A Question of Professional Ethics and Friends

Professionalism and ethics questions between two parties are fairly cut and dried. However, things can very quickly get murky when muliple parties are involved. Justice asked me to advise on a situation.

Justice works for DesignStudio and they have a large client account BigClient. Recently BigClient employed an in-house designer called Riley. Coincidentally Justice and Riley happen to be friends who both move in the same active social circles. One day Justice overhears the DesignStudio execs wondering why they are now getting less work out of BigClient than before. They are discussing the latest design outputs of BigClient and wondering where they are coming from. Justice knows from social conversation with Riley that Riley turned out better than BigClient expected so BigClient is giving more work to Riley instead of taking it to DesignStudio.

Should Justice tell the DesignStudio bosses or not? I would say no.

Telling DesignStudio bosses might win some brownie points and demonstrate loyalty towards DesignStudio. But Riley probably did not intend the information about extra work to go any further than the social group. If DesignStudio bosses acted on this information and spoke with BigClient then that might make things difficult between BigClient and Riley.

One could think that Riley should be more careful with what they say but add in a couple of drinks and people toasting each other's accomplishments for the week and it's easy to let things slip. Telling the DesignStudio bosses is acting in the employer's best interests but loyalty between friends should count too.

There needs to be some leeway and forgiveness between friends. Firstly it would be a sad world where friends could not privately discuss some aspects of their work out of fear of being taken advantage of. People need safe places to vent their excess emotions; happy or sad. Secondly this time Riley let slip some information, next time it could be Justice innocently doing the same. Friendship is not about one-foot-wrong and you get taken advantage of. A good friendship will outlast a job.

For these reasons, if I was Justice, I would not tell my bosses about Riley. DesignStudio's Account Managers will probably be told if they contact BigClient directly and ask.

(Scenario based on a true story, real names not used)

“Should I study graphic design?” Jobs, Career, Money

Having a suitable personality is only one part of the decision to study design. In these economic times (Economic Crisis during 2012) students thinking going to design school need more certainty that there are jobs, careers and money after graduation.

There are jobs in graphic design in the skills NZ employers want. These are; advanced web, mobile, and cross-media design. There are some jobs in other media and the competition for these jobs is fierce.

In 2012 Web design is no longer a specialist role – it is now part of the overall package expected of an entry level designer. Many first jobs expect a cross-media designer who can apply a consistent visual look across many mediums. Specialist web design roles require advanced HTML/CSS with at least one of the following; mobile design, front-end development (such a jQuery), serverside skills or CMS skinning.

The NZ Government Careers advice section now says:

Number of design graduates increasing, which has created more competition for jobs. Because of the high numbers of design graduates, competition for most entry-level design jobs is high. Employers often prefer to hire people who have specialist knowledge and/or experience with design programs. People wanting to enter design jobs may have work on a short-term or freelance basis, or volunteer their time, before they can get full-time work.

Why is website gloomy? Their definition of graphic design is narrow and outdated. Print is seen as key and web only gets the barest mention. This does not reflect the reality of the job market.

Now entry level jobs pay less, expect more and require new hires to be immediately profitable. There is no time or patience to train because employers can be choosy. A new entrant designer might earn just over minimum wage until they have proven themselves. Employers now use word of mouth to fill entry-level positions because they do not want to deal with the hundreds of unsuitable applicants who apply to any and every design job ad. How does this affect the decision where to study design?

Does the design school have specific training in the skills, mediums and technology that are currently employing. One red-flag phrase you might hear is: “Technology changes but good design does not”. This view ignores the rising role of the aesthetics of time and interaction and neglects how a viewer's relationship with a medium affects communication. Each medium has its own peculiarities that require specific skill masteries. Furthermore, that red-flag line would be unaffected if the students were trained in more employable mediums. It is simply no longer enough to hope an overall strong aesthetic sense will be enough without employable media skills. Consider also how the school is working with future technology. Graphic design and technology have always gone hand in hand and big changes are coming.

A good design school will have a strong visual culture. Most will claim they do but check the work by attending their graduate exhibitions. Look at the typography. Look for a variety of work in different styles. Look for consistency of design across mediums. The work should be aesthetically rounded and conceptually pushing boundaries.

How successful are graduates of the school jobs in design? While finding you a job is not the design school's role, the percentages of graduates transitioning from study to jobs in graphic design within six months of graduation can be telling. Beware of the super-star stories; “Famous Person studied here”, "we have graduates working for Famous Company". A few super-stars is not a good indicator of an excellent course because some people will just succeed despite their education. Instead look at what happens to the average graduate. How are the B students doing?

There are far easier ways to make a living than graphic design but it is a very rewarding field full of change and challenge.

Read more articles about graphic design careers.

