In the previous blog post in this series, Lu explained the route she took to becoming a graphic designer. In this follow up blog post, I will tell you how my career in graphic design came about.
Unlike Lu, I was not always destined to work in the graphic design industry. Whilst I enjoyed Art at school, I certainly was not very good at it and could never produce the pieces of work you saw in Lu’s previous blog post. Throughout my primary and secondary education I did not show any interest or skill for graphic design and I was certain that I wanted to leave school at 16 and start some sort of modern apprenticeship.
I decided to stay on at College and study A Levels. I decided upon English Literature, Drama and a new subject on offer - Media Studies. I spent most of my teen life sat in front of the TV watching movies and shows so how hard could this new subject be?
Well… quite hard actually! Hard but very enjoyable. The school had recently invested in a new Editing Suite. Now, bear in mind this was the mid nineties and the suite they purchased was not the best! So much so that no-one in the whole college knew how to use it. So they were quite happy to let me spend my spare time trying to figure it out.
So over the course of a term, I had taught myself the basics of non-linear video editing. I started to make short films out of footage we shot as a laugh with my friends, adding music, cheesy built in video effects and transitions and titles flying in from all over the place.
Because of my new found passion for video editing, I steered any project I could into involving it, even producing a documentary of the making of a drama production of ‘Little Shop of Horrors’ we were putting on. As part of these video projects, I started designing video covers and posters to advertise viewings of the films. Initially, these video covers designs and posters were designed using Powerpoint (shocking I know!) but I really enjoyed taking a few simple photographs and making them into something that looked quite good (well, I thought they looked good at the time!).
Reconstruction Film Poster Design
It was at this point that I got hold of a copy of Paint Shop Pro which I installed on my home PC. I would say there were two defining moments throughout my education and this was one of them (I will explain the other one shortly). Once I had gotten my head around the layers pallette (I was so used to using the Arrange > Send to back function in Powerpoint that layers were a little scary at first) I was away. I was now able to use a mouse to create my ‘masterpieces’ instead of struggling using pencils and paint as I did in Art lessons at school.
Banged Up DVD Cover Design
After completing my A Levels (I was lucky enough to receive an A for Media Studies) I continued to University to study Media Arts. I chose the course due to the practical nature of the syllabus which covered a wide range of media including photography, web design, film production and graphic design. Whilst I enjoyed all of these, my passion still revolved around film production. Like my A Levels, I tried to steer most of my projects towards film.
However, starting University led to the second defining moment in my education… the Mac! On my first day we were shown around the college which included a trip into the media room which contained about 30 iMacs, the original G3 style models in aqua blue. I never looked back. Whilst learning Adobe Premiere for video editing I was still interested in graphic design and so attended a lot of Photoshop and Illustrator courses to further my rather basic skills. Over the course of the first two years my love for film production started to be overtaken by graphic design. I was still producing films, but instead of just designing the covers for the DVD boxes, I started to create logo designs for the films and small websites to promote them. I even created a logo for my own film production company!
Time DVD Cover Design (that’s me holding me as a baby!)
As I entered my third and final year at University, I could no longer stand having to book time on the Macs (especially as I needed them for 12 hours a day) so decided it was time to buy my own. My first Mac was a iMac G4 17 Inch and was probably the coolest thing I had ever bought (and I still have it! Its a little slow but OK for viewing the web).
During my time at University I also started designing pieces for friends and family. I designed a logo, business cards and a Yellow Pages advert for my Dad’s Taxi business and promotional flyers for the sports shop I was working in. I also shot and edited some wedding films but slowly the graphic design overtook the film production. After a rather long and hard final year at University I graduated with a 1st.
Skin Deep DVD Cover Design
Lu and I then set off on a gap year where we travelled around the world. Whilst traveling we got talking a number of times about starting our own design company. When we returned to the UK starting up our own company was just not an option due to a lack of funds. I managed to get a job working for a e-commerce / mail order company designing print adverts for magazines, catalogues, websites, banners and email newsletters which was great experience.
Spoof Back to the Future Poster (Me as Marty and Tommy as the Doc)
That was several years ago and we are now running the graphic design company we dreamt of whilst traveling around the world. So that is how I became a graphic designer. I hope you have found this insight into the reason behind Lu’s and my career choice interesting.
So how did you become a graphic designer?
Posted by Steve
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on Monday, February 16th, 2009 at 1:58 pm
Posted In Freelancing, Graphic Design | Tags: Freelancing, Graphic Design
Hi Steve, its very interesting to hear your both very different design backgrounds and how you arrived at where you are today, great post!
[...] Why did you become a graphic designer (tags: designers career employment freelance) [...]
Hi Gareth,
Thanks, I am glad you found them interesting.
It would be great to start a blog theme running by fellow designers on their own blogs about how they became graphic designers?
What do you think?
Haha, great Back to the Future spoof! Love it.
Enjoy the weekend, Stevo.
Thanks David - I remember spending weeks on it at the time!
I always used to draw when I was young- Manga, mostly, ha! Everyoen knew me as ‘that girl who can draw’ and i never understood everyones facination for the skill. I took Art (and snagged an A somehow) but I honestly hated it by the end of the two years. The constant questions of ‘what is art’ and ‘what is good art’ made the whole qualification feel so pointless, it was so subjective, and I felt like a machine pumping out pointless pictures.
Then, there was also a media course for me- a diploma in Digital Applications. I didnt even know design and art were different concepts when I was that young but that wonderful diploma showed me the way.
I became a designer primarily because I love pretty things and making things look nice, but also because design has an an actual purpose. Design is delibrate, thoughtful and functional- I love art, but designing feels so much more worthwhile than making a spud print for a screaming art teacher!