An issue I have with employers.

My younger designers who are still trying to make something of themselves in the professional arena are constantly running into the same problem, hell I had it myself out of school.

Lets say you want to get a job as a designer, start paying off school loans etc while maybe you work on your side freelancing etc.

You start going through design job postings and seeing what is out there. You are often met with the biggest frustration for many designers.

Employers will ask for a "graphic design" but that is NOT what they want.

After you are done reading the job description you find so much more. Employers want the following....or a combination of most of these....

• A designer
• Web/App developer
• Print Production Manager
• Art Director
• Content Manager
• Photographer
• Illustrator
• Project Manager
• Writing Skills
• Social Media Manager
• 3D design capabilities
• Videography and Editing
• Some marketing skills
• Flash or other animation
• UX/UI
• CAD Knowledge

This is NOT unusual. This is mostly the norm!

All while having 3-5 yrs experience and advanced software knowledge in just about every piece of software needed to fulfill any of these requirements.

And the compensation being that of someone with 1-2 yrs experience.

So imagine you are looking for a job as a electrician...but the job description is asking if you know how to do plumbing, wood work, project management, payroll, roofing, painting, drafting, cement pouring etc etc.

Get it?

Cut the shit.

If you want a designer, then hire a designer...not a developer...not an animator...not a videographer etc.

Some of these qualities listed, many people have entire careers dedicated solely to one of these things.

Now, some of you designers can do it all....that's amazing...you are not the norm and it is sad that it seems that is how things are shifting since very few professional settings want to pay salary money to hire multiple people. Instead they would rather hire one person who is just ok at a million different things.

Just imagine the quality of work done when you hired people that can do just a couple of those things...reallyyyyyyyy well.

Now, if you come by someone who can do it all and to your liking that is great. But compensate that person how they should be. That is so much to know especially right out of school. That is why younger designers have such a hard time getting jobs.

If you want to hire a designer....hire a designer.

Whitespace is your friend.

A lot of designers are constantly fighting the the urge to "fill the space". When composing a layout, poster etc. We try to use whitespace to help improve the composition to communicate as best as possible.

I look at whitespace like I look at a good type family. When they are used, a great type does not sit on top of the plane but it sits inside of the plane. Not sitting over or covering the space but inhabiting the  space and sharing it with the emptiness.

I scale that up to composition elements when applicable. When designing a layout I try to make sure the headers, body text etc simply do not just take up space over the plane. But these elements sit inside of the plane themselves, creating a relationship between elements and empty space.

These empty spaces are vital to the compositional flow of any look and learning how to use space to direct the eye is super important to any successful solution. Some designers and even clients get aggravated with too much or little white space because "There is to much blank space, you hardly did anything etc." Now maybe they are right...that is another issue altogether. But let us just say they are wrong. Whitespace that is used correctly can be hard to come by and makes a design stronger. So to get to the best solution which looks like minimum work sometimes requires massive amounts of work to get there. Simple does not always mean easy.

Taking time to learn how to dictate a viewers eye and command a composition is going to pay great dividends in the long run. Learn when a design is too busy or maybe when there is too much space. The constant battle of balance is what we are left with.

"Less is not always more, just enough is more." Milton Glaser.

Stay coachable.

Much of my life was spent behind a canvas (of some sorts) or on some kind of sports field/court.

So much of my time was always occupied with coaches and teachers. It doesn't matter what you are trying to learn. Whether it is how to properly observe and record perspective on a 2D plane or if it is trying to learn the proper timing of a jab step pull up jump shot. They all seem to take the same thing to learn.

Lots of hard work, quality practice and good listening. If you do not have one of those qualities then it will be hard to learn a lot of things. At that point you are simply getting in your own way.

My biggest takeaway is to stay coachable.

The moment you think you do not need to practice it or you know it already or do not think you need to put the work in. That is a main driving moment people stop progressing.

My high school volleyball coach did not know a ton about the finer aspect of the game. I came into a team that had some great athletes and I was a freshman that had been playing club and been around the game for just about my entire life. I could have been a huge ass and tossed my knowledge around like an arrogant know it all. But I didn't. I kept my mouth shut and learned something different from my coach. How to be a good leader, how to communicate better, passion and intensity, team building skills etc etc All of these things I would have missed out on learning if I didn't keep my ears open. I cannot thank my coach enough for teaching me how to be a better teammate, person and man.

How many hours with a pencil do I have in practicing human anatomy? Countless. How many hours do I have spent running sprints, practicing my shot, serve or any other skill? Tens of thousands of hours. This kinda of work ethic mixed with a constant want and ability to learn something new is what keeps driving my skills forward.

Even this day with so many repetitions and hours under my belt. I still learn something new..sometimes from the most random of places and people. But if you do not leave yourself open, then those things will surely pass you by.

The lost art of drawing.

Before anyone gets too upset, just hear me out. I came from a fine art background so I am trying to be as unbiased as possible. I'll will let you be the judge of that.

Let me say this first.

So for the most part I have always been able to draw or use whatever is in hand to illustrate. With more years under my belt I have grown my skills and have gotten to a point where I feel comfortable being able to draw well...anything and do it well.

I believe this gives you a bit of an advantage when it comes to design. There seems to be no better way to understand the concept of form and space then trying to recreate that object on a plane. For example, being able to study how the human body is put together, how the skin sits on the muscles and gets wrinkled at curtains places and proper proportionality of anatomy.

All of these observations take place in the eye and brain. Taking mental notes trying to learn. But ask someone who cannot draw to visually show that information they just learned. Even if they spent an hour studying just the eye, they would only show a poor representation of what they had just studied.

Why? Do we forget what an eye looks like? Well of course not. But we have not practiced the forms. Many of us have to learn by doing, especially something that relies heavily on observation. We have to use our hand to practice laying down lines over and over again till we start to build whatever we are observing on the paper.

This repetitive practice of using these physical motor patterns and nerves firing help us learn these forms in a better fashion. That is why the vast majority of designers who have a background in illustration have awesome understanding of the basic gestalt theories already. Why? Because they have to, it they didn't then they would most likely not be very good illustrators.

Practice recreating forms and experimenting with space and volume. Teaching your eye not to just obverse but to be able to reproduce it down these physical pathways. Eyes have terrible memory so it is up to us to ingrain the motor pattern so that our brains are more in tune with this fine detail and level of observing.

I took a summer art class when I was younger and my teacher said,"Drawing is 90% observing." Which makes sense. Look carefully and thoroughly so you can properly understand the shape in front of you.

Draw more, people.