AOIT Graphic Design

AOIT Graphic Design Lesson 15 Exploring Graphic Design Careers and Learning from Industry Experts

Student Resources

Resource Description

Student Resource 15.1 Reading: Graphic Design Employment Overview

Student Resource 15.2 Worksheet: Job Wish List

Student Resource 15.3 Worksheet: Developing Your Portfolio

Student Resource 15.4 Assignment: A Professional Portfolio

Student Resource 15.1 Reading: Graphic Design Employment Overview

The graphic design industry is huge and offers many different types of employment. Designers may creat e movie titles, develop multimedia presentations, or help create publications for international corporations, just to name a few of the positions available for people with the right education and skills. According to the AIGA’s annual salary survey, the median salary for a person in an entry-level position wa s approximately $37,500 in 2010. A senior designer earned $65,000, and the owner or head of a design s tudio earned $110,000 annually.

Types of Employment As a graphic design professional, you will have several different options for employment. You may choose to work for a design studio. You may choose to work “in house,” serving as part of a graphic design team at a non-design business; major corporations and not-for-profit organizations often have in-house graphic design teams. Or you may work as an independent consultant, doing projects for different individual clients If you choose to work for a design studio, you may:  Gain a lot of experience in the specific type(s) of design that the studio handles. For example, if you go to work at a studio that specializes in designing museum exhibits, you will learn a lot about those projects, but not as much about designing publications.  Work on a variety of different projects for the studio’s clients.  Have a “creative” or “casual” work environment.  Need to begin on simple tasks or basic projects and “earn” your way up to the more challenging or difficult assignments. If you choose to work in house, you may:  Gain a lot of experience on the specific projects your company needs. For example, if you work for a major corporation, you will get a lot of experience creating company newsletters, annual reports, and corporate stationery.  Have a steady flow of work and a regular source of income.  Need to be able to explain design concepts to non-designers, since most of your colleagues will not know much about graphic design.  Have a more “traditional” or “business-oriented” work environment.

If you work as an independent consultant, you may:  Be asked to handle projects and assignments for many different companies in many different industries.  Specialize in one type of work, such as multimedia design.  Work on one project for a specific period of time, like six months, and then go on to another project.  Need to be able to find your own clients and promote your own work.

