July 8

Things they DON’T teach you at design school

I had to giggle when I read this Design Reviver post. So relevant!

” 1. Your diploma doesn’t help you to find a job

But your portfolio does! Of course it’s a good thing to get a design education and a proof of it, but when it comes to get money out of their wallet clients want to see what you are capable of, not a diploma. When looking for work, I never had to show my diploma, not even once.

2. Good design takes time, don’t set too tight deadlines

When you are in design school, the teacher sets the deadlines for you and tries to give you enough time. Your boss or your client will not be like your design teacher, they will try to push you to be more productive and give you too little time to get work done. All my worst designs have been created when I agreed to work with unrealistic deadlines.

3. You clients don’t think that you are an artist

They just think you should help them to sell more. This doesn’t mean you should give up on good design, it just means that you’ll have to be convincing when you want to bring a more artistic touch to a job. I’ve been very frustrated with this when I first got out of school, but I learned to deal with it by educating my clients.

4. You must be able to handle irrelevant criticism

When you are in school, you learn a lot from getting criticized by your teachers and classmates. Obviously these people all have some design skills, sometimes more than yourself. It is much harder to handle critics about your work when they come from people with no design education. You can be sure that you’ll hear some insane things and have to deal with it… “

Read the rest here: 10 things they don’t teach you in design school