So you wanna be a Graphic Designer?

I am going to channel my adjunct best friend here (batgirl) as this is a rant that she and I share.  Tonight I came across a link on Yahoo's website for jobs that pay over 40k that allow for flexibility in scheduling and well imagine my surprise or lack there of when smack in the middle at #3 was Graphic Designer.

Job #3 - Graphic Designer (from Yahoo)
Flex Factor: The nature of graphic design work - it's done on a computer and can be completed alone - makes this a very flexible job that allows for telecommuting opportunities. It also allows for freelancing...which means you can schedule projects as you see fit.
Education: Get an associate's or bachelor's degree in graphic design.
Salary: Graphic designers earn an average of $42,400 per year.
Find schools that offer Graphic Design training now.

What has bothered Batgirl and I for years, is not only the volume of entry level designers who we have interviewed with "no" real value or skill set but the level that they graduate from school with.  It can be a little bewildering to meet someone who just graduated from a four year program in Graphic Design and they apply for an entry level design position but they walk in rating themselves a 2-3 in Illustrator or Photoshop.  Come on people, you are a graphic designer.  You should be eating, breathing and sleeping Illustrator and Photoshop and if you are not a web designer you better back that statement up with walking and talking InDesign, Quark or old school PageMaker, otherwise go back to school and pick up a new degree in something else.  Ohhh, lets add the person that applies for the Junior Web Designer position but has no idea what CSS is and thus can't mock what it would look like in Photoshop or have a conversation with the client about how an element might interact with the database visually.  The point of the rant here people is simply this... the 18-24 month programs out there are not teaching you what you need to become a print or web designer and sadly neither are the 4 year degree earning programs, so buyer beware.

Sadly the designers coming from four year programs seem to have it the worse.  They come in for the interview with a portfolio full of school related work.  Their instructors have not even prepared them for that first interview of gutting freshman year from their box.  They walk in with a resume that lists no passion or skills set.  They want us to think that four years at the University of Maryland or Maryland Institute of Art is supposed to mean something.  Well, it does.  It means you spent four years in a university program, but we have no idea if you minored in a sorority or spent your free time in your dorm working on logos for every club on campus.  Your portfolio and resume needs to speak volumes for you.  Your school won't.  To be honest, it doesn't matter.  Sorry.  I sense a potential flame coming but I am just as likely to hire a designer from Anne Arrundle Community College as I am from MICA.

If you want the job Yahoo talks about above, its not time to be looking for a school to get a degree in graphic design from.  It's time for you to quick a job you have been at for 2-3 years and start your own freelancing adventure.  The kind of job described above so carelessly by Yahoo, is that of a 2-3 year experienced designer, not a recent graduate.

I am usually asked shortly after posting these rants what it is I think should be included in curriculum, for that reason I have sat on the board and committees at various schools and programs.  But the fact is, nothing has changed.  Not in the last decade anyway.  Seems that minds are set.  Things is folks, we are supposed to be designers, unset the mind.

Posted by Jordan Dossett on June 08, 2010 at 10:44 pm EST

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