Specializations within Graphic Design Once you have determined which kind of company you’d like to work for, you need to think about what kin d of job you’d like to have. There are lots of possibilities out there. Here are some of the most common jo bs: Interactive Designer: Many graphic designers today work on interactive or multimedia projects, designin g websites or giving advice on the visual appearance and layout of computer programs. This job requires strong graphic design skills as well as a good understanding of computer technology. Type Designer: Have you ever noticed how many different fonts there are in a program like Microsoft Wo rd? Any time type is used—in a book or magazine, on a website, on a sign—someone needs to choose a font or design a font with a specific look. Type designers specialize in these projects. They need to think a bout what the design communicates: is it formal or casual, traditional or funky? Type designers need to ha ve a good sense of structure, because all the letters in a typeface need to have a unified look. Type desig ners also need a lot of patience, because this is very detail-oriented work. Publication Designer: A lot of graphic designers work on publications. Publication design may involve w orking on a magazine, developing corporate letters or annual reports for a major business, helping a not-f or-profit organization create a fundraising brochure, or developing a new textbook for students to read in s chool. Many publications need a logical system and a cohesive overall design; for example, a textbook m ay also have a matching workbook and a teacher’s guide to accompany it, and all three need to work toge ther effectively. Publication designers need a good sense of systems design as well as the ability to blend together text, images, charts, graphs, and other elements creatively. Identity Designer: Most businesses have a corporate logo, something that represents their business on everything from a matchbook to the sign in front of the building. Identity designers specialize in creating th ese memorable images. An identity graphic needs to be clear, easy to recognize, flexible enough to be us ed in many different ways, and, above all, expressive of the business or organization it represents. Identit y designers need to be very skilled at manipulating and making subtle changes in typeface and visual ima gery. They also need to be good communicators, since they will need a lot of input from their clients in ord er to create an effective identity graphic. Advertising Designer: An advertising design job blends psychology, marketing and creativity. Although many advertising design professionals focus their energy on the creative end of the spectrum, psychology and marketing often spill over into their everyday work. Artistic talent is the most obvious trait that advertis ing designers should possess. Having a good portfolio that demonstrates your skill and creativity will help you get noticed by prospective employers. Advertising designers also need good communication skills. K nowing your target audience and how to talk to them is a critical piece of advertising design. Your marketi ng skill and knowledge of customer psychology will play an important role in helping you get a message o ut to consumers. Aspiring ad designers also need to thrive in a competitive environment. The advertising i ndustry is highly competitive. While the pressure may not be as extreme for designers as it is in other ad agency positions, you will most likely be working under deadlines with people who are under pressure. Film/Television Designer: When you’re watching a movie or TV show, you probably aren’t paying a lot o f attention to the titles and credits that appear on the screen. But designing those titles is an important job. Just imagine what would happen if you started watching a scary movie and the titles were done in bright c olors and animated with singing birds and characters that looked like they came out of a children’s movie. It wouldn’t work, would it? Title designers use their graphic design skills to set the mood of the film or TV s how from the very beginning. Some designers also work on special effects for movies or TV shows, espec ially today, since a lot of special effects are done using the same types of programs that traditional graphi c designers use. Exhibit Designer: Many museums hire designers to help them plan their exhibits. A really effective muse um exhibit can make a “boring” topic exciting for the visitor. The designer needs to think about how to org anize the exhibit: what items to display where, and how to guide visitors through the exhibit. Sure, the mu seum could just stick a bunch of historical photographs on a wall. But what if the photos were enlarged to

Copyright  2011 National Academy Foundation. All rights reserved. AOIT Graphic Design Lesson 15 Exploring Graphic Design Careers and Learning from Industry Experts life-size and projected on a screen? And maybe some music could be playing, music from that historical ti me period? Now the exhibit has really “come to life.” Exhibit designers need to be good listeners, because they need to be able to listen to experts explain the importance of the items in the exhibit. They need to b e good at thinking of creative ways to demonstrate information like charts, graphs, or statistics. They have to be able to create a story out of many different details or items, so these designers tend to be comfortab le with complexity. They may enjoy modeling, sculpting, or applied art, and they are good at framing and v isual composition. Signage Designer: If you have ever visited a strange city, explored a museum, or tried to find your way t hrough a giant sports arena, you have experienced the work of a signage designer. These people work o n ways to guide visitors through large spaces. A signage designer must become very familiar with the loc ation and develop a plan for how to guide people through it. Once the plan is agreed upon, the designer must create signs that are easy to read and have a unified design that is appropriate for the location. Sign age designers must be good at designing systems and planning; they also need to be skilled at working w ith typefaces and colors and may be good at modeling. Packaging Designer: When someone buys a bag of chips or a new computer, that purchase comes in a package. Designing those packages is the job of a graphic designer. The packaging serves two purposes: it protects the product and it also encourages more people to buy the product. The packaging should be a ttractive and its design should suit the design of the product. In other words, if the product is designed to b e sleek and modern, it should be in a sleek, modern box. Some packaging designers also create the in-st ore displays where items are sold. Packaging designers tend to be good at three-dimensional design as w ell as designing systems. Environmental Designer: Environmental designers have some of the same jobs as a signage designer, but their work includes more than just the signs. Environmental designers create a unified sense of place t hrough signs and through two-dimensional and three-dimensional structures. Large events, such as the O lympic Games, need to have a consistent design that makes many different venues feel like part of the sa me overall event. Environmental designers frequently work on very large projects, so they need to be very organized and able to keep track of many different elements. They are also likely to be good at many diffe rent types of design, including typeface, signage, modeling, and identity design. Strategic Design Planner: Like an environmental designer, a strategic design planner focuses on the big picture. But while an environmental designer might work on a big event, like the Olympics, strategic desig ners work on large-scale projects that may shape an entire industry; for example, helping to develop a ne w design for a school, a mall, or a business. They may work with architects and other experts. Their goal i s to organize many different types of design into one unified project. Strategic designers need to be very c omfortable with complexity, and they need to be extremely organized. Game Environment Designer (or Level Designer): A level designer is a game designer who creates environments and scenarios for games. This person is called a level designer because she uses a level editor. (Level editors are produced by game programmers.) Many level designers have skills as both visual artists and game designers, In addition to making the environments the players inhabit in the game, a level designer may also work on enemy or non-player character placement and scripted story-line events. They may also write high-level code, altering game rules or scoring. Creative Director: A creative director oversees the creative team as it develops creative product for clien ts. The team includes copywriters and designers. The creative director also works with executives to mak e sure the client’s needs are being met and the creative goals are on track. Creative directors assign projects to staff and make sure all deadlines are met. Design Executive: If you have both strong design skills and a good head for business, you may build up a career as a design executive. This could mean running your own design studio, or it could mean serving as the head of graphic design for a major corporation. This is not an entry-level position; it takes years to become a design executive. Design executives are good at balancing the creative needs of a design with the needs of the business as a whole; they are excellent communicators who can work with both creative and noncreative individuals. Executives need a lot of experience in design because they hire or supervise

