A lot of you as students who watch me and I wanted to create a video
showcasing the advice of other creatives
for you.
So here is some advice for students.
Made by James says
Focus on the person you want to become rather than what
others tell you you should be.
I think as a student
or someone who's starting out in graphic design is very difficult.
You got a lot of people online telling you
what you should be doing or what you should be,
how you should be acting, and it makes so much sense.
The biggest advice I have for students,
especially those who may be studying graphic design,
is that your learning really begins when you leave uni.
When we put up a job application for a graphic designer,
we were looking for those who have the skill set
to work with us and the personality who would fit.
I think a lot of the time when you come out of uni
there's this idea that you will have a job
and that's getting less and less, more likely as the world starts
to change.
A lot of agencies, including ourselves,
don't just look at your qualifications.
We look at the work within your portfolio.
When we have applicants,
a lot of them had subpar design skills, yet
they pass their university education.
To me, that sort of blew my mind a bit.
So for anyone who's applying for jobs
out there, hone in on your skills at university.
I think there are those who spend a lot of time
honing their craft, and that's what graphic design is.
It's a real craft. Honing their craft.
Getting their portfolio to a place in niching down
to a point of where they're studying typography, where they show
good design and esthetic elements in their portfolio.
That's what's going to get people to see you, but also be yourself.
Don't be a carbon copy of someone else's work.
Do something that you think is right and always show people
you're working out.
By that I mean show people how you solved the problem.
Treat every portfolio piece as solving a problem and showing
how you did it.
Agencies and clients are looking for skills
for the also looking for your brain.
They're not really hiring an idea, the hiring you and your brain.
And if they can vibe with that, I hate that word so much, but
if they can vibe with that, then that's how you're going to get work,
whether you're going to an agency, an in-house job, or as a freelancer.
I also asked Victor from the design class on Instagram for any advice
for students. This is what he said.
If you want to learn something, ask there's a Dutch phrase
that translates to English like this.
You always have a no.
But you can get a yes.
Another piece of advice he says is if you want to work
for certain clients or in a specific niche, make a concept project.
This has helped me land many clients in the past.
If you don't know something, just ask.
Make concept projects all those times from in saying
create a fictional project.
This is what I've done in the past.
When I had no clients.
When I was first starting out, I created a fake portfolio site.
Not fake.
The client was fake.
It's to show how you can actually do it.
Great thing about Victor is that he's an amazing typography
and he's got a course all about font making this out.
Now I am taking part in this call, so click the link down below.
Here's some advice from Jeremy.
Mirror Jeremy here.
The best tip I can give for a graphic designer
just starting out is to learn from other pros in the industry.
If someone's been doing it for ten, 15, 20 years,
most of the time they've learned by mistakes, they've failed,
and they learn how to design better.
They know how to present to clients today, how to get better clients.
And so,
you know, invest in their books, their courses,
because that's what I used to do when I was starting out.
I was voraciously learning and I was just hungry to learn
and keep learning and then put that learning into action.
So learn from the best and then take action.
Debbie said,
If you fail or your work sucks, just keep putting your work out there.
Learning from the pros is a huge thing.
It's kind of like shadowing.
And nowadays with the internet,
professionals are all online and a lot of them are teaching.
Learn from the professionals, read their books, take their content.
And this is what I do all the time I'm reading.
I always learning new ways of becoming better
at something and progressing.
I've got this hunger to learn more.
The way that I like to see it is that it's not enough
to just come out of university
of College with the degree you've got to continue to lead.
Great advice.
I asked the man himself, Christo, for some advice to students.
This is what he says.
Work on your work until your work gets you work.
Big struggle for creative professionals is getting work.
And as simple as it sounds, that's how you do it.
You just work on it until your work gets you work,
you get better and better.
It's just giving me some more advice.
Everyone seems to be in a rush to get Insta famous
but didn't put their 10000 hours towards mastery.
There are so many Instagram accounts out there
that are trying to get into famous that are put in the way in prior.
You can tell them straight away that they don't know
essentially what they're talking about.
Be careful who you follow
and before you want to get famous, put the work in.
It will really show up.
For me, my following happened from just sharing useful tips and tricks.
I've been learning along the way.
A big piece of advice that I love to tell
people is to continue to learn outside of college.
This is analogy of driving.
You learn how to drive a car, especially in the UK,
with a stick shift.
We all use stick shifts,
mainly up
here in the north anyway,
and you can pass the test, but you can be a terrible driver still.
But you've passed the test. You really learn
through the experience of driving after you've passed.
I mean, this is the same thing when it comes to creativity
in graphic design.
We learn more when we're in the job itself.
Challenging yourself,
learning more, reading books, going the extra mile.
I can almost guarantee you that anyone who is successful
at graphic design or being an entrepreneur or both,
which they really