I have to admit, when I went off to college 9 years ago, I wasn’t quite sure what I wanted to study. However, After a few stagnant semesters of taking random classes I found myself enrolled in the graphic design program. It wasn’t long before I fell in love with the subject. The classes I was in were filled with a mix of students who either aimlessly fell into the major as I did, or came to school already knowing that this would be their trade. As time progressed, the lack of interest for many students increased to what was once known as “their passion” to simply a burden.
Keep in mind, I didn’t go to a fancy art school, but a humble state college, so my experience may not be comparable to others… Anyway, very few of my classmates went on to pursue design as a career, while the majority of those who did ended up working as production artists at sign shops or as in-house designers for stuffy corporate offices; places of which I’m sure creativity is limited.
I’ve noticed that to the majority of people in the world, the term ‘graphic design’ is associated with these two types of specific jobs. In fact, I’ll never forget a conversation I once had when I ran into an old friend’s father (while I was still at school) and he asked me what I was studying. When I told him, he responded with “oh, that’s about a $10 an hour job.” Besides that fact that this was an extremely rude and unsupportive comment to be made by an adult figure, it dawned on me that this was the perception of many people. I’m not sure who these people think are responsible for creating the successful ad campaigns that persuade them to buy the clothes they are wearing, or the web application which helps them organize their day to day life, but what’s certain is that somewhere along the line the title of ‘graphic designer’ has been reduced to the definition of those folks I went to college with.
Though there are many different terms, titles and roles associated with this line of work (Production artist, Jr. Designer, Sr.Designer, Creative Director, Copy Writer, etc…), I can’t help to think that a good graphic designer should encompass all of these qualities. Don’t get me wrong, I’m the first person to say that it is better to be a master of one thing rather than a jack of all trades, but at then end of the day, a well rounded designer should posses the characteristics, knowledge and creativity used within all of the roles mentioned above. Therefore, I should find no need to go around introducing myself as a creative director, when in reality I simply consider myself a well versed graphic designer. Yet, I still find myself cringing when I run into an old friend and they ask the inevitable “what do you do now?” question. Often times, I find myself altering my title to be a bit more specialized like ‘print’ or ‘web designer.’ Either way, I get the feeling that people are assuming that I am taking the art or photography of some talented artist and cutting and pasting it into a power point presentation.
Maybe I have to wait for my ego to shrink before I feel resolution with this issue, but I’m looking forward to the day where I can proudly state, “I am a graphic designer” without any question in my tone or any negative connotation being attached to it. My hope is that the day will come where every mother wants her daughter to marry a graphic designer.
We’re Not Alone
As I sit in self pity wondering why I had to choose the one career that is not properly represented in the publics eye, I have to assume that we, as designers, are not alone. So I put myself in the shoes of another creative field that I hold close to my heart; photography. Also being a creative profession, photographers deal with a similar wrap sheet. With the cost of DSLR’s decreasing regularly, anyone who can save up 1000 bucks to buy a decent start kit considers himself or herself a photographer. With this mass consumption the market is quickly over saturated leaving the title of “photographer” extremely watered down. I spoke with a photographer friend of mine (Benjamin Burrows) to confirm my assumptions about the industry and he quickly reinforced the day to day struggles he faces with this issue. As we continued to discuss this subject, it was apparent that my first assumptions had only dove skin deep into the problem. Now that ‘everyone is a photographer’, the need of hiring a professional is pushed to the wayside. Besides, Why bother to spend good money on quality product shots for your business when your nephew just got a digital camera for Christmas last year? This scenario is happening far to much within the industry and will continue to discount the profession of photography. So yes, we are indeed not alone.
Solution
It’s obvious that we are among the many industries that suffer from preconceived negative connotations. However, that is no reason to ignore the problem. To me, the most obvious solution is to put your money where your mouth is. Show your community that design is more than just owning photoshop and pushing pixels. You have the worlds most dimensional medium at your fingertips; the internet. Take advantage of this and post your work online to share with others, write design articles and get noticed. Make fancy business cards to reinforce your talent, enter work into design shows and win awards. Without this visual proof we will always remain as pawns in the world of tired professions.