Copyright  2011 National Academy Foundation. All rights reserved. AOIT Graphic Design Lesson 15 Exploring Graphic Design Careers and Learning from Industry Experts other designers, and they also need some experience in the business world so that they understand the n eeds of their business colleagues. Becoming a design executive isn’t easy, but it can be very exciting and very financially rewarding.

Getting Started Any career in graphic design requires basic computer skills and competencies, as well as some basic und erstanding of art concepts. Getting one or more internships can be extremely valuable, because it will exp ose you to what it’s like to work in a design studio or as an in-house graphic design professional. You need to focus on developing your portfolio; when you apply for a job, your portfolio is going to be one of the most important factors in helping you land it. Seek out projects you can do to add to your portfolio, and look for opportunities to get your portfolio evaluated by professional graphic designers and graphic de sign teachers. Take any art and graphic design classes offered at your school; you may also wish to explore art courses at local community colleges. A bachelor’s degree in graphic design is usually required for entry-level desi gner jobs; by taking art courses in high school, you will be prepared to study graphic design in college. A bachelor’s degree in graphic design may include courses in principles of design, website design, and com mercial printing techniques. For assistant designer positions or positions that require technical skills only, you can get an associate’s degree or complete a two- to three-year training program rather than a bachel or’s. However, to reach the top jobs or work on the most significant projects, you will need a bachelor’s de gree as well as a strong portfolio and years of experience. Strong grades in high school, not to mention g ood grades in AOIT, will help you get into a good college program, which in turn can help you get the right internship or entry-level job to start you off in the graphic design industry.

Student Resource 15.2 Worksheet: Job Wish List

Student Name: Date:

Using Student Resource 15.1, Reading: Graphic Design Employment Overview, write down at least three jobs that you read about that you might want to do. Then write down why the job interests you and include at least two or three examples of skills, knowledge, and personal characteristics a person needs to have in order to succeed in that job.

Job Title Why It Interests Me Skills, Knowledge, or Personal Characteristics Needed

Example: Actress I’d like to be famous and make a lot of money,  Have extensive and I like movies. professional training in acting  Look good on camera

Student Resource 15.3 Worksheet: Developing Your Portfolio

Student Name: Date:

Directions: Read the information below and answer the questions. Use this sheet to guide you as you begin to prepare your final portfolio.

