“How To Get Hired …”

Posted on by AIGA Baltimore

Recently, I listened to an online interview between Carlos Castellanos who maintains a blog on becoming a success as an artist called “Drawn By Success” and Mark Simon who is a reputed animator.

The interview was great and connected me (and perhaps you) with what should be understood as the gospel about how we get hired for jobs either freelance or long term. Feel free to listen to the interview here (one hour long)

#1. ” We Hire People We Know And Trust”.

Just today I came from a project meeting where my name was passed back and forth through some friends of mine who know my work. Equally important these peple know and understand the work that I do and trust the way that I’ve done it. Hence, I met two people with active projects and whether I get the work (I won’t call it irrelevant) but it’s a shot on goal to borrow a soccer term. Being considered for good work is what it’s all about.

One of the amazing things about the hiring process when it comes to CEOs, actors, baseball players (managers for that matter) and something random, like chefs, increasingly we find that who gets hired is the people who is a known quantity—even if she isn’t the best—she is someone we can rely on.

Think about that. Do people patronize McDonald’s because it’s the best? It’s perhaps the one restaurant you might expect to be most similar in Baltimore as it is in Beijing. Don’t discount the importance of your network in connecting you to who needs work and the messy business of making sure people know you.

2. “If We Can’t Hire Someone We Know And Trust, We Ask Someone We Know And Trust.”

Perhaps you’ve gotten this email—I sure have: Looking for a “blah, blah, blah” with experience as a “such and such” with managerial experience. If you’ve gotten that email, and can replay with someone who is a fit, odds are that the person will be top-of list. My true story had me looking for an IT department head who has run a department of 50 people. Well no takers there, but certainly you want your contacts to have an idea of what you do so that a possibility like this can be connected. This means regularly communicating about your work proactively however you do it.

#3. “If neither of the first two work,  I Look For Portfolios and Samples of People That I Kept.”

Well, let’s say you’re not that well-connected and your peeps don’t know what you’re up to, then you’ve got to bring the hammer down on putting work in front of the people in position to hire. And note that the key here was to do work that is worthy of keeping, so don’t ease up here. Show work your proud of and work you think won’t hit the circular file.

#4. “Next I go on online portfolios…”

AIGA’ers know about Behance and hopefully you’re either using that or some method of having your work be available at a glance. Let’s face it if someone wants to see our stuff, it’s gotta be there. They want to know whether you are as the English say “chalk or cheese” just to begin with. The conversation seriously begins there.

So, the work has to be hot. It needs to represent your competency and your passion tot he point where these people feel comfortable giving you a call. So keep pruning and growing that portfolio.

I had a neighbor who had an amazing garden. Instead of wishing I could do what she did I just studied for a while and realized that the lady was out there for about an hour every morning each day maintaining her garden. When I can adopt that level of care for my projects, perhaps I won’t have to worry about what I need to do to make my project better. The same goes for the portfolio.

#5. “If none of those work, I post a job … and I’ve never posted a job”.

Mark Simon has never posted a job. He maintains every hire he’s made—freelance or full-time—has been the result of the first 4 steps on the depth chart. the last step, he insists, is flooded with people, so just by the numbers one’s chances of getting work are lowered even if the skill is higher.

It’s shades of the Pareto Principle which maintains that 20% of people get 80% of the work. Conversely, the 80% are breaking their neck for the 20% of projects that actually go to posted projects because they avoid the work to distinguish themselves ahead of the uber-competitive marketplace of $20 logo designs and unlimited revisions or jobs that don’t value the designer’s role in an increasingly designer-centric economy.

“Being a starving artist is for lazy people,” Mark Simon says. So let’s use what he’s saying to go out there snag those better opportunities for our work.

Crowdsourcing Pros and Cons Article …

Posted on by AIGA Baltimore

Comments from two sourcing websites and comments from AIGA Executive Director, Ric Grefé: “Clients may be satisfied with [crowdsourcing], but they’re losing out on the full experience of design.”

http://www.forbes.com/2010/07/09/99designs-spec-graphic-technology-future-design-crowdsourcing_2.html

TEDxOilSpill Poster Competition!