The “Temp” Designer

Many industries already use skilled pools of temporary workers. This allows employers to temporarily fill capacity or skill needs. There are many labourer pools that allow construction companies to have a more flexible workforce where they can scale capability where needed. New Zealand schools have shared pools of relief teachers. The IT industry contracts specialist workers into their customer companies. There is a business opportunity here for design studios.

The default answer for a flexible workforce in graphic design is to employ freelancers. But freelancers can be a risky hit and miss affair for companies who are less able to judge the abilities of freelancers. One solution could be for studios to provide contracted “temp” designers to their client companies. Instead of contracting by project the contract covers a temp in-house designer for set hours who works at the client premises. The designer remains an employee of the studio (not the client).

This enables a client to add capability or skills to an existing in-house design team or to have the advantages of an in-house designer with few of the downsides. The general advantages of in-house designers include; set budget, low overheads per project and quicker communication.

There are benefits for the clients that are unique to the temp. The first is that the studio provides a guarantee to the skill and ability level of the placement designer. This eliminates the risky hit and miss of hiring an in-house designer or engaging directly with freelancers. The temporary designer contract can also include some oversight; the designer is mentored by senior members of the studio. This gives experienced insight without much additional cost.

There are other benefits: the temp designer can be in the client placement part-time so that they are working alongside other designers some of the time. This will help in keeping their creative and technical skills sharp. The temp designer maintains access to advice from specialist colleagues. The studio also takes care of cover during holidays.

Where a client has an on-going need for graphic design work but cannot necessarily afford a fulltime designer then a temp designer can fill this need. Because the temp designer is probably a fulltime employee of their studio then the churn common with part-time employees is less of a risk.

Small design jobs can accumulate within a client organisation. Unfortunately the overheads in setting these up as projects under the usual studio-client relationship can be prohibitive relative to the size of the job. A temp in-house designer has much lower per-project overheads so can clear away these accumulated jobs quickly.

The temp designer is another service that a design studio can offer their clients. When used in the right situations then it can provide good value to the client and simplify the studio-client relationship for collections of small jobs. Temp designers can become another tool for the studio to keep their clients happy.

Scope Creep is your Friend

We all have those clients – the ones that have a huge idea but only a tiny budget. It is impossible to deliver on their grand vision but maybe you can help them with a first step. And then there is the “just had a cool idea” client who creates scope creep.

As design projects get larger with more deliverables and much more coding scope creep becomes a real issue. The default answer is to contract tightly so scope creep is prohibited. But without some scope creep the project risks becoming irrelevant to the client. The unhappy client then might look elsewhere for the next job.

Both these clients can be dealt with in much the same way. Project management techniques currently being explored in software development (Agile and Lean) have direct parallels to design projects. We can start with some fuzzy overall goals and then iterate towards them learning as we go. This means that what was once evil scope creep is now considered a vital part of thinking and learning about the needs of the project.

Some of the commercial designers I have spoken to recently have started doing something similar though the iteration was more driven by a sales need to generate more income from previous customers. The subtle shift in iterative design projects is to treat every customer as a relationship where you are both journeying together. Each small project is another step closer to the goal.

The sales script goes like this: Keep selling the customer on their enthusiasm for their big idea. Talk universe conquering stuff. Then get the client talking about a small first step. Make it something of real value but requiring little risk/effort by either side. Fit within the tiny budget.

Completing that first step project is like dating. Each party gets to see if things with the other will work out without having wasted too much energy. There is an implied expectation that further work will arise but client or designer are both free to depart at this point. That is the sales advantage of this approach – the client is already thinking about the next small job to do with your design company.

After that first step hold a "retrospective"/reflection both within the design studio and with the client. Were their processes that could be improved? What worked well? What could be improved? What did we learn from this project? What are the new ideas we have for the next small project? – see no longer evil scope creep but friendly extra business.

As small tasks are completed (and presumably you’ve been paid) momentum and energy begin to build around the project. Listen to the client and together agree on “next steps” that will bring value to their business.

For the free-lancer a few tasks will tell you if the client is worth building a relationship with. If the client has complex needs then consider offering to go on retainer so that they (and you) have greater control over the budget.

Working in small iterative projects with retrospection before quickly iterating helps to build stronger relationships and should result in projects that are more relevant. Treating scope creep as a positive thing will eliminate a source of negativity in the client-designer relationship. Scope creep is then your friend because it brings repeat business to you.

Designer Work Style.

Nearly 20 years ago I was in a management paper and learned that workers exist on a continuum between the consistent 9-5er and the inconsistent burst worker. It is no surprise that creatives are burst workers. A person whose natural tendency is to work in bursts but who has learned to fit into the 9-5 paradigm will have significant swings in productivity and motivation during the workday. It's almost axiomatic that the more creative a person the less consistent they are.

Designers rise to the challenge of completing deadlines but can become easily exhausted. Much of our training of designers instils into them the primacy of the deadline above all else and this reinforces the burst personality. For the industry this is helpful in that it helps "get projects out the door" and the downtime is necessary for rest, recovery and reflection. The danger is that overwork is much more difficult to detect and burnout is a real risk.