Why Do You Need a Portfolio? A portfolio allows you to present your work to potential employers. It is a way to introduce yourself visually, to demonstrate how you think, brainstorm, sketch, and design. You have been collecting pieces in your portfolio throughout this course. Now it’s time to take those differ ent pieces and develop a professional-looking portfolio that can help you launch your career!

First Step: Review Your Pieces In the space below, make a list of the pieces you currently have in your portfolio. For each one, write down what you like about it and what you think needs to be improved. An example is provided.

Name of Piece What You Like about It What Can Be Improved

Example: My business card I like the colors I used. I don’t really like the logo. It doesn't really represent who I am.

What Belongs in a Portfolio? A portfolio should not include every sketch, every doodle, every product you ever created. Everybody mak es mistakes; everybody has some work that’s better than other stuff they’ve done. Your portfolio should in clude your strongest work and your best examples. A typical professional portfolio may hold 12 to 20 diffe rent examples of work. Professional portfolios may include examples of the following types of work:  Logos  Brochures  Book jackets  Booklets (for example, a CD insert)  Packaging  Annual reports  Promotional pieces  An editorial spread for a book, magazine, or newspaper  Labels (for jelly jar, beverage can or bottle, fruit crate, etc.)  Poster series  Ad campaigns  Catalogs  Branding  Maps or charts  Signage If you are interested in one specific area of graphic design, your portfolio should reflect that. If you have m any different skills or areas of interest, make sure the breadth of your interests and experiences is reflecte d in your portfolio. For instance, don’t create a portfolio of nothing but typeface examples if you also really love illustration. Your portfolio should also include a copy of your résumé. Remember to treat your résumé as a design: m ake sure it is visually attractive. Your portfolio needs to capture your unique vision and your strengths as a designer. That may mean that you need to revise, improve, or replace pieces that aren’t your strongest or most original work. Think abou t it this way: if this was the only thing you were ever going to create to show the world your art, what woul d you want it to say? That’s what should be in your portfolio.

Next Step: Rank Your Work Look at all the pieces currently in your portfolio. In the space below, rank them. List your best work first, then your “okay” work. List your weakest pieces at the bottom.

What Makes a Good Portfolio? A good portfolio:  Is designed well  Is organized well

It also should:  Be labeled clearly  Include sketches  Include an online/digital component

Design You’re looking for a job or internship as a designer, so your portfolio needs to demonstrate your skill with design. Imagine that your portfolio is telling a story about who you are as a person and a designer. What does the cover say? What does the first piece of work say? The second piece of work? Which pieces of work are displayed by themselves? Which pieces of work are displayed as a group? Which piece of work is last? Think about some of the jobs you read about earlier in this lesson. Many of those jobs needed someone who could create a unified design – take a bunch of different elements and make them work together. Tha t’s exactly what you are doing with your portfolio. How you lay things out, how you use color—all of those things tell a potential employer something about your taste and skill in design.

How will you hold all of these pieces together? There are three common methods: a book or binder with pl astic covered pages that you can slide your work into, a clamshell-like box, or an attaché-style case. The attaché-style case is a well-constructed, good-quality case with a flap cover and a handle. A clamshell por tfolio is a sturdy case that is constructed to open wide and display your pieces. The book or binder approa ch is probably the most familiar to you, but don’t think of it like a school binder. A binder portfolio is filled w ith specially designed pages covered in plastic. You will need to research the cost of each solution and chose something that is within your budget. Whichever method you choose, the portfolio case you use to present your work to a potential employer should be attractive and professional-looking and large enough to hold all your different pieces. You need to think about how you will mount or present your pieces. The mounting or pages of your portfol io need to be just as carefully designed as your pieces. Many professional designers recommend mountin g work on black boards because black does not show fingerprints. All of the boards should be the same si ze. If you are using the binder portfolio, make sure to use good-quality, sealed plastic sheets to hold your work, and make sure the pieces are fixed in place. Even though you might not have a professional cover or professional mountings right now, keep this infor mation in mind. It’s worth investing in a good cover and mountings for your pieces before you go for a job or internship interview.