Posted on by AIGA Baltimore

Thanks Joe and Sarah for passing this along… sorry for the delay. But if you’re sitting in front of your computer waiting for a project, here’s something to wrap your head around…

TEDxOilSpill Poster Competition!

Design a social issues poster which addresses one or more or any combination of the following questions or ideas :

– Exploring new ideas for our energy future.

– Show ways we can mitigate the current crisis in the Gulf or how to help, prevent, or consider it anew.

– Interpret the disaster visually. The impact on humans, wildlife, cultures, economies.

– The poster can be about the response, the cause, the consequences or something you add to the larger global discussion on offshore drilling and the impact of burning oil for energy and production of petroleum based products — like plastic on the environment and the oceans.

– Something related to the national emergency in the Gulf of Mexico or a broader energy issues concept that you develop.

Please design a poster that is 28.5 x 21.5 inches vertical format.

Convert your final design to jpeg format and upload it to

http://www.flickr.com/groups/1402793@N25/

You will need a free flickr account to add the photo to the group. Please type your email address in the comments of your image.

Poster entry requirements:
– Previously unpublished artwork
– 28.5 x 21.5 inches vertical format poster
– File dimension 3225×4275 pixels
– File resolution 150 DPI
– File color space RGB
– File format JPG (not progressive)
– File size smaller than 4MB

Submissions will be accepted until 9:00 PM (EST time) June 23, 2010.

Be sure to name the entry file YOUR name like jack_smith1.jpeg or jones_design.jpeg NOT TEDxposter or poster.jpeg

If your poster is picked for display, we will contact you for a PDF version at full size. Please convert fonts to outlines on a copy of your original file before making it a PDF. This ensures reproduction of your specific typefaces.

Note: There is no fee to enter. There are no awards or prizes of any value for having work picked. Just a good feeling of accomplishment and we’ll show your poster at the conference. This is not a scientific poster.

This poster competition is for Maryland, DC, and Northern Virginia area designers and AIGA Baltimore and AIGA Washington DC members and AIGA New Orleans members and NOLA region designers. We’d love to have all of the U.S. enter or even the world but, we only have a few weeks before the conference so, we are limiting it to designers who work in the region plus New Orleans. Otherwise we would be swamped with too many entries to deal with. Normally design competitions take months to setup, months for people to enter, weeks for judging to happen. But this one is happening in just a few weeks with all volunteers. Thank you for understanding people of Moldova and Moose Jaw!

Confirmed Judges:

Ellen Lupton is the co-director of the graphic design MFA program at MICA in Baltimore and curator of contemporary design at the Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum in New York City

Aaris Sherin is a designer and associate professor of graphic design at St. John’s University in Queens, New York. Sherin’s writing and research focuses on the history of women in graphic design and is the author of SustainAble: A Handbook of Materials and Applications for Graphic Designers and Their Clients (Design Field Guide) from Rockport Press.

Scott Stowell is an award winning graphic designer from New York City where his studio, Open, does design and identity design work for a variety of clients in print and motion graphics. Scott lectures and writes about design and teaches at Yale University and the School of Visual Arts.

In 2008 Scott was awarded the Smithsonian’s National Design Award for Communication Design

Nancy Skolos is a partner with her husband Tom Wedell in their award winning design firm Skolos + Wedell. Posters designed by Nancy and Tom have won numerous awards and are in the collections of design museums world wide including MOMA and museums throughout Europe. A poster they designed was recently awarded a gold medal at the Polish Poster Biennial 2010. They both teach graphic design at the Rhode Island School of Design.

Competition concept, development, and organizer: Joseph Coates

Questions? email jmcoates@gmail.com

Putting “Community” into Design

Posted on by AIGA Baltimore

Did you miss AIGA Baltimore’s Bernard Canniffe Lecture the last week? If so, you missed quite an inspiring night. Here are some notable quotes from the very man himself:

“Design for the community will be one of the most important things in the future.”

“We can’t save the world with typography…but design can make a difference.”