Burst work is fine when project are of generally short duration (i.e. not months or years) and deadlines are not daily. But as our deadlines extend (larger projects particularly web and development) then burst working is less desirable. IT has the "deathmarch project" where the deadline is far away but everybody is pushed into overwork to make it and larger design projects carry the same risks.

My own experience is that there are very few designers who find the consistency of 9-5 easy who are also great visual creatives. The consistent 9-5ers are normally competent and reliable but lack that creative spark or flair. They may be great technically and/or quite good visually but they're likely never going to win a creative award.

Don't knock them because their consistent workers are an important part of a design team. Not only do they handle the routine jobs more accurately and with less frustration, they also provide a yardstick of "normalcy" to their peers. They remind people that families are waiting, the sun goes up and down and the tides go in and out. They are living examples that despite our obsessive tendencies towards our projects and deadlines that there are more important things.

Burst work could be why we place so much emphasis on professionalism - particularly punctuality and attendance. Just to try and counter-act the tendency towards relying on burst work instead of proper planning. Perhaps this is the Confucian balance to the natural tendency of designers. The Confucian education principle here is that education often involves strategies for handling imbalanced tendencies. "Be more aggressive" a passive person and "Be more passive" to an aggressive person. In this aspect design is pragmatic: we need to work together at overlapping times in a team and we should do that when our clients are active (i.e. the working day). It helps our socialisation to even loosely fit a working pattern common in our culture.

There is a danger: if we do successfully turn these normally naturally burst workers into consistent 9-5ers then we may kill what it is that gives them the creative spark. Mindless consistency is the enemy of creativity. Therefore a mixed burst-consistent approach might provide a compromise; the creative bursters are allowed an equivalent but more irregular schedule provided they meet deadlines.

This is just another of those things that makes design hard: the right amounts of consistency and burst, unbounded creativity and creative pragmatism, obssessiveness but with perspective maintained. And this provides important decisions for employers building a team: it's often not just about the skill set, but how their work-style fits the work you do.

Future Design Careers: Getting started in Infographics

This article follows up the post on Information Visualization Design careers with some practical tips to get started. Some of you gave feedback that this was an area of design that interested you and wanted to know how to get started.

Like any area of design a portfolio is everything. Start by building up a infographic pieces and add these to the general design portfolio. Use some publically available statistics on an interesting topic – perhaps something that is currently in the news. Approach a charity and pitch to do an info graphic for them pro bono. Once the portfolio contains a few infographic pieces then the designer can add infographic to their list of skills.

At present there are few jobs that are infographic only positions. Most will be design jobs where you may get the opportunity for infographic work. For now, an in-house designer in a progressive communications department probably has more opportunity to create infographics than a studio designer. An in-house designer could approach the Information System department an offer to work with them to produce infographics.

While infographics will be a big part of our future, the current state of affairs means that infographic designers must create opportunities for themselves by selling the idea of infographics to their clients. Current clients just do not understand what an infographic is or how it can be useful in decision making.

Current infographics are flat 2d pieces that are generally posters. There is opportunity to produce data visualizations that are in other formats like on web sites or large displays. However these will require some coding ability on the part of the designer. A designer who already has ability to code could utilize their skills to produce live data visualization graphics.

Finally, aspiring infographic designers should participate in the growing infographic community in order to stay up with latest trends, get inspiration and build an understanding of what good infographics are. Some website links follow.

• http://infosthetics.com
• http://www.coolinfographics.com
• http://submitinfographics.com
• http://thedailywh.at/tag/infographic
• http://infographicworld.com

Body Care for Designers: Design Makes You Fat

Previous Body Care for Designers articles discussed the importance of exercise and good nutrition for designers from the point of view of controlling OOS. Despite having access to this information many designers find exercise and nutrition difficult to control. Weight becomes an issue for designers and the effects are more than just from lack of exercise. The health of designers is at risk from self-reinforcing factors the spiral health downwards. This article explores those factors.

Designers typically work long hours in fixed positions over computers with little physical activity. There is the ever present pressure of the deadline and sleep is often seen as weakness. Designers also tend to be perfectionists and design generally has no clear measurements for success. This means that designers create a constant performance anxiety stress for themselves.

The right amount of stress is good for active humans needing a temporary boost in physical performance. Stress releases hormones; adrenaline which increases heart-rate to supply fuel to the body and cortisol which increases blood sugar for fuel, increases brain consumption of glucose prepares the body for healing. Adrenaline and cortisol are very useful for humans about to face a physical confrontation but potentially dangerous to a sedentary desk jockey. Stress hormones naturally flush from the body over about three days once stress has passed.

