Interviews

As part of my Design Context publication I have undertaken interviews with several designers/studios from around the world. Contacting and speaking to these designers just shows that you can go out and get in contact with these people easier than you thought. Their responses were really interesting and varied and actually gave me a lot to think about. I ended up getting responses from;  Arttu Savolaara at Bond Agency in Helsinki, Finland; Yah-Leng Lu at Foreign Policy in Singapore; Rik Bracho at Face in Monterrey, Mexico; Ross Milne at Working Format in Vancouver, Canada; the internation design publication IdN magazine in Hong Kong; David Heasty at Triboro in New York and Patrick Duffy at No Days Off down in London.

Design Strategy Presentation

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Manchester Design Symposium

Had another day out in Manchester attending another design event, this time at the Manchester Design Symposium. They had an impressive line up of speakers scheduled so I had been really looking forward it — and I wasn't disappointed. There aren't many events like this outside of London so it was great to see and hear the opinions of people within the design field but all of whom represented totally different areas. Morag Myerscough was definitely one of the highlights — she was really engaging to listen to and obviously really enthusiastic about what she does. It was very interesting to hear her views on her work and everything else and it was remarkable to see the unusual types of projects she works on. She does a lot of design for use within architectural spaces utilising colourful environmental graphics with a primary aim to improve the feeling of people that interact with the spaces. The other talk that I particularly enjoyed was that of Vera-Maria Glahn fro digital design agency, Field. Even though their work is totally different to my own I actually found what she had to say the most interesting. The inventive processes and techniques that they employ to create their digital illustrations were fascinating - so much so that I'll do a post specifically on them shortly. All in all a great day out — photos and notes from the day are below...

Note To Self

Last week Hazel, Naomi, Gemma and I headed over to Manchester for an evening of speakers from within the design industry at the Note To Self event. It was only the 3rd instalment of the event and the first time we had all attended — after finding out about it recently through Twitter.

Some great pizza and wine in Manchester got things off to a good start and it kept going at the event itself through a highly enjoyable and interesting evening. Before attending, it was only the typographer Bruno Maag that I had actually heard of but, I thought it would be useful to see/hear about the approach from creatives in different fields to myself. 

All of the speakers on the night were really engaging and interesting and they all interpreted the theme of the evening 'passion' in entirely different ways. The digital agency Retrofuzz talked about a core set of values they are passionate about as a company and how staying true to these shaped their day to day lives. Andrew Brooks talked about a number of different influences he was passionate about and how they impacted upon his practice. Trevor Johnson looked at the definition of passion and went through wide range of topics/things and the simple reasons of why he liked them or was passionate about them. Finally Bruno Maag plain and simply talked passionately. Initially about his suit — which he used as an analogy in reference to attention to detail, crafting and quality but then went on to cover a variety of things and issues affecting young graphic designers today. 

Notes taken during the evening:

Oh, and I picked up some awesome (and free!) Dalton Maag type specimen pieces whilst I was there. All in all, the evening was really thought-provoking and motivational — a bargain too at just £10 per ticket so I'll definitely be looking out for future Note To Self events.

Studio Visit: Golden

Managed to get in touch with Golden — an awesome studio based in Leeds that I've followed the work of for a while now. They told me to come along and bring my portfolio to show them and talk through my work etc. The visit went pretty well and was largely positive, they gave me some really useful advice on the types of projects I should be looking to have within my developing portfolio which has come in very handy when planning the projects I'm doing for my FMP. I've also asked them to set me a brief — which they agreed to, so that I can work on it as soon as possible, incorporating it into my FMP. They were suggesting something more campaign led so it'll be interesting to see what they send me. Furthermore, depending on how well I get on with the brief, there may be a chance of a placement, so we'll have to see how it goes and make sure that I give it my best. After the visit I wrote down a few notes whilst I still remembered what we had discussed.

Internships...

Really interesting and useful post here by Mind Design. Not seen this amount of thought and attention paid to the subject of interns by a studio or designer before...

The dilemma with internships.

