7 ways to be a Graphic Design student online

I found this on Noisy Decent Graphics, it’s an interesting read but I personally don’t agree with the post for several reasons. I will expand on my views at the end of the post, the source of the information is something that I am encouraged to look at and I do find some really fabulous hints and information on this blog but in this case I’m not sure I agree with Ben.

Speak to any graphic design tutor and there’s lots of talk about how students are blogging and flickring and twittering. One small problem. It’s not true.
Which is a shame for many reasons. Not least that your professional life is going to involve you having to understand all of this stuff. And the best way to understand something is to do it.
And as Sian (Graphic Design, University of Wales) put it the other day, “I think that it is important for graphic design students… to enter the world of blogging… It’s great to see what other students and other designers are looking at. It’s all part of the learning process.”
And not only that, it’s so easy. Easy, and most of this stuff lends itself to a graphic design course. Think of it as some cheap module scores. For example, imagine you’re writing an essay about the Rosetta stone (you’re all doing that right?). You’d probably start by Googling it. Every decent result you’ve found, add it to delicious. Even if you did nothing else on that essay you’ll very quickly have a small collection of useful stuff.
Imagine if you wrote a sentence about each of those results. Stuck that on a Tumblr blog. Before long, the essay has written itself. See what I mean? It’s a gift.
So to help a little bit, I thought I’d write a small guide to being a graphic design student online. It’s not definitive and it obviously focuses on services I’m familiar with. But hopefully it makes sense. So, in a very particular order.

1. Flickr

If you do nothing else, you must set up a Flickr account. There can be no excuse. If you were on my course, I’d fail you for not having a Flickr account.
Flickr is the most graphic designery of all the social networky stuff. (It’s a whole website of images for fucks sake!)
Put your photographs up there. All those photos of signs you take. All the blurry experiments with colour and light. Get them up there. When I has at college we used to have to keep a photo log book, where we’d have to jot down every exposure and setting for each picture we took. Digital cameras do this for you, it’s called exif data. So, upload your pictures to Flickr and there’s another job done.
Images are such a major part of a graphic design course and everyone now has the ability to take and make images quickly. (You’ve all got camera phones, I’ve seen them.)
But more than that. When you’re working on a project upload every stage to Flickr. Let others, from around the world, comment on your ideas. Build on them. When you have to hand in your workings, point the lecturers to Flickr.
Stick your best work up there, organise your work into sets and you can use it as an online portfolio when you go for a job. a million times better than a 10mb PDF.
And it’s free.
(There are other sites available. You could also use Deviant Art or Picasa.)

2. Blogging

To blog or not to blog? I can’t really answer that. You need to make that decision on your own. The one thing I can say, is that you need to give it a go.
If Flickr is about pictures, then blogging is about words. Graphic Design courses involve a lot of words too. You could stick your whole dissertation up there. A little bit at a time. You could just post random notes and thoughts. Quotes you find. You could document projects you’re working on, like Katie (Graphic Design, LCC) and Tom (Graphic Design, UWIC) do.
You could use it as a project diary. Once again, do a little, often and the project will finish itself.
Try to avoid Blogger. I use and recommend Typepad, but I understand that WordPress is easier to customise and has nicer templates.

3. Tumblr

Tumblr is like blogging but easier. If you’re not great with words, then Tumblr is for you. It’s a sort of micro blogging service and lends itself to lots, quickly. I don’t really like it, but it’s a great way to start blogging. And yes, it’s free.

4. Twitter

Twitter is like a micro version of micro blogging. A way to publish snippets of text that are no more than 144 characters long. So try that if you’re even less of a word person than the Tumblr people. Twitter is very hard to describe, probably the easiest way is to say it’s like the status updates on Facebook. It’s also a really simple way of outputting text and linking the physical and the digital. Take a look at the Tower Bridge twitter stream and the Albion Bakery Fresh Buns alert twitter stream. Seriously.

5. Facebook

You’re all on Facebook, right? Good. Let’s see how you could use that for college and not just just pictures of debauched nights.