Over stress is very bad – this happens when stress occurs more often and with greater intensity than the body has the ability to flush the stress hormones. Prolonged over stress can cause many problems such as: Heart disease, insomnia, digestive problems, weight gain, memory issues, skin problems, depression and ADD. The consequent loss in performance from overstress can have a compounding effect as the designer gets more concerned about not meeting deadlines.

The hyperfocus on deadlines means that designers often neglect healthy routines and the circadian rhythms that government healthy sleep-wake-alertness cycles can get out of kilter. Pushing aside everything for the deadline means that designers will often forget to exercise. Exercise is important to help flush stress hormones to prevent over stress.

Focus on deadlines will have designers forget to keep good eating patterns. Mental fatigue tends to make the body crave easy calories like sugars and processed carbohydrates. Sleep deprivation can have much the same effect on craving. For some designers snacking will working can become compulsive. Stress does stop digestion so stress for prolonged periods starves the body of fuel so it begins to crave the sugars and carbohydrates to provide a quick energy boost. Stressed and sleep deprived people tend to consume more calories.

All this contributes to a spiraling worsening of designer health. The most telling sign for most will be weight gain. All the extra calories combined with little exercise means the risk of obesity is high. Other effects will be insomnia. Extreme cases will suffer depression, ADD and have severely impacted mental performance. These health effects all feed upon each other.

Designers must learn to manage stress. Everybody responds differently to stress and it is often about personal attitude towards a situation. Changing the attitude can go a long way towards lowering stress levels. Be more realistic about deadlines and if one might slip then talk to the client – often it might not be such a problem. Above all, maintain good sleep-wake-meal routines, eat good food, avoid energy dense snacks and exercise regularly. The more stressed, the more exercise is needed. Staying healthy and at good weights is just going to be that much harder for designers.

Future Design Careers: Information Visualization Designer

The future design jobs will be a series of articles that look at jobs that designers could be doing in the future. The intent is to give graphic designers a heads up on potential directions in their own careers. This first article is on data visualization designers.

Information visualization is where design and statistics meet. The information visualization designer’s job is to make data digestible. The intended audience should be able to interpret a good information visualization to understand key things about the under lying data. A data visualization designer works with a source of data and tries to find the important and interesting facts that lie within data. Data visualization is about visually interpreting data in order to produce good stories.

Information visualization designers will need solid layout illustration skills. It will help to have a background in statistics – though initially designers will work alongside statisticians eventually the role of information visualization designer will specialize to include a need for statistics too. The designer will also need good empathy with their target audiences to know what information they will want to know.

A person considering a career in information visualization should train as a designer and illustrator first and minor in statistics. Learning interactive design and programming (like Processing and Flash) will help the information visualization designer produce live data visualizations that can be run on demand. Animation and storytelling related subjects will help the information visualization designer learn how to produce information visualization animations. Journalism could be another useful supporting subject to learn about the standards and ethics associated with interpreting data for consumption by others.

There is a related field called “interactive data visualization” that provides interfaces for users to view the data in any way they choose. This is not information visualization because there is no interpretation of the data into information and stories. Interactive data visualization is most useful for those who are able to interpret the data for themselves. General and non-expert audiences will benefit most from having information interpreted for them.

Data visualization will become more important as our culture becomes increasingly visual. Viewers will be drawn to the simple explanations that visualization offers. In particular visualization can make scale comparisons and quantities easier to understand than words can. The discourse of the future will be increasingly visual as better access to data means we look for better ways to express that data in ways useful to viewers.

Data visualization will be used within organizations to help make better sense of the data they are already capturing. Data visualization will be used by organization seeking to make a point based on quantitative research: political groups, charities, lobbyists, advertisers. As information brokers the information visualization designer will play a central role future communications. The information visualization designer better have a keen sense of ethics.

Body Care for Designers – Exercise

Designers spend long hours at their computers in fixed positions. Their overall workload is sedentary and involves no great strenuous physical effort. The mental loads of designers tend to have them crave sugars and carbohydrates to feed their brains. Designers often have poor posture. A previous eturnerx article explored how to avoid OOS in these situations. In addition to exercise breaks, that article also suggested background fitness and exercise. This article discusses what form those exercises should take. Disclaimer: consult your healthcare professional – their advice trumps mine.

Consult the professionals before beginning any new exercise routine. This starts with a quick check up from your doctor then talk to a personal trainer. Many gyms will include a personal trainer consultation with any new membership – but it pays to ask. Let the personal trainer know that you work long hours at a computer, any areas of pain you have and what goals you have for your exercise regime. If you already have particular areas of pain then a doctor might suggest consulting a physio (physical therapist) who will prescribe remedial exercises.

In general, designers need a well rounded fitness routine – one that does not rely too much on just one of strength, flexibility, speed or cardio-vascular exercises. The exercises should be tailored to improving how the designer handles their daily work tasks.

One issue with sedentary lifestyles like design is that metabolic rate can slow and thus reduce the rate at which toxins are eliminated from the body. The static workloads of designers mean that lactic acid builds in muscles – particularly in the neck, shoulders, arms and hands. Most exercise routines will boost metabolism and a faster metabolism helps the body eliminate lactic acid quicker.