Piece Studio is “putting community back into the equation.”


Piece Studio uses “design as intervention.”


“Ask and we will welcome.”

So if you want to do more with your design besides make cool logos, websites and t-shirts, contact Piece Studio and tell them you want to design for the community!

You can do it!

Posted on by AIGA Baltimore

The economy will always have its ups and downs, but graphic designers can still find their way. Here are some tips for the new graduates for 2010.

Time to make lemonade.
When you are given lemons, make lemonade. Finding a job right now isn’t easy for anyone right now, but it is a little harder for graphic designers than for some other fields because graphic design is usually one of the first industries to see cutbacks.

In February, I was laid off. I saw the industry I was in changing and design was becoming less and less important, so luckily I was expecting the layoff, and I was already feeling like it was time for a change. So I embraced my layoff and am now successfully freelancing and will most likely take this time to get my MFA. Graphic designers are lucky in that we have the option to freelance, where other professions don’t have that luxury.

Advertise.
No matter how wonderful you are, employers won’t be pounding on your door, so shout to the world online and in-person that you are looking for a design job. They do exist, but a lot of jobs are filled before a job post is even published.

I am a freelance graphic designer, and the majority of the work I have been getting is from me telling people that I was available, not from answering job postings.

Interviewing is a lot like dating.
You set up a meeting (the date). You converse to find out if you like each other, and then you go home and anxiously wait by the phone or check your email waiting for THE call. Chances are you will have to go to many interviews before you find a job that is a good match for you and the employer.

When I have a meeting with a potential client, I prepare. I look up the person and organization I will be meeting with. I select what I think will be the best designs to present, and I think about what questions might be asked of me. After the meeting, I evaluate what I could have done better. View each interview as practice and revise your answers and your portfolio constantly. Even if you feel the interview went great, try to not let it bother you if you don’t get the job. Move forward and look for something else.

You are not a rock star (yet).
You have worked hard for four long years and your professors rave about you, but you need to remember you are just beginning. There is actually still a lot for you to learn. And guess what? Once you learn it, it will change.

When I finished my Bachelor’s degree from SCAD, no one was thinking about being sustainable, designing for good, Web 2.0, iPhone/iPad apps or the design revolution in Asia. Over the years, I have continued to need to learn new things in graphic design, and I expect that will always be necessary.

Develop a thick skin.
Your portfolio review may be tough to hear today. Being a designer, you need to be able to take criticism daily. Your art director, your client, your client’s boss, everyone is going to have their opinion. It is your responsibility to educate these people on the design choices you made, but ultimately, you might sometimes be asked to make changes you don’t like.

When I work with clients, I not only want to provide them a design that I think is fabulous, but even more so, I want them to love it because in the end, they are paying me for my services.

It may not be perfect.
Don’t expect your first job to be the perfect design job. You have many years in the future to find that perfect job and quite frankly, your vision of the perfect job will change and evolve, so even if you find a perfect job now, it won’t be your perfect job in the future.

My first job was for CNN Headline News. I loved it…for the first few months. Then I realized I was doing the same job some people there had been doing for the past eight years. I realized if I wanted to continue to grow and develop in my field, I would need to find ways either in my job or outside of my job to keep myself current. For your first job, look for an employer you think you can learn from. Maybe there is someone that can be a mentor, or maybe you will be exposed new technology.

Value your work.
There are many people out there that want design services for free or for cheap. Make sure you are getting paid what you are worth. There will always be someone out there who will work for less than you. You need to explain to your clients or the employer what else you provide besides good design.

When I meet with clients for the first time, I find out what their needs are, show them my work, explain how I could help them, but I also describe to them the process. This way the client can understand all the work that goes into making a logo and why it will cost a lot more than $50. You need to do the same at interviews. Don’t assume they read your resume. You need to tell them why you will be the best person to hire.

There is still hope.
So, I am sorry to say, it won’t be easy to find a job in design. It is a competitive environment, but take this as a challenge and do all you can to make yourself stand out. Take time to write individual cover letters, tweak the wording of your resume for each job application, and bring the best and most appropriate pieces to your interviews. When you do find a job, you probably won’t love it all the time, but as with all jobs you should be able to learn something. Listen to your boss and your clients and try to find a good solution to the design that can make everyone happy, and lastly, love what you do.