Kate Andrews (Queen of Networking) sets up and joins lots of interesting groups of Facebook. For example the Kept group, the Design Observer group and the 2gether09 group. You can join them. You can interact with people. You can meet other students and designers. You can become part of a community.
This kind of stuff may seem frivolous but it will be invaluable when you’re looking for a job, or even just popping down to London for the D&AD student awards. And then you can upload all your pictures of that debauched night.

6. Delicious

I’ve already mentioned this above. Delicious is the ultimate Dissertation Building Tool. It’s like essay writing for procrastinators. The first thing I do if I’m asked my view on a particular theme, like say tangible digital is look at my relevant delicious tags and instantly I’ve got lots clever stuff to say and reference. Your dissertation will write itself. Or your money back.

7. RSS Reader

Blogs. You need to read them. Everyone has a blog now. Even Michael C Place has a blog. These day you can follow your design heroes almost daily. That’s a wonderful thing for those of us who had to make do with yearly Graphis updates when we were at college.
But following all these blogs is hard. The posts come think and fast. The bookmarks folder gets full up. That’s why you need an RSS Reader. All blogs have an RSS feed. An RSS Reader graps the feed and chucks your blogs into one reader, one website basically. 

RSS Readers are not scary. They are good. They are to be embraced. I use bloglines but you can use Google’s of NetNewsWire or one of the hundreds of others.
And so there you go. You have no excuse now.
Oh and let’s not forget Ffffound, inspiration on tap.

So where to start;

Flickr: I have no problems with Flickr I think it is a great way to promote yourself but I do feel that you have to bear in mind that potential employers will check this out (I would) and as such you have to decide very carefully about what is placed on your space, it is after all an extension of your on-line portfolio. I know this sounds like grass level common sense but you would be surprised, I’ve seen some amazing work posted on the site but when I’ve investigated further into the persons other work it has given me a slightly different insight.

Blogging: I have a blog so I suppose I have to be a little careful here (I have to have a blog for uni.). At first I really despised the idea of having to conduct this operation but I have found certain aspects really helpful and useful. I’ve had many conversations regarding conducting my PDP online in the form of a blog. The problem I’ve had with this method of reflection is I truly believe that when I design and the process of communicating visually has to be from the heart to connect with people. The difficulty I feel I encounter is critically reflecting on this process and being completely honest and not editing the thought process for publishing, which I feel defeats the whole purpose of the exercise. I want people to comment and be truthful about my designs but I want this to be the end design. I just feel that asking me to expose my thoughts and experiments leaves me venerable and uncomfortable and a true representation is not actually achieved. So I made a decision to conduct my blog more of a resource for collating various methods I utilize on a weekly basis, these include:

• Links to design blogs.
• RSS feeds from design sources I check on a regular basis.
• RSS feeds from design recruitment agencies to keep an eye on the opportunities available on a daily basis.
• Links to galleries and exhibitions, which I visit – keeping up to date to any exhibits that may interest me.
• Interesting articles I have seen.

So with this in mind I suppose this a little bit of a contradiction and I may sound like a hypocrite, but surely everything that is published is edited.

Tumblr & Twitter: Now this to me is slightly daft, keep a blog fine, but there is a small proportion of me that believes we should be living life and experiencing it, not updating micro blogs to let people know that were going to buy a pint of milk, watching tv…….. I’m sorry but to me, this is pointless.

Facebook/Myspace…Social Networking sites: I’ve always steered clear of these and people who know me know how I feel about them. The only possible advantage of these are to keep in touch with people who you don’t see very often, but as with Flickr I do feel that you have to bear in mind that potential employers will check this out and they do not want to see you and your mates night of ………… keep it monitored. They can also access your friends and check out your social network (privacy issues?) Do you want your employer and all your contacts to know every aspect of your life? I have nothing to hide but I’m not sure I want every aspect on the internet. Again monitor what’s being posted.

Delicious: Bookmarks fantastic, but again do I want to share these by publishing them on a blog.