Cardio-vascular exercise gets the heart pumping for at least 20 minutes three to five times per week. This form of exercise is important to promote good blood circulation which will help flush lactic acid from the muscles where it may cause damage. Cardio also produces endorphins that helps combat the nervous stress of working to deadlines. Too much deadline stress builds up adrenaline in the system which can ultimately disturb sleep and shorten life expectancy. Strenuous cardio exercise can work off that adrenalin.

Designers should avoid too much anaerobic exercise – particularly in the arms and shoulders – because anaerobic exercise builds up lactic acid. Designers already have problems with lactic build up so anaerobic exercise should only be done if extensive warm up and warm down exercises are done to fully flush any lactic build up.

Stretching is an important part of the designer’s exercise regime. The daily static workloads mean that joints are rarely moved through a full range of motion so flexibility will be lost over time. Incorporating stretches into the exercise routine will help combat the loss of flexibility and promote better mobility as the designer ages.

Strength training to build (or maintain) muscle mass is important. Muscles are necessary to support the weight of the body and also have a background calorie burning effect. There is no need to become an body builder but do some strength training. A particular area to focus on is the core abdominal muscles that hold the upper body erect. A strong core can promote good posture and avoid back pain. Exercise systems like Pilates can promote good core strength.

Take care of those bodies designers, they need to last a career well enough to have a long and enjoyable retirement.

(The article on OOS discusses why lactic acid build up is such a problem for designers)

Designer Loyalty is Compromised

Ideally designers should create works that best suit the needs of communicating a message to a target audience. The reality is that the target audience is never a paying member so the designer’s loyalty is compromised by contractual relationships to act in the best interests of their employer or client. How does a designer resolve the tension between the competing interests of employer, client and audience?

In the long-term, the best interests of the employer are best met by serving the interests of clients. Clients whose needs are met show positive business results and can afford to become repeat customers. Repeat clients are cheaper for the employer so retaining clients and helping clients thrive is good for the employer. However, sometimes an employer will not necessarily act in the best interest of a client, for example by scheduling too much work, or knowingly taking on work that will not add much value to the client’s business. The employed designer is contracted to their employer not the client so may not always be able to act in their client’s best interests.

Freelance designers have the luxury of no employer relationship to complicate matters. By contracting directly with clients the freelancer need only resolve the tensions between the client and the target audience.

In the long-term, the best interests of the client are best met when the client’s offerings add benefit to their target audience. The role of the designer is to communicate the client’s message to this audience. Often though, in the interest of keeping the client happy and retaining their business, the designer will accept instructions from the client that run counter to their best interests.

So, to describe the chain of responsibility, the designer acts in the best interests of their employer by acting in the best interests of employer’s clients. The designer acts in the best interests of the clients by acting in the interest of the client’s target audience. This means that by satisfying the needs of the target audience both the client and employer’s long-term interests are met.

There are two problems with this chain. The designer has no contractual responsibilities to the target audience and thus can act for short-term gain at the expense of the audience. Secondly each link in the chain introduces a political element where the interests of the audience can become forgotten.

The way to resolve the tension is for the designer to advocate for the target audience to the client, and advocate for the client to their employer. In situations where the client gives instructions that run counter to their best interests then it is the designer’s duty to inform the client but the client still has the right to decide. In situations where client’s best interests are being compromised by employer actions the designer should inform their employer but recognize that the designer is contracted to their employer first so the employer gets the right to decide.

Make a Great Portfolio Website

Designers need a portfolio. The reality is that a degree alone is not enough to secure work. A portfolio is proof of what the designer is capable. It is fashionable nowadays for all designers to have a portfolio website to showcase their work and abilities. There are some do’s and don’ts that are useful to know.

A portfolio website is part of the designer’s personal brand. That brand should be properly unified across all the media it appears in: the portfolio website, the printer portfolio, the CV, the business card and even the any covering letters sent. This attention to brand detail not only fixes the brand in the viewer’s mind, but it also shows potential employers that you have a keen eye for detail and can work well with cross-media design projects.

Brand around the designer’s real name. There is no better representation for an individual. Designers should not dilute the power of their name by trying to introduce a brand for something they are not. Do not use a cutesy name for the portfolio and say “work by X”. Name the portfolio as X then simply name “collections” within that overall portfolio. Naming with something other than the designer’s name dilutes personal brand further by making the site appear as representing a small studio.

Be upfront about what the designer is looking for. If the designer is looking for work in Delhi then they should say that: “looking for freelance opportunities or full-time employment in Delhi”. This helps viewers understand how they might relate to the designer.

Ensure that work is front and center on the portfolio. Design work should the main focus of the portfolio so do not bury it under layers of navigation. Have work on the first page of the website. Feature design collections in the first level of navigation. Have a brief text statement contextualizing each piece of work.