We had many interns in our studio over the years and learned as much from them as they hopefully learned from us. We always treated them like everyone else in the studio and paid at least £350 per month (even at times when we were struggling). We followed their careers and are still in contact with most of them. Until recently I thought internships are good arrangement from which everyone benefits. However, nowadays there are so many student's, graduates, even post graduates entering the internship circuit that the situation has started to affect (and change) the design industry. Not necessarily for the better. So what is the problem with internships?

1) The industry is becoming dependent on interns.
Especially in difficult economic times design companies might recruit interns as a cheap short-term workforce. It is worrying to see how this has already developed in the fashion industry where there are sometimes 10 interns to 1 designer, working long hours and weekends. The other problem is that when the cost of 'staff' becomes less design agencies can charge low fees and undercut each others prices. It doesn't take long until even clients figure out how the game works. We have been asked to complete projects for ridiculously low fees where the clients have already suggested 'maybe your intern can do it?'. Those clients should approach graduates directly, not design studios. Without any overheads a few hundred quid might be ok for a graduate and could mean a first step towards self-employment. We all started like this.

2) Interns are killing off the very jobs they want.
I am not saying it is the interns fault, they are in a catch 22 situation. However, from a purely commercial perspective why should a design agency still employ a junior designer when they can have three equally qualified interns doing the same job for free? Many interns are far too qualified or have been doing their rounds for much too long. There seems to be real pressure on graduates too to complete as many internships as possible in order to increase their chances in finding a real job. This might not be about gaining additional experience anymore and becomes just a trade-off of adding another studio name to the CV in exchange for a bit of unpaid work. Especially internships of just a week or two seem completely pointless, what can someone really learn in a new environment in such a short time?

3) The colleges are not taking their responsibilities serious anymore.
Why do so many graduates still feel the need for more experience? Are the colleges not responsible for preparing students for 'real life'? Colleges nowadays are taking on far too many students in order to fund themselves through fees. Many courses have three times the number of students than they used to have 5 years ago but the number of tutors has not been increased. With that many students it becomes difficult to teach real practical skills, like designing grids, print preparation, etc. It is much easier to let students loose on developing ideas and concepts. Certainly this is an important point of studying but then again who needs so many clever little geniuses? In real life only around 20% of a project is developing the actual idea. I do not really see why design studios should compensate for the shortcoming of the colleges, neither should the colleges shift their responsibilities towards the design industry.

4) Small studios are not a training camp for the big world.
Most interns want to work in a small studio because they assume that those are more 'creative' and somewhere between art college and the big agencies. What they often forget is that small those studios hardly ever employ new staff and usually struggled quite a bit themselves to achieve their 'creative' status. All small studios started at some point with very little experience from nothing with just one or two semi-reliable clients. They took risks, made many mistakes, worked through quite a few bad jobs and put up with difficult clients in order to pay the bills. Instead of assuming that there is a shortcut to great creative freedom or a half-way house between college and the big world graduates should just be braver and start their own thing. It actually seems easier nowadays to find your first client than getting a full-time job. The more small design studios there are the better and we have always been happy to help if someone asks for a printer recommendation or how to structure an estimate. The sad thing is that many interns after they have done their rounds through the small studios end up in a big commercial agency because they need to earn money and those are the only ones hiring (and firing once the project finishes). In a way small studios come into a position where they are training the future staff of their own competitors who put profit before creativity.

We have not fully decided where we stand on the subject of internships but felt the need to expresses some general concern in the interest of the interns themselves and the design industry. Many interns we spoke to had very positive experiences. In future we may only accept interns while they are still in education, or try to introduce real 'mini' jobs, or organize a regular pop-in portfolio day. In the meantime, while we are still making up our mind here some general advice for consideration:

- If you do an internship but you are actually after a real job always ask if there is a possibility of employment and clarify things from the start.
- Do an internship at a print workshop, an accountants office, a sign maker, learn really practical stuff that might become incredibly useful.
- Never work for free. Even if the studio is small and has little money there should be some sort of payment.
- Forget about internships, get real, find some clients, start working, start making mistakes, start enjoying your achievements.

— posted by Holger