The Graphic Student

I just finished watching a tv special on caffeinated foods and beverages… I am blown away by the number of forms caffeine now comes in (especially in the USA). I feel, because of this, design students should be pumping out more work than ever before. 

You know what would make being a design student a lot easier/more fun? If all the friggin’ design magazines weren’t $20.00 an issue! And then of course the European mags are the best, and they’re $30.00! That’s the price of a hardcover book…maybe that’s why we all fight so hard to be in one.

This video might be a tad sappy, but the event itself would be intense. Creative Engine, a 24-hour design marathon at the University of Central Missouri. For the entire time, design students from the university are given any number of projects briefed by real-world clients with small budgets. Within the 24 hours, the students will design posters, promo material, identities, etc. for the companies, who will in turn print and use the designs. It seems like a great opportunity for the students, and something that would be fun.

Imagine people accepted the advice of a designer with the same confidence they would have in the advice of a doctor.

Being a working student designer can be very frustrating…

Check this out. A project in which graduates design posters for first year students for inspiration and motivation. It’s not only an unbelievably fantastic idea, but the work is beautiful. Imagine coming into your first year and receiving a poster done by someone who graduated from the program you’re entering? If I received one of these posters, I would be incredibly excited about my next 3 to 4 years.

If you’re not fortunate enough to be one of the first years receiving a print, all the posters are for sale here. I found this link through The Serif.

This poster (by graduate, Gemma Correll) is one of my favourites of the bunch… a little advice for all you students moving out:

I was browsing Marc Hummel’s blog today, and came across a post of his that caught my attention:

Going to School for a Career in Graphic Design is a Joke

(For me, anyway.) I started off as a super-enthusiastic student… staying up 
late to work on assignments, reading everything I could about design. I either 
got burnt out or a heavy dose of reality: graphic design is just not for me.

During my last semester studying design I would struggle to work on every 
project I was given, perpetually putting them off in favor of listening to NPR
or re-writing the copy in the very project I was avoiding. I spent days working
on my art history paper. The visual thesaurus was my favorite tool. I enjoyed
my English classes the best, by far. The dormant writer in me was active and 
craving attention.

Going to school for something like painting or graphic design stifles the 
very creativity it’s supposed to invoke. It’s not that I can’t handle the constant 
critiques, but that I feel so much more free to make good, meaningful work 
when no one’s looking; telling me what a client would say or to make it more 
“sellable”. Perhaps it’s a sign of low-self esteem that I couldn’t shake the advice, 
or that it’s hard for me to work for others. But I think it’s also my self-seriousness 
and wanting to do well, wanting to impress a professor and my classmates, that 
created expected, boring work. Maybe it was an acknowledgment of risk in 
making fresh work but without the motivation to suck it up.

Or maybe I’m just full of shit and it really just comes down to this:

-I’m a good graphic designer, but I don’t think I can be a great one

-I’m a good writer, and I think I can be great

I don’t know about you… but it’s usually around this time when I start to long for school again. Come the end of April, I don’t want anything more than to be done with the semester, but once summer’s half way over, I’m more than ready to go back. This terrifies me, as I don’t know what’s going to happen when I’ve graduated and still miss the classroom.

While browing the web tonight (smallrspcs to be specific), I came across this great talk about creativity and education by Ken Robinson. In his presentation, he talks about how schools and education are basically killing the creativity out of students. He’s mainly speaking about students in elementary school, but I think his point is also valid for college/university - especially in design programs. He makes a number of points that I completely agree with, but one that really stood out was when he said “creativity… happens through the interaction of different disciplinary ways of seeing things”. It makes you wonder how much more beneficial it might be to attend a design school where you are surrounded by artistic, creative people from other fields. Robinson’s entire talk is fascinating (and very funny thanks to his jokes), so if you have 20 free minutes, watch the video. In my opinion, he’s hit a nail right on the head.

Welcome to the new identity of your old favourite dorm-furnishings store.

note*

I was at a sustainable packaging awards gala earlier this year and witnessed a spokesperson from Walmart talk about how great they are for the environment. His speech only made me less likely to shop there. I do not support Walmart…but I understand why students might have to.