Contact details and a CV are good to have online but be careful how much personal information is being offered for free. A good portfolio website should help others decide that the designer fits their needs, decide that they like the work and decide to contact the designer.

The design of the website portfolio itself says a lot about the designer themselves. A good portfolio should be functional and easy to use. Ensure that any interaction is simple and each to use. Make sure that load times are snappy and quick. Consider avoiding flash and using HTML/CSS with perhaps some jQuery to add polish. Definitely do not have a splash pages.

Use a custom domain name and website for the portfolio. While many on-line communities have great portfolio abilities (e.g. Flickr, Behance, DeviantArt) these websites include too many other things that distract from the designers work.

(Another related eturnerx article is: Use the Internet to get a Design Job)

What do design school grades mean?

Over my teaching career I have seen identifiable patterns that match grades to the personality of the design student. This article is intended for the recent or current student and those who are hiring. These are generalizations so take care applying to individuals. Note: The grading system in this article ends in A+ so subtract half a letter grade for grading systems that end at A.

The Straight A/A+ Superstar has excellent design aesthetic backed up with strong concepting ability and good software skills. They are able to execute solid work with memorable flair. Works very hard and listens without appearing to take critique personally. There are good communicators with outgoing personality and charisma. The two negatives are that they might have an ego – especially if they don’t listen and they tend to be perfectionists that can drive themselves into mid-career health issues if they do not adjust to the deadline realities of the commercial world. These are the design superstars that will need room in grow in their careers.

The Performer has grades that range from B+ to A but predominantly has A-. This person produces polished work that lacks flair. Very keen to learn and can be trained to improve flair by focusing on creativity, contrast and a visual quirk. They are reliable and hard workers with good finishing skills. They are also perfectionists but have not yet developed their “designer eye” to the point where they can recognize great design and produce it themselves. These people can develop into superstars if they learn what makes great design great. These performers make good workers that have potential for improvement if their employer invests in them.

The Worker Bee students get grades in the B/B+ range. Typically they are solid reliable people who take direction well but are not the design superstars. They will put a lot of effort and can be counted on to pull long hours. They are also able to make compromises to get their work in by deadline. Aesthetically their work is good but not award winning. Typically some creative spark is missing - the flair is not there. Often the work is shallow style without a strong connection to concept or message despite the polish of the finishing. They are best suited for junior design roles, production roles and even project management or other design administration jobs. Without significant growth opportunity the worker bee will have a slow career trajectory but are probably happy with that.

The Creative has grades typically around C+/B- with a dash of A grades and the occasional D. This is the sign of somebody with more of an artist personality than a designer personality. They generally spend a lot of time thinking deeply about concept but the finishing and final aesthetic are rough. Typically they are the illustrators, painters and photographers who had a hard time adjusting to the discipline of layout, typography and design theory. They are easily distracted and have a cavalier attitude to deadlines. If they concentrate on finishing skills, deadlines and design aesthetics they have the potential to become future superstars but ambition is not in their nature. The creative is often highly intelligent, philosophical and engaging. They work well when teamed with a performer or worker bee because their concepting ability and risk-taking flair complement the finishing skills of their partner. Consider hiring as part of a large team or using as a freelancer on special projects.

The Dud: has grades in the D/C+ range and should look for a non-design career.

(If you liked this article then you might also like: The Designer Personality)

Body care for Designers – Occupational Overuse Syndrome

Designers these days spend a lot of time in front of the computer and this can have a negative impact on the human body if not managed well. Occupations Overuse Syndrome (OOS) occurs when damage to soft tissues goes beyond the point the body can naturally heal. If a designer wants their body to last for a career then they need to know how to prevent OOS.

The effects of OOS start with mild pains or weakness that passes quickly, then pain and weakness that has disappeared by the next day. At its worst, the pain is severe, debilitating and constant. The worst effects of OOS can be prevented if treatment and change happens early enough.

The early symptoms of OOS are muscle soreness, aches and pains, fatigue, hot and cold feelings, stiffness, numbing and tingling, muscle weakness. Not all of these symptoms need be present for OOS to occur, but some care is needed in diagnosis because they can be the sign of something else. Always consult your doctor. OOS develops over time so this list is early warning signs.

OOS is caused by tense muscles restricting blood flow and this allows lactic acid to build up in muscles and start to break down the soft tissues. As blood flow to muscles is reduced, not enough oxygen gets to muscle for energy so the body switches to non-oxygen methods to supply energy. The by product of this is lactic acid. Muscles tense up when held in the same position for long-periods of time without movement. Stress can also cause an inability to relax which increases muscle tension.

The best prevention is to avoid doing the same type of task for longer than 40 minutes. After 40 minutes either take a ten minute break or switch to another task. Try pausing every few minutes and use stretches and other exercises to restore blood flow to stiff areas. Maintain a good body temperature to maintain good blood flow to extremities.

