retouching, file preparation, and a lot of the page layouts. May put together some proposals for a new ad campaign before I'm done there.

Returning to the bay area in late summer, and looking for a job, hopefully in magazine publishing. However, I'm pretty open and interested in all sorts of graphic design with the except of web stuff. If I don't find a good job after a couple months, I may end up moving to Paris since I have some solid connections there through networking. I'd much rather stay in the bay area though, so if anyone knows of anything, holla atcha boy!

[tweeds]

Sounds like you work down the street from me. Palantir?

Did they ever figure if Palantir was still looking into cyber-offensives after the HBGary blooper?

[spudeey]

Working at famous footwear.

I can't complain. Minimum wage, easy work, nice coworkers, air conditioned, smells good. I'm 16 so I can't expect much and it beats most of my friend's jobs.

[Waffle]

i've just finished my bachelor in pharmacy, and before starting my master in the autumn i'm working at the health and welfare board in sweden. very well paid considering age/experience and will look damn good in my cv. hopefully i'll get an internship at astrazeneca or something for my next semester

[jwsach]

I just interviewed at lululemon. Its Lulz but I live by there and its easy so whatever. I also saw like 6 yoga booties while I was there lol.

[aeneas]

it's been a month since i graduated architecture school. i had an internship at a local firm previous to that, but i left because i want to get experience elsewhere. now i got loans to pay off. woe.

[lintmunro]

i'm a journalist, music stuff, which means i also moonlight as a security guard because journalism doesn't pay much when it pays at all

[sunkenshoes]

how important is your internship? i just finished mine, but it was really sucky.

im considering taking a semester off and doing another one.

[rockon99]

sling pizzas to hungry folk and they tip me

[robbie]

maybe i've posted already

I work at a school. Despite close to a decade of experience in commercial kitchens i'm the designated bitch/gopher. I don't get much opportunity to actually cook.

[party pooped]

I'm a designer at a high-fashion advertising agency/studio. I work on campaign concepts and also edit videos and motion graphics. lol random.

[laurenc]

is anyone in film?

[DJ_Flame]

legendary story for all you uninformed sufu folk

Real talk. I heard from a friend that in the commodities trading industry, women have to give favors to climb up the ladder.

In fact, in the only ever commodities networking session I've been, everyone was either a 40 year dude or a 20 year old chick wearing a short skirt and 1-inch heels.

[surly]

I don't currently do anything. I'm moving to Austin in a month, and I'm going to start looking for a job right away, but I'm also going to try to get into an alternate route teaching program. Anyone have experience with them?

[Synthetic <3]

I'm a Lifeguard at a state beach in Lake Tahoe during the summer and an unemployed college student living off a government check the rest of the year.

[nosnibored]

I work at a tech/marketing company, i mainly deal with search engine marketing, and other things that pertain to affiliate marketing as a whole. I nabbed this job straight out of college, feel darn lucky to have it. SF seems to have a large supply of these jobs.

[Remian]

Right now I work as a camp counselor for a summer camp run by the county that treats its employees like shit.

Afterhours I produce chill ambient trip hop for stoners haha so life is good

[Osmosis Jones]

I work as a motorcycle courier for Self Edge and Holy Stitch. I don't make much but it's fun. Wish I could find a gig that had me moving stuff across the midwest.

I also flip motorcycles and cars on Craigslist while I go to school.

[Layne]

Production/Process Engineer with a pretty large chemical company. I just started about 6 weeks ago, so I'm very low on the totem pole... especially considering the size of the company.

The hours are fairly long (often 10-12), so I definitely earn the paycheck. I enjoy the job and love engineering, so I can't complain.

[arcarsenal]

I work as a freelance/contract user experience developer for a startup/tech incubator in chicago. I'm free do do whatever I want however I want, as long as I design stuff that makes our clients happy. We're funded by a lot of government grants so the better we do, the more cashola we get.

We work a lot with healthcare clients so things get intense but the results are rewarding. If you're into ux and living in chicago maybe we can collab one day.

[conqueror]

i'm a student and work at american apparel part time. for a retail job its great.

[koven]

Job interview Monday with an Engineering consulting firm.

[twistedtrees]

I work as a freelance/contract user experience developer for a startup/tech incubator in chicago. I'm free do do whatever I want however I want, as long as I design stuff that makes our clients happy. We're funded by a lot of government grants so the better we do, the more cashola we get.

We work a lot with healthcare clients so things get intense but the results are rewarding. If you're into ux and living in chicago maybe we can collab one day.

Arcarsenal, where do you work? DM/PM me if you don't want to post publicly. I'm a UX researcher/strategist at a place that works with tech startups in Chicago.

I come from the design world, so I'm still learning about the tech industry in the city, but I'm sure we've probably met a lot of the same people.

[nomnomnom]

Business analyst specializing in aml/kyc for a private bank. would like to hear from people with experience in similar roles.

[variegate]

I'm an Art Director at a large-ish international digital agency (advertising & marketing)

I'm technically assigned to Microsoft but have been working on a lot of a particular yoga lifestyle clothing brand recently.

It more than pays the wife & baby bills - but there are tradeoffs . . .

Corporate Politics. Yuck.

for the OP:

I have been doing this for 12 years and I still don't have it figured out.

If you're going to pursue graphic design - learn the history.

There's a incredibly massive wealth of inspiration to know about.

Graphic history is the language you will want to learn to better 'express' your ideas.

You don't necessarily have to go to school for it - but it's a good structure to learn within.

If you're already into massive debt - don't do it. Maybe take a couple classes here and there.

here's what I do know:

1. Draw. Draw. Draw. Just do it. Practice it every single day. It will save your ass for the rest of your life.

2. Learn design history.

Elements of Graphic Design.

Grid systems in graphic design

Paul Rand

Saul Bass

Max Huber

Stefan Sagmeister

Pentagram

read Tony Spaeth's "identityworks.com" for corporate design understanding

And then rip all of them off as much as possible.

(that's what all if us are doing anyway)

3. Get into something

Find a niche of study for yourself that's off kilter

I started with comic book at 12, then skate graphics, then photography, film, fashion, application design, etc

4. network.

meet as many people as you can

whenever possible, help them in any way you can

do whatever you can to network to meet other designers, artists, etc

ask questions, figure them out

5. Master your tools.

Photoshop, Illlustrator, Indesign, After Effects

Learn as much as you can as fast as you can - bite off more than you can chew

6. Practice

Keep going. Be absolutely relentless and work your ass off.

7. Be ready to work with people

What they NEVER teach you in school is that 60% of your job is working with people - most of whom either don't trust you, don't believe you or disagree with you.

Clients, bosses, coworkers, developers, printers, etc.

Not the funnest part, but it's reality.

Learn which battles to fight and which to leave alone.

Don't sit on your ass waiting for someone to hand you a job. No one wants to hire those people anyway. Go and work.

8. Design is a skill, not a job.

implement it as you see fit.