RSS Readers & RSS Feeds: I have no problem at all with these they are extremely helpful and I think they are great I agree completely.

Ffffound is a fantastic source of information and inspiration I agree, but does anyone think that we are all in danger of getting a too reliant on checking design blogs daily and all looking at the same information, or am I just going off on a bizarre tangent and rant. Please reply to this post as for or against this debate could raise some interesting points, thank you.

Filed under: Current Reading Material & Interesting Articles I've Found

Portfolio Advice

I found this interesting article on Design Assembly posted by Neil Cummings:

As February slides in to march the pressure begins to mount on this years crop of final year students. This is the time for third years when things get serious, as portfolios start to germinate and shortlists of potential employers begin to form it suddenly hits home that other people need to get your work.

I spoke with three of the industry’s top creative leaders to gain some insight, opinion and advice on what they look for in a graduate portfolio.

In the current climate, with many jobs having already been cut, competition for graduate positions will be fierce. Companies will be less willing and financially able to take a punt on someone they’re not quite sure about. It’s imperative that students make sure their portfolios are relevant to the companies they’re approaching.

Relevance is not about aping a particular company’s style or only doing a certain type of project, it’s about understanding and demonstrating the qualities and skills that will make you attractive to your chosen prospective employers. For some it means less navel gazing, for others it means engaging more with their personalities. For all it means keeping one eye on the bigger picture and remembering the practical necessities of a portfolio.

Jonathan Ellery
BROWNS

  

Inside Browns

NC
What qualities and skills do you look for in a graduate?

JE
From a Browns point of view we’re looking for a strong, intelligent, practical portfolio. The ability to talk about personal points of reference, to show passion, all mixed in with a healthy dose of humility/insecurity. Arrogance or ego don’t go down well here. Working in a creative environment is fantastic, hard work but good fun. So it’s important to us that they’re interesting, fun, maybe bring in some new music to listen to and hopefully contribute socially. In many cases, this aspect of their personality is as important as the portfolio.

NC
What balance between self initiated work and brief led projects should students have?

JE
Ten years ago I would find myself telling students to bring more of their personality to their portfolios. Meaning, in amongst the corporate identities, packaging projects, signage systems, literature systems, it would be a good thing to have the odd self initiated project in the mix. A revealing and perhaps intimate indulgence. It has now all changed. I can’t remember the last time I saw a rigorous identity implementation, asignage system for the NHS, any packaging or an annual report. I see far too much self indulgent nonsense. For Browns, graphic design is defined by a client, a brief, a deadline and generally fees. If it doesn’t have any of those, it’s not graphic design.We’re very clear on this. It’s why my own self indulgent nonsense is done under the name of Ellery (the artist), not Browns. Now, I’m not saying get rid of lovely self initiated projects but bring some balance to a portfolio. How about 70% hard working, fantastic, beautiful graphic design and 30% indulgent nonsense.

  

Inside Browns 2

NC
How would you encourage third year students to build their portfolio’s?

JE
For me there is no set way of building a portfolio. I’ve seen them work in many different formats. Obviously you need to show your very best work, the work being the hero of the piece, not the portfolio, if that makes sense. I would suggest that you treat it as a project in its self, the brief being to promote the individual. Therefore it will need to be functional, practical and maybe passive in it’s own graphic treatment allowing the work to sing.

NC
What have students been getting better at?

JE
The world is amazing, technological advancements, political complexities, financial disasters, it’s so much more sophisticated than when I was at college. There is some fantastic work being produced by students who seem to have the ability to bring all of this to their work, very sophisticated, contemporary and intelligent. The best work I’m seeing at the moment is by the students who have worked out what they want graphics to be. And that is a return to practical graphic design, where it is for the greater good, to make change, to achieve goals. To work with commercial clients, commercial briefs without feeling bad about it. The best graduates have worked out that it’s not solely about them.

Michael Johnson
JOHNSON BANKS

  

Grab from the Johnson Banks work tree

NC
What is it you like to see, or not see in a graduates book?