Good general health and fitness also helps. Eat well and remain hydrated to aid blood circulation and improve the bodies ability to process lactic acid.

Designers are particularly at risk from OOS. They have the stress of deadlines, consume dehydrating amounts of caffeine, sit with bad posture for extended periods and often don’t take breaks or vary their workloads. The singular focus on deadline often means designers will ignore pain and discomfort and push through instead of short exercise and rest. Designers need to be more aware of their bodies and realize that a designer career is a marathon not a never-ending series of sprints.

Finding Design Jobs During a Recession

Recessions are difficult times for designers. Less money is spent by business meaning that design studios close. Fewer design firms are hiring and those that are have their pick of experienced designers. It is not easy for the recent design graduate who lacks commercial experience. What can they do?

Can the job seeker relocate? Being flexible about the city they live in will open more job opportunities. Some people cannot relocate and they become restricted in their choices because they are limited to the opportunities available locally. Some cities and regions might not have many design jobs. Design jobs are typically found more in larger centers.

Consider finding any job to help cover the bills in the meantime (e.g. retail). Some work experience at anything establishes a track record of punctuality, reliability, professionalism and trust. A job might also provide networking opportunities where design ability can be shown. A job with limited hours leaves excess capacity that can be used to continue looking for design jobs.

Network with business people. Use social connections to let people know that this designer is looking for work. This might lead to freelance opportunities (which count as commercial experience) which might lead onto job leads. Other designers might be able to help out with freelance jobs and job leads but typically this will be limited to the crumbs that fall from their tables – and those crumbs become less during recessions. Therefore, spend more time networking with the non-designer contacts. Go to social events and occasions. Talk to people. Find the bars where businesses have their Friday drinks.

Use the Internet to help find a design job, but do not rely exclusively on the net because it is a supplemental tool only. Build an online presence that includes a portfolio. Use social networking sites to find jobs and leverage your networks. The internet is also a good source of tutorials for designers to expand their skillsets.

Build both commercial experience and portfolio: Studio work equals paid freelance which is better than charity work which is better than school work which is equal to hobby work. Build the portfolio via whatever means possible. Each piece should build commercial experience and/or improve the designer’s skillset.

Consider asking for internships in design studios. Friends who are designers might be able to help with leads for internship placements. Internships are usually unpaid but can be a networking opportunity and a chance to gain some real experience. Even a few days or a day or two a week around another job can be helpful.

Do not wait until conditions are perfect. Procrastination allows opportunities to slip past. It is not necessary to have the perfect portfolio or the perfect CV. Often these things are only finalized in response to a job lead.

The Designer Personality

Design is a curious activity that mixes many disciplines, modes of thinking and personal traits and focuses them towards achieving an outcome. The designers mind can process different modes of thought each with different value systems. Pro-designers do not even switch between thinking modes – their minds just think multiple ways in parallel. Previously eturnerx has explored how to spot a potential designer early. As an extension this article explores the personality traits that make the designer successful.

The designer is both creative and critical. Creating and to critiquing are in constant conflict within a designer. The trick is to let the creative run free and the critic come in later to provide the reality check. If the critic is too strong then the designer will become paralysed. The systematic design process even instructs designers when to be creative and when to critique (e.g. during concepting).

Design is a pragmatic activity that must balance many factors to ensure good outcomes. As well as considering budgets, deadlines and personal skill levels, designers must also consider the message, the medium and the target audience. Because design solutions are ultimately born into the real fancy theories count and elegant production count for nothing compared to just making it work. Designers first concentrate on getting it done, then (if time permits) on doing it right.

Good designers are deadline focused. They manage their time / task allocations with a keen eye on that deadline. This deadline thing is so innate that designers easily become frustrated with those with more lax attitudes to deadlines.

Designers are inherently results focused. They can sometimes become so tunnel visioned about result they want that they do not care about the journey towards producing that result. This unfortunately includes neglecting personal relationships with co-workers, friends and even family.

Designers have an obsessive attention to details. Little things annoy them. Designers have strong emotive reactions to even tiny niggles they see in the visual world around them. They will use up all available amount of time adjusting something over and over until it is just right. This behavior confuses outsiders who cannot see what the fuss is about because they do not understand the aesthetic considerations at play. One area novice designers can improve their productivity is to avoid endlessly adjusting something: just decide and move on.

In order to pragmatically weigh up the attention to detail with the deadline urge successful designers have learned to “let it go”. That is, once time is up, the work is complete. Yes, the work would be with more time – but the needs of the next job soon consume them and any regrets are soon forgotten away.

Designers selflessly remove themselves from the equation. They facilitate a client’s message via a media so that it is clearly understood by the audience. That leaves little room for artistic self expression. Designers also understand that creativity for them is not about the most original outcome but about the most appropriate outcome.

