I think there are very few people that are in the hiring chair that are telling you what actually goes through their mind. You may have a lot of people who are telling you things that you may just want to hear. So, let me break it down.
A lot of the information that's out there, especially that comes from traditional education, is great from a principals and foundation stand point. But when it comes to landscape and design, you need to be looking at people who are in the industry that are practitioners. You need to listen to people who are at the agency level who run their own companies.
The reason that having that information is so valuable is because you may not have somebody that's an actual real world practitioner that you have access to, to be able to get answers from and so this could definitely help you. And I also want you to kind of take in mind that not everybody teaches graphic design in the same way.
There are some people who teach a lot about the theories and principles of design, but there are some people who then focus more on the technical aspects in terms of software and the techniques that go along with that.
But a component that gets over looked beyond your portfolio is how to present, how to pitch, how to sell yourself, how to market yourself effectively.
And that's going to make the difference between getting a job, getting clients.
Or if you decide to sell products.. do that as a customer. There's not a lot of education around how to be a freelancer and build a freelance business.
There's not a lot of information about how to build your own company or business.
There's a component to knowing how to negotiate.
How to negotiate, whether it's for a salary, how to negotiate client fees, or to bill appropriately, what software you need to do the invoicing and things of that nature.
So I think that one of the things you have to do if you want to be a graphic designer in 2018.
It's not the same thing that people experienced , 15, or 20 years ago.
The game has changed.
Being a designer is not just about being creative, it's not just about good typography, it's not about having the 10 solid pieces in your portfolio, there's a lot of it that has to do with how you communicate to people and how do you talk about your work.
You can't show your work and just let your work speak for itself. Those days are dead.
The person who romanticizes that will always lose to the person who is very good at presenting
Articulating and framing what they do, in the context of what relates the bottom line of the
business for the client, or for the employer.
If I'm hiring people, what stands out is when they can specifically tell me about a vulnerability or a pain point that they see in my business, and how what they do is going to benefit my business directly, or what problem it's going to solve, or how they can add some additional value to what I have that I may have not even considered. That's how people get hired and win my business.
If I have to guess or make assumptions about how your work translates to what I do, it means you've failed in the presentation process.
You should understand what it is that employer does
What they and your portfolio should have been more tailored to that. And so, you have to have a much more robust and broad body of work in today's competitive market.
I know you've been told to niche down... but I think that those have been taken out of context dramatically.
Let me frame it from an employer standpoint about what you niching down should look like in the context of what I do.
If you're trying to get hired by me, what I want is... someone who can do infographics for me. You'd have to show me a body of work that focuses on infographics and examples of that, but also the supplemental elements that make for good infographics. And then, you have to be able to communicate exactly how what you do translates to my needs and wants as a business owner.
This means you have to have some general education about things outside of design, and know how to present, and how to pitch.
You would need to know what I do as a business owner in the world of social media, and marketing, and consulting. And you need to show me examples.
You can't just show me examples of infographics in a very general way, you'd have to show me examples of infographics that might be able to be applied to what I'm trying to do, or the target market that I'm trying to reach.
You have to know who my clients and customers kind of are and you have to understand that you're not just selling to the client or the employer.. you're selling to their clients or their customers. Because that's what they're trying to sell.
So you need to walk backwards from that to be able to demonstrate that value.
Also, you'd be surprised... we don't value specialists as much as we used to, from an employer standpoint, because there are some things you want a specialist for. In design and branding, it's
actually more valuable to us to have someone who might be a Jack or Jill of all trades and do you know why? It's because, what matters more to us than that specialized 90% master execution, I'd rather have someone who's an 80% across the board at three or four things, because what I want is consistency and continuity. I don't want to have to hire a designer for this, a designer for this, and a designer for this...
As an art director, you have to go through much more effort to get them to have a unified style or to have to deal with the fact that their stuff isn't necessarily compatible visually and that feels disjointed in my brand.
Companies like Apple, win on consistency, and the behavioral psychology,and behavior of science principal called the Law of Pimpiquity, and the short version of that is: "familiar good, unfamiliar bad. "
If you don't understand marketing, if you don't understand selling psychology, if you don't understand at some base level how to leverage social media effectively, to have nuanced conversations, or to be able to do business development, or reach your target ideal client or employer, or to use social media as a listening tool to Get out what they are looking for.. What their style is, communication wise and how they do and present their visuals and their marketing and whether your abilities and styles and your techniques could serve that purpose.
If you don't understand those things, it will be very difficult for you to sell yourself to those people as a graphic designer.
It's so much more than getting the right degree from the right school or having the right software and knowing how to use it, it's so much more than having 20 stellar pieces in your portfolio.
There's a level of understanding the needs, the pain points and the anxiety of the consumer, of the client, of the employer, and walking backwards and reverse engineering that, and also having the presentation and the sales person-ship to be able to really come forward and communicate your value to them, in a way that's meaningful to them and aligns with their business objectives and goals.
Taking away that anxiety, Helps them to make a confident buying decision and investment in you.
And so, if you want to be a graphic designer in 2018, it's not enough for you to learn graphic design, be proficient at that, master that one thing, you need to have general knowledge of marketing, sales person-ship, you need to understand social media, and more than anything, you need to get fundamentally skilled and nuanced at how you communicate, and how you present, and how you market your own brand.
It will make a big difference in a world where people can Google you, in a world where people
can reach out on Twitter, in a world where people are following you on Instagram,
I guarantee you these are things that a lot of people will not tell you.
A lot of people romanticizing the way it was 10 or 20 years ago.
So, I would say, that being relevant, and knowing how to market yourself in the world we actually live in, the world where the iPhone has been around for a decade, probably matters.
Yes.. you need to understand the principals of graphic design and you need to know industry standards.
You need to learn your tools.. you need to learn the trade. And then, you need to learn how to sell!
Learning how to market yourself and learning how to sell is what makes the difference between someone whose a successful professional, and somebody whose a very talented starving artist.
I hope you found my article "How to become a graphic designer" helpful.
Thanks.
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