MJ
I think that the ‘poles’ of graphic design education frustrate me. Whilst I’ve enjoyed seeing design embrace aspects of art (especially the conceptual variety), when I see folios stuffed with it I wonder they didn’t just do art in the first place. Conversely a portfolio crammed with ‘real’, and often really dull, work, leaves me cold.

I guess I’m looking for people that can borrow from both – have left field ‘outside’ ideas that are still (just) tempered by reality. Those people are hard to find, to be fair.

I really wish colleges would find a way to teach branding in an open way. They either ignore it completely (hoping it will go away) or set some hopeless ‘logo design’ brief which gets us all nowhere. Identity and branding done in it’s broadest sense can be really fascinating and the best work at the moment shows that the old ‘logo locked in the corner’ approach is over. But very few educators seem to have seen this, it can be years before a graduate sees quite how broad identity can be… There must be another way.

Patrick Cox
WOLFF OLINS

  

Still from the current Wolff Olins homepage

NC
What do you look for in a graduate portfolio?

PC
Disobedience and wishful thinking. Work that challenges the way things are and imagines how they could be. As designers it’s not our job to illustrate the present, our work needs allow us to see what the future looks like and to do that you need to have a point of view about what that future might be. To have designers with conflicting points of view is important, the more we agree on what good taste is the more limited our palette becomes and the more predictable the results

Therefore a portfolio should contain a strong sense of the individual, it is more than just a catalogue of work or a showcase for design skills, it’s an opportunity to demonstrate your point of view about your work, about the industry your entering and about the world you live in. How you talk about your work can be more important than the work itself. Of course it needs to look great but the delivery and demonstration of your personality is key.

Don’t worry about whether you’ve found a unique voice yet, what people look for in a graduate is someone with enough curiosity and imagination to keep growing and learning. Someone who’ll always find interesting resources and influences, someone tapped into the world.

If you are curios and talented and have a point of view the right people will notice.

So, good luck to all the current third year students and I hope that you take these points of view on board. It’s quite rare to hear these things straight from the people that will ultimately decide whether you get a job or not, often when you do it can be too late. The most important advice I could give to anyone willing to listen is to understand the industry your entering, don’t miss opportunities because you weren’t prepared. Very few will come round twice.

Special thanks to Jonathan Ellery, Michael Johnson and Patrick Cox for taking the time out of your busy schedules to contribute to this article.

Filed under: Current Reading Material & Interesting Articles I've Found

This maybe of interest.

Found this on Booooooom thought people maybe interested?

If you’ve never shown your work…

…this is for you! Dominique Wilson and Rowen Frazer are making a zine! I’ll let you read for yourself!

Email submissions to: submit[at]noshow.org

Filed under: Current Reading Material & Interesting Articles I've Found

Design Detectives – Taking graphic design to a whole new level.

In ‘STEP – Inside design’ magazine there was an article on how graphic designers are in more demand to work closely with law firms in America. They are recruited to turn complex processes and information into info-graphics and animations understandable to the layperson, courts are reconising the power of visual representations to strengthen the case. Graphic designer Stacey Manela founder of  ’The Art of Facts’, (a legal-services design company) is quoted as saying;

‘At the ad agency, I always wandered whether my work was having an effect on anybody. Now I wish I had a dollar for every juror who said, after the trial, they didn’t understand the fraud – or other criminal act – until the jury saw the time-line, animation, flow chart… It is the best professional feeling.’

At times over the last 18 months (since embarking on my graphic design degree course) I’ve given a lot of thought and consideration to the ethics in design, the relationship with the client, when (and if),  I could (or would) compromise my beliefs for financial gain – I think this would be dependant on my circumstances at the time and the particular proposed project and client. We all have boundaries but I guess you don’t really know how you’ll react until your in that situation. 

Another area which has always interested me and I feel has huge potential and fantastic scope for development is Vid-Lit (visually interpreting literature by using motion graphics, typography and animation). This area could be a great resource for dyslexics and learning differences.

Filed under: Current Reading Material & Interesting Articles I've Found