I like that you are using the internet forum to write these design articles. But to prove your point, that design is more than just owning photoshop and pushing pixels, I want to suggest that you have a copywriter/editor proof these.
As a fellow designer, imagine my surprise to find such a well-designed site with insightful articles! But with the typos and grammatical errors, it’s jarring. Almost like getting a printed piece back from the printer, and the cropping is completely off. You are a great writer, much like you are a great designer, but use a copy editor. You wouldn’t send your design work out without using a production artist. It’s the same thing.
And I think it will only increase your readership.
Abby: Thanks so much for your response to this article. I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not great with grammar so I appreciate your honesty. This is something I have been consciously working on over the past few months, but I’ll be sure to have some knowledgeable peers start proofing before I post. Thanks for reading!
Hi! I initially came over from Jen’s blog (I’ve only just stumbled upon it this week), because I loved her site’s design, and saw your bug down in the corner, so I was hoping to learn more about your web design for blogs. I’ve just recently decided to start one and I can’t figure out how to implement my own background design and imagery into the templates, etc.
I didn’t find much on that here (do you have another portfolio site with your art and services available?). In the mean time, I have enjoyed reading some of your articles here while looking around. This, in particular, got me.
Right now I’m a married-student in my last year at John Brown University, studying Digital Cinema and Graphic Design…and it’s just interesting to hear about some of your struggles with the title of your profession. I hadn’t quite come to that realization yet as I haven’t graduated yet and gotten terribly far in my career yet (though there’s been some good freelance work). So far I’ve been very proud & confident in letting people know my 2 areas of study, but I suppose I should have been more prepared for negative misconceptions as I find more and more people having to ask what Graphic Design actually is or entails. And Digital Cinema gets mixed responses (I usually just have to end up explaining that it’s ‘filmmaking’ for people to get it).
So maybe it was naive of me; and I’m only slightly disheartened to hear that’s the general current view of designers. I keep reading articles in my Communication Arts magazines that give me hope for the future of design…so we’ll see.
As for photography, you and Mr. Burrows are so right! It seems like every few weeks I find old high school friends putting up photography business sites, when I know they had no interest or schooling in it til they graduated college, and it’s just a little hard to swallow when you hear them saying things like “what a stock photo?” or “my wife just loooved my family photos so we decided it was our calling to start our own business.” Though, i do wish them all the best.
A similar (yet sort of opposite) issue my husband (also a film student) and I are finding, is that for young filmmakers hoping to get noticed and break into the biz via these big corporate video competitions, there’s increasingly little hope, because we find professionals are being forced to enter seemingly amateur contests, and obviously winning them all. Because they’re bringing all their high-end equipment to the table, and not being able to get enough biz without entering things like this, the big companies are getting awesome professional work, while the artists aren’t getting paid what they should be worth otherwise. I think it’s all very interesting. And while it makes for a great creative challenge for amateurs to step up to that standard to compete, it’s still kinda sad.
Anyway, sorry I wrote such a terribly long “comment.” Perhaps you can take it as a compliment that your article got to be so thought provoking!
Oh, If I may…one more thing. I just wanted to say that I appreciated both Abby and your response to her comment. [Though you wouldn't guess it from this crazy post,] I’m constantly bothered by poor grammar & spelling in published writings these days, but find it’s such the norm and usually only get ridiculed for caring, so I never bring it up. But I admire Abby for doing so, and for your graceful response. Truly you do have some great writing in this blog, and compared to much of what’s online these days, it’s even more wonderful and you have nothing to worry about…I really only noticed a few ‘to’s instead of ‘too’s. So I hope you only stay more encouraged to keep writing.
…and thanks for enduring this ridiculously post.
Happy Week! :)
Oh, PS! (Sorry one more thing). My favorite design classes were in typography, and I just had to say that I really love yours. The site’s design and layout, and typeface choices are so nice, and easy on the eyes, and classy. Ok, I think that’s all! :D