When I grow up

I remember filling out the “In the future I want to be…” section in my yearbook at the end of primary 7 and asking my teacher what someone who designed logos was called, she said she didn’t know and I should just write I wanted to be a “logo designer”. So I did.

I went onto high school where art and graphic communication became my favourite subjects but I had no real idea of what direction I wanted to take my passion in. I flirted with the idea of set design or product design but never for a moment thought I’d make it to Art College. For some reason I did not connect design with art college and as I’ve never been an outstanding artist didn’t think it would be an option. By this time I had forgotten that I had always wanted to be a designer, I lacked guidance from my school, and six years on and I still didn’t know what a “logo designer” was.

It wasn’t until I left school after fifth year and went to college to a BTec in foundation art that I truly saw design as an art form. I ended up specializing in textiles that year which was fun but I knew it wasn’t the career path for me. I went on to complete a HNC in illustration, (purely because I still wasn’t 100% sure what graphic design involved, and illustration seemed a safer option) but as the year went on my work developed a very graphic style.

While everyone moaned about having to learn Adobe CS3 I was thriving on the Macs, I discovered typography for the first time, getting the highest test score in the year (that was including the graphics students too). I felt I did not fit in in illustration, I wanted to make the cross over to the graphic design course. Fortunately I was able to do that, and I completed the final year of my HND in graphics.

Making the switch was the best thing I ever did, suddenly I was surrounded by people who loved the discipline as much as me. I was not a square peg in a round hole, I was round too! It helped that I had very motivated tutors, something I had not experienced in illustration. For the first time I was getting positive feedback for studio work as well as CAD projects, I felt inspired about the industry I would one day end up in.

That year the course ran a mentoring scheme for the first time with six graphic designers from Edinburgh. I was privileged to have this experience as I gained valuable feedback an constructive criticism from the mentors, I made contacts and started to network, I gained further insight into the real world of graphic design. I went to their studios, emailed them, went to the pub with them, I presented to them, brainstormed with them, went on work placement with them. I began to feel and think like a real graphic designer. I was constantly learning new skills I never knew existed.

Like what a concept is. It seems silly now, but about eighteen months ago I didn’t know or understand what a concept was, or understand that you needed one as the basis to all your work. Like a lot of other things I had to learn pretty quickly, I had a whole year of catching up to do compared to my peers.

However during a months work placement I undertook last February at two different design agencies in Edinburgh I grew disheartened. All the excitement of working through and delivering a brief and the buzz of the classroom was lost in the transfer to the workplace. It was simply just another nine till five in a sterile office, the people were nice but there was no spark.

That’s why I applied for art college, I was not ready to enter that type of environment as some of my classmates were. I wanted the excitement, I wanted the thrill and I wanted to be able to stretch myself without limits. In education you have the luxury of inventing solutions that would never go ahead in the real world, I did not want to pander to the client’s every whim just yet.

So I find myself now two weeks in to my second semester and I love it here at DoJ. It took me at least six weeks to settle in and if I’m being honest all of semester one to feel like I belonged in my new course. I still loved graphics, it was just a getting used to a new way of working seemed odd, plus moving to a new city etc. The course seemed slow paced to begin with after the whirl wind year at college but there was new challenges facing me like design studies classes and lectures, more writing and reading are required of me, so while I found some aspects of the course slow to begin with other bits were flying at me.

Just as one of my previous classmates resigns from his junior graphic design post at an agency in Edinburgh after six months on the job to apply to DoJ next year I couldn’t be happier here. I know not all graphic agencies are like the ones I experienced last year, I know it is a demanding and competitive industry, but I also know that graphic design is my passion. I'm not leaving here after three years to settle as a "MacMonkey", I'm aiming higher, and I know DoJ is the right place for me to gain these extra skills to do that.