i feel like there are a handfull of us on here.

nice, i didn't know about you. what kind of stuff do you do?

All advertising.

Unlike a fair amount designers, I'm not really into it for art's sake. I've been fascinated by advertising for a long time, and I enjoy creating it. I also grew up and started out with newspapers, so despite the lack of glamour, I enjoy doing black and white newspaper work.

I can't illustrate to save my life, so I avoid it as best as I can. I would say my strengths are in ad layout/composition and respect for realism. I do a good bit of image optimization and manipulation in Photoshop, but I hardly ever create something from scratch.

An example would be the Nipples On The Beach cover in the Mix Forum. I grabbed the black and white picture from National Archives ARC Search (a great place with lots of usuable images) and Ted Turnered it for my own amusement. I did a direct mail piece for a client about six months ago using this technique for a nostalgic feel.

Hit the "WWW" button for a godawfully out of date portfolio on my terribly out of date website. I need to update lots of better things I've done over the past six months to a year, but I'm fucking lazy.

Upon further, I didn't realize just how horribly out of date all this crap is. Good christ I need to fix that this weekend.

sorta, but not really

I work mostly as an animator with lot of broadcast designers, and I guess occasionally some of the illustration stuff I do could kinda count as design. I tried web design for a little while up until I graduated from college, and I hated it.*


*I was really bad at it.

I am not, but I'm bookmarking this thread, when we finish our album...see who wants to do an album cover for cheap...

i would love to do your album cover

this is teh one i did for me.

http://covers.cdbaby.com/f/i/fishstick.jpg

i don't have a "style" but that should give you an idea.

with this in mind, i come seeking advice.

i just graduated (with a b.a. in psychology, mind you) and while i may be looking for a job in h.r., have always been a fan of various graphic design activities. i had some experience in high school (yet have retained no portfolio to speak of - typical) and have since spent most similar activities editing my own photos in photoshop and creating the occasional worthless crap in illustrator (how i obtained these programs is not up for discussion). with this "experience", is a career in graphic design feasible? is it even really something i should be pursuing?

tough questions, i know, but any advice is surely appreciated.

art director/designer here.
lots of fashion, identity, event work. hell, at this point i've done just about everything...but no cd covers.
no site. or business cards for that matter, yet i've been self employed for 15 years.

production supervisor/designer for a publishing company. mostly marketing, trade show, new product design. been here for 6 years.

here's a cd cover i did for a drum and bass mix...

[img][650:650]http://img139.echo.cx/img139/4410/elementbboyroy5rm.jpg[/img]

nice.
i went on my own a year or so ago, and i don't have a website either (for my design) and i have my music website on my business card, but i still get work off of good refereals.

and i too do lots of identity and event work (and a little bit of fashion)

i worked in an agency for about 6 years, but got sick of the pace and their new found focus on marketing strategy and went on my own.

i think it would be really hard to get into an agency with your lack of experience. But if you don't mind making crap money for a few years the non-profit world is always looking for slaves. It's a good way to build your book and get comfortible working with clients and understanding the process. And then you can use that as a springboard to do all kinds of work, and maybe skip the agency life all together.

Another art director/designer. 8 years of experience, currently with a food & beverage agency working on mostly national accounts (pretty much every liquor brand you can think of.) Mostly promotional items like posters and table tents for drink promotions with the occasional beverage menu for national restaurants.

being a designer/art director is more about developing concepts than just making pretty pictures--although we do that sometimes too. it's more than using every bell and whistle in photoshop and illustrator as an excuse for not having a solid idea--although that helps too.

the thing about working for non-profits to build a portfolio is that you wouldn't be exposed to good design or good design habits. you could take classes or do tutorials to teach yourself some beginning production skills. it seems that most firms are looking for people with a bachelor's in design. i think that's silly but that's me.

another way to approach this is to get a job in an agency setting as an administrative assistant or some other non-design capacity, get exposed to the business, see if you like it and consider working your way up. you may discover some other aspect of the business that you enjoy.

it's tough. there's a lot of competition since colleges and universities consider a design program a cash cow. they buy a few computers and teach kids how to use them and don't cover the creative end of the business. don't get me wrong because i'd love to find a production person with a strong eye for design but a lot of these kids graduate thinking they're going to be a senior art director and in most cases it ain't gonna happen.

sorry for the ramble but i have obviously very strong opinions on the subject. bottom line: i'd rather have a strong idea sketched out on a napkin than a weak idea presented in a polished pdf.

a fine example of lame technical abilities:
i was going to post a few examples of my work but the host i use for images is down so i don't know what to do until my 12 year old gets over to help me.
sick.

i agree with everything you said about concept, ayah. but from my experience there are 1,000's of kids out there coming out of school with both a solid design and concept foundation.


i guess it depends on where you live, and how good the schools are there.

edit: that wasn't making any assumptions or accusations about where you live.

I design mostly the porno ads you see in the back of dirty mags. Gets me free phone smut whenever I want it. Not a bad deal.

I'm hoping to ink a deal with Twin Cheeks Magazine to start designing their "table of contents" page.

no problem, jewels.

it's good to hear that there's strong work out there. it obvously makes spizzle's job all that more difficult.

i'd really love to see a show and tell of all of our work. it would be interesting.

design is everywhere.

my design career will never get any cooler than this . . .

having the logo i designed created out of lego's by kids. It was in the guiness book of world records for the "largest lego logo" (my name wasn't mentioned) but Ron Jawarski and Me put in the last tiles.

on the subject of desin without a formal education, you can teach yourself by reading the trade magazines like Communication Arts, Graphis and Print. They are expensive, so just grab a seat and an hour or so at Broders.

also read the philosphy and story of Tibor Kalman, he was self taught and got his career started as a stock boy at Barnes & Noble.

now i have never worked on a liquor/beverage account. there's a lot of money there. do you go on photo shoots as well? shooting liquor is a specialty. any good secrets to it? there's an article in the ny times today on the absolut flavors campaign. interesting.

I have to agree completely with Ayah. In my experience, I've only seen a very small number come right out of the local art institute or colleges with the skillset needed or even the shown potential to be good in this field. I've had to weed through recent graduates more than once because the agencies I worked for wanted to hire cheap, yet find someone who could jump right in with both feet solid on the ground. It was easy to identify where the applicants had gone to school without even asking, because every one of their books looked the exact same, just what they had been assigned in order to graduate. The one or two that stood out either had gained some experience doing a couple of small freelance jobs or had put in additional effort to make their portfolio stand out and show their true potential.

I personally did get a bachelor's in art....fine art. The one layout class I took was on an archaic computer using extremely outdated software. So I am pretty much self taught regarding this whole design biz. I actually started out much the same way you are describing.

All of this being said, I guess my advice is to diversify yourself as much as possible and gain as much experience doing the stuff you want to do, not just what some professor or teacher instructs. If you know someone local in the field already, hook up with them to see what all is entailed in the profession...it's not always that glamorous. And if you ever have any questions or need constructive criticism on your work, there seems to be a good group of us here.

Most photo shoots are for the drinks themselves either to be used in menus or promotional pieces. Usually if we use any bottle shots they come directly from the distributor, kind of like stock photography. We usually work with a food artist when prepping the drinks, and the hardest part seems to be the garnishes.

i'm feeling lucky that i went to a "if i don't like the concept, i don't give a shit what it looks like" school.