Next Step: Brainstorm a Design In the space below, make some notes about how you might want to design your portfolio. You can always change your mind, so write down or sketch several different design concepts.

Organization Your portfolio needs a logical order or structure. Keep in mind that you want your first piece to be a very g ood example of your work, and you want your last piece to be your best work. Why? Because your first an d last pieces will make the most powerful impression on someone who sees your portfolio. If your first pie ce isn’t your best, the person might just stop looking at your portfolio. If your last piece isn’t outstanding, t he person might not remember the good pieces he saw earlier. It’s also good to put one of your strongest pieces in the middle to keep the person interested. Only include your best work; a small portfolio of great work is better than a large portfolio of mediocre work. Besides putting really good work at the start and the end, how else can you organize your portfolio? Ther e are many different approaches. Some people use a chronological approach, presenting the work in the order it was created. Other people use a thematic approach; for example, putting all their brochures toget

her, then all of their logo designs, then their letterhead designs, and so on. Some professional designers s uggest having a separate section for sketches or in-progress work so that it’s easy to identify which things are in progress and which are finished pieces. However you organize your pieces, here are a few other things to remember:  The pieces should be clean, fresh copies—nothing wrinkled or with notes scribbled on it.  The pieces should be removable in case someone wants to look at a piece more closely.  The portfolio itself should be easy to move through: not too heavy, too overloaded with examples, or likely to fall apart if someone turns the page too quickly.

Next Step: Get Organized Go back and look at the list of your pieces. Remember to focus on your best work. Now, think about how you might organize those pieces in a portfolio. Write down one or more possible approaches in the space below. For each approach, list any positives and negatives you can think of. An example is provided.

Organizational Approach Positives Negatives

Example: Chronological I really like the first thing I ever I don’t think some of my recent did – it’s really “me.” work is my strongest; I had a really hard time with that last assignment.

Other Elements of the Portfolio: Labels, Sketches, Etc. Sometimes you may have to drop off your portfolio for someone to look at when you aren’t there. If you ha ve brief, clear labels on your pieces, it makes it easier for someone to just pick up your portfolio and look t hrough it. Remember to keep your labels short, though. The person is interested in your design skills, not in reading an essay about every piece you’ve done! In the graphic design industry, many people like to see sketches or examples of in-progress work include d in a portfolio. After all, if they are going to hire you, they want to know how you work. Seeing how your s ketches or work developed over time can be very informative. Also, in today’s environment, where a lot of

Copyright  2011 National Academy Foundation. All rights reserved. AOIT Graphic Design Lesson 15 Exploring Graphic Design Careers and Learning from Industry Experts work is done on the computer, employers like to have a sense of how you draw by hand as well as how y ou work on the computer. If you do include sketches, make sure to label them clearly so that a prospectiv e employer doesn’t mistake your practice for your final version! Nowadays, most designers have an online or digital version of their portfolios. If you are applying to a sch ool or trying to win a job on the other side of the country (or the world!), it is much easier to send someone a link to your website than to mail them your entire portfolio. You can take good-quality photographs of yo ur work, which will serve as part of your digital portfolio and will also be a good backup in case something happens to your hard-copy portfolio. Some designers prefer to have two hard copies so that they can leav e one with a potential employer and still have one to keep with them.

Student Resource 15.4 Assignment: A Professional Portfolio

Student Name: Date:

Directions: Use this assignment sheet to help you put together your portfolio. Before you begin, read through all of the instructions on this sheet, and read the assessment criteria at the end of the worksheet to make sure you understand how your work will be assessed.

Step 1: Determine Your Portfolio’s Contents Read over the work you did for homework. Pay special attention to the first two steps you completed: listing what you like and don’t like about each piece, and ranking the pieces in order from best to worst. Then complete the chart below to help you determine which pieces you will include “as is,” which ones to revise and then include, and which pieces should not be included at all. An example is provided.