Good luck to the class of 2010!

A Day in the Life: YOU can change your audience.

Posted on by AIGA Baltimore

As designers we are visual problem solvers. We work to connect clients with their audiences in a visual way.  This was very evident at the Day in the life conference I attended in Baltimore, MD on this past Saturday.

From students to professionals, there were people from non-profits as well as corporations and design firms.  There were big ideas and conversations about design and the community that went on through out the day.

Some nuggets of knowledge that people got out of it:

“Great Conference, let’s do it again next year!”

“.  . . it’s time to get on twitter!”

“ I am not alone in this business.”

“Baltimore has a beautiful design future — this event proves it.”

This entire event was a hit, and exceeded my expectations.  The sessions that I attended were great, and the only problem I had was I left wanting more, but was motivated to do good.  I was wishing we had more sessions and the choice of more then 2, and I heard the same from other attendees as well but overall it was a positive experience, High Five to the organizers!

Quoting Ross Nover from free range studios “We can take an idea and make it a valid Credible thing” At free range studio they specialize in designing for social impact not consumption, working to enable and empower their clients to transform their audience.

The discussion was engaging and it was refreshing to see other designers out there similar frustrations, and issues when learning to try and design for their community.  There is an idea that you first must raise awareness then engage your audience.  Your audience is more impressionable then you think.  Some interesting resources and projects they worked on: the story of stuff, no impact project

Another session that I attended: The green movement and the creative industry presented by Eryn Willard from Studio 22. Being a green design firm, they are determined to be sustainable and lower the clients’ footprint at every step.  From paper to ink to process, I was educated on the way we print and what is the harm that is done in the process.  Learning that there is a life cycle to what we do.  When designing sustainably you are impacting the community, environment, and the economy, giving your client and their audience a better life. Here are some interesting resources that were shared during the session:  calculate your project footprint,  Design ignites change

As designers we have the POWER to influence our audiences and design for social change.  Having the opportunity to meet other like-minded individuals and discuss these topics within the confines of a creative space can strengthen our skills and expand our ideas.  Here’s to hoping for an even greater session next year!

News Flash: Referencing Master of Kung Fu in a Career Fair Is No Longer Useful

Posted on by AIGA Baltimore
grabbed from Wikipedia page on Master of Kung Fu (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kung_Fu_(TV_series))

Recently I attended a resumé workshop for an AIGA Student Chapter. A number of professionals sat through the rudiments of resumé writing—all good stuff, of course and in the end, there was a question and answer period. During that time, I ended up answering a number of questions—maybe because I was most willing to be loquacious than anything else, but I was asked a question that in answering seemed to confound the students.

A student asked me what skills does one need to be a “successful solo designer”. Strike successful and this is something I can answer. I kid. I referenced the television show Master of Kung Fu which aired during the late seventies. The show followed the adventures of Caine who walked the earth, having adventures every week in search of enlightenment presumably. (I included the Wikipedia link). Also, note that Quentin Tarantino was a fan of the series, using David Carradine, the series’ star as Bill in the movies Kill Bill 1 and 2.

Well, the series always started with a flashback to the student’s training, always showing the young student mastering some skill and the flashback would always end with the saying “once you take the pebble from my hand, it’ll be time to leave.” So, the pebble-hand thing is like a final and the lessons is like the work. My point—long-winded as it was—is to say that those lessons become the life’s blood of a young designer’s understanding of business. Those lessons, wide and varied, each become part of the skill set that the young designer must use to stay ahead or at very least keep up with the changing nature of business. For that reason, I suggested that a designer who is planning to be solo should at some point be in the opposite situation—work for a time in a corporation or a design firm, to help them understand themselves.

Anyway, that was main point—which with great difficulty—I explained. The students are about half my age, so the show was lost on them and almost the analogy. I told this story to a colleague and she said: Why didn’t you use Batman Begins?