A designer is confident enough that they can take critique of their work in a positive manner. They know that while they should "sell" their design and educate the client, critique is not about automatically defending their work, the critique is usually motivated by an honest desire to improve the work. They have long since learned to deal with the emotions that go with having work critiqued.

(If you liked this article then you might also like: What do Design School Grades Mean?)

Use the Internet to get a design job

There are many tools on the Internet that can help you find and get design jobs. Nothing beats real life networking and knocking on doors with the CV and Portfolio but using this in combination with the Internet will help your efforts.

Many employers will Google your name. Try this yourself and if the results are not flattering then consider increasing your digital footprint on good websites and increasing the privacy settings on your personal life related accounts (such as Facebook). If you have a portfolio website and it is not coming up highly in the search results then ensure that the site follows basic SEO principles and submit it to Google.

A personal portfolio website can be a good tool – but it must be kept up to date. Make sure that your name and employment status is up to date. Make your work the focus of the website and avoid long runs of text. Keep the navigation simple and straight forward. Go for flair on these websites because you want to make a memorable impression. Traffic will not magically find your website – they will discover a link to your site in other places like business cards and places you have gone online.

Portfolio websites such as Behance and DeviantArt are excellent for getting work online quickly but the community nature of these things means that attention is taken off you and your work very easily. Interacting with these communities is good but remember that most of the people there are also competing for the same work that you are.

LinkedIn is a great website for professional networking. Update your profile with a resume of your experience and add a small portfolio of work. Link people to your personal website. Join Design related groups and get involved in the discussions there. These groups often have job postings and the members are usually helpful if you are prepared to fully engage with the community instead of drive-by spamming.

Twitter is another great tool for job-seekers. Follow as many local studios as possible because often job openings will go out via their twitter feed first. The same applies for Facebook pages – follow as many studios as possible. It also helps in getting an inside look into a studio that you can leverage if you get an interview there.

Do not underestimate the power of old-fashioned networking. The more people you know and converse with, then more likely one of them knows of a job or has freelance job that needs doing. Widen your circle beyond design friends because they only pass things on to you that they do not want. Make contacts in the wider business community. Ask people you know (even relatives) for introductions. Ask to be taken to social occasions where possible – just get out there.

Always try to contact potential employers by phone or in person. Email is just too easy for them to ignore. A voice on a phone makes you a real person and allows your personality to come through in ways that email cannot.

Good luck it is tough out there.

“Should I study graphic design?”: Detecting good potential designers.

Over my career in graphic design education I have interviewed many prospective students and have seen hundreds graduate. I have followed their careers as they have been promoted, started their own businesses and won awards. From this experience I can state the traits that are common to those I’ve seen become successful career designers.

Visual people are able to talk about visual things. They have opinions. They’ll move their hands a lot as they talk – manipulating imaginary images as we converse. Communicators with big personalities will do well in design provided they are talking about what they have done and not what they might do. Beware the talkers with no design work to show – suggest they do marketing instead. Curiosity is important because designers should always ask questions.

The person will show creative flair. This is particularly important for those wanting to become illustrators and photographers. Their portfolio will have pieces that have an experimental motivation.

Drawing skills are always good. I look for smooth stokes that show confidence and speed. Tight nervous strokes often reflect the personality or are traced! While awesome drawing ability is not mandatory every designer needs to be able to draw at some level – even if it’s just sketching layout wireframes. Other technical skills (like software skills) are useful, but not really that important because the student can learn these on the course.

What do they do in their spare time? I look for driven people who use their spare time for interests and pursuits. It’s a good sign if they are self-motivated enough to design outside of their school-work. It is also good to see a hobby, club, sport or other interest that they are involved with. Designers need to understand the special details of their target audiences so it helps if they are passionate about something (anything!) because they will realize that everything has a unique depth.

Good designers have a very strong work ethic. They are focused on getting things done. Students who are not prepared to work hard will usually do poorly in design. An ordinary work ethic with extraordinary creative flair will normally score in the C to B- range. Hard workers with average creative flair generally score B grades. Creative people with a strong work ethic score the A grades. The people scoring in the C grades might actually have been better off doing a fine-arts course because they have creative flair but methodical nature of the systematic design process might just put them off applying themselves in design. (The relationship between personality and grades is mildly-satirised in What do Design School Grades Mean?)

Designers must have an obsessive attention to details (The exception being that their spelling will often contain errors). The trick with good graphic design is to obsess over details until the practicality of delivering the project on time and on budget means that corners must be cut. It’s a fine balancing act – you want detail people who can turn off the compulsion at the right time. These people are the straighteners, fussiers and tidiers.

Graphic design is a diverse field with many different roles that suit different personalities and skill preferences. The above list is a guideline only but if you know somebody that exhibits many of the above traits then perhaps they might make a good designer.

Read "Should I study graphic design?" Jobs, Career and Money to look at employment prospects and some tips on choosing a design school.