I recently got this email from a young cousin of mine: “[I’m] interested in finding out more about a career in graphic design; what exactly you do and how you got started and what is the name of the magazine you work for?”

I wanted to give the question a fair shake, so here, for better or for worse, is my long-winded response. I’d love any feedback you have, given that I can only speak from my own experience.

My reply:

Sam, if you’re interested in graphic design, I can tell you that I really love doing it for a job. Here’s some info about it (sorry this is long … but hopefully it’s helpful).

What exactly I do: my job is kind of like a translator, but with shapes and colors instead of words. I help people talk about stuff that they really care about, but that they’re not sure the best way to communicate. So, for example…

• Someone says, “We need to let everyone in the neighborhood know about a really great sale we’re having at the car dealership.”
• I get all the details from them and think about how to make the most important parts of the design stand out, so people get the right message the first time, as clearly as possible.
• After that, I usually do a couple different samples for them on how the design could look, and they give me feedback like “We like this one because it shows the cars clearly, but we don’t like the way the text is laid out. We like the text better in this one … but we like the colors over here. But all of them need to be more exciting.”
• So then I go and take the way the the cars look in the first one, the text from the second one, and the colors from the third one, and see if I can make it into one design that they like, and then make it more exciting by making things bolder, or stand out more.
• Once the client is happy with it, I work with a printer to make sure the design is okay to print. (Or, if it’s a web design, I work with computer programmers — called “developers” in my line of work — to get the design from a simple image to a living, breathing website.)

There are lots of variations with this, but basically I work 1/3 of the time with people, trying to make sure I understand exactly what they want, 1/3 doing original design work where I just get to be creative with the first draft, and 1/3 refining that first draft to make sure it’s the best that it can be.

The good part of the job is that you get to work with people about what they really care about, and when you do the job right, they’re really excited and you get the good feeling of seeing something beautiful that you made, that really helps someone. The bad part of the job is that plenty of time the material you’re working with isn’t super-exciting… sometimes you get jobs like, “Design a logo for a superhero company,” but more often it’s, “Design a brochure for a car dealership.” The trick is to find something to be passionate about in every design, and you’re good to go!

…

How I got started: Here’s the story…

• I actually thought I was going to be a Disney animator or a cartoonist growing up, and planned for that my whole life.
• But when I got to animation class in college, I realized it was basically drawing the exact same picture over and over again, just with tiny variations, and I thought it was really boring.
• I talked to someone who asked what I really like, and I said, “Communication. I want to get ideas down on paper, and help people understand things using visual art.”
• She said I should check out Graphic Design class.
• So I went there, and we worked on posters, logos, laying out books, designing brochures, learning about fonts, and I was hooked.
• Four years later I graduated with that degree and got work for my family business.
• After five years of working there, I was ready to work closer to DC, where I lived, so I went looking for work and got hired as a web designer for Government Executive Magazine!

What you should know is that there are basically two kinds of design work, and two kinds of places to do that work. The two kinds are (1) web design and (2) print design. Lots of times, they’ll overlap, and you’ll need to know both … but people who can design websites are in more demand right now. The thing is, if you know how to design really well for print, and use the web plenty, you’ll be okay at web design, too. I would always say study print design first, then go into web design.

As far as two kinds of places, there are (1) “in-house” design jobs where you’re working on all kinds of projects for a single company — this is what I do — and (2) “agency” design jobs, where you work with a team of designers for a million different clients. I’ve done some work like this for freelance. Both have their advantages. With in-house jobs, you get to talk with everyone in the company, from the president to the intern, and get a lot of say over the kinds of design you do … but it can get a little boring unless you really care about the company you’re working for. With agency jobs, you’re typically doing one kind of work with one set of people, and lots of times you have to start at the bottom, having much less say over how the design looks (you’ll have a “senior designer” who gives you direction on the way to do the design, and then reviews it to make sure you’re doing it right). But the good thing is, the different clients come in all shapes and sizes, and so the work itself is more varied and interesting, by default.

…

I hope that’s all helpful info! If you have any questions, or anything I said didn’t make sense, let me know — I’ll be happy to clear up anything I can. I love being a graphic designer. It’s challenging, fun, you get to talk with people about stuff they really care about, and at the end of the day you have something you can hold in your hand and say, “I made this.” It’s a good feeling.

David

PS — the magazine I work for is called Government Executive. We just launched a new website, which is my design, last night! You can see it at www.govexec.com

Related posts you might like

• The Sweetest Thing
• Writing on the Metro again
• From a short story on Jonah