Name of Piece Verdict Why (Include, Revise, Don’t Include)

Example: Business card Revise Because it needs a better logo

Now that you’ve reviewed all your existing pieces, are there any additional pieces you need to create in or der to have a strong portfolio that can help you get an internship or job? If so, list those below. If not, expl ain why not.

Step 2: Organize Your Portfolio Next, you need to determine the correct order for your pieces. Go back and review the different ways you thought about organizing your portfolio. Then choose one. In the space provided below, explain how you will organize your portfolio and why.

Step 3: Write Your Introduction In the reading you did for homework, you learned that it was important to label your portfolio elements, so that if someone looks at your portfolio when you’re not around, that person can still learn about your work. In the same way, you need to write an introduction to your portfolio to explain who you are and how your unique experiences have influenced your work as a graphic designer. This introduction should be 2 to 3 paragraphs in length.

Here are some questions to think about as you write your introduction:  What is unique about you as a person?  How do your unique experiences shape your work as a graphic designer?  What has influenced the work in your portfolio? Your life experiences? A favorite style, medium, or type of work?  What are your goals and aspirations for a future career in graphic design? What specific aspect(s) of graphic design would you like to specialize in? Here is an example of a typical introduction to a student portfolio:

Growing up Latina, I realized that a lot of magazines offer distorted images of people like me. I want to ch ange that. I do not want to be seen as a stereotype, a gangbanger, or a victim. In my designs, I want to ce lebrate my ethnic heritage, but also to show the diversity of the Latino experience. My long-term goal is to be the designer of a magazine for ethnically diverse young people. I want to devel op the overall style of the magazine, design the colors, and choose the images to present my own perspe ctive on the world and the real beauty of ethnic women. But I also want to send a message that is bigger t han fashion or urban life. I want to make a statement about the double standards that guys and girls are held to, and I want to talk a bout the violence in the cities and schools where a lot of kids grow up. I think my unique eye and my pers onal experiences would make my “message” pieces stand out in a different way from the typical stuff that is done to appeal to teenagers. I think a lot of teens are interested in stuff that is designed in an interestin g way, so if I can reach them with cool designs, I can also get them thinking about my message.

Write a draft of your introduction on the computer or on a separate sheet of paper. After you finish writing it, compare it to what you’ve already decided about your portfolio. Does your introduction match the contents of your portfolio? For example, if you say in your introduction that you like designing typefaces, do you have examples of your typeface work in your portfolio? Take the time to make changes to your portfolio contents based on this review.

Step 4: Decide on a Presentation Case What kind of case would you like to use to present your portfolio? How big or small will it be? What material will it be made of? What color will it be? Write a brief description of it in the space below.

My portfolio case will be…

Step 5: Assemble a Mock-up of Your Portfolio It’s finally time to put your portfolio together! But this is still a mock-up; it will be your job to finalize your portfolio before going to an interview for an internship or job. Follow these steps before you turn in your mock-up:

 On the current folder that contains your portfolio, write down the measurements, material, color, and such of the case you plan to use for a portfolio you will take to a job or internship interview.  Put your introduction at the front.  Place your graphic design pieces in the folder in the order they are listed in your table of contents.  For any pieces that still need revision, add a sticky note that details the revisions you are going to make.  For pieces that still need to be created, insert a page with a thumbnail of what you plan to create.

Before handing in your assignment, check to make sure it meets or exceeds the following assessment criteria:  The cover description is complete; it gives appropriate measurements and materials for a portfolio.  The written introduction communicates who the graphic designer is and what is important to the designer. The introduction is neat, with no spelling or grammatical errors.  The portfolio contents are organized in a logical order, with the best pieces placed at the beginning and the end.  The mock-up portfolio is meticulously neat, professionally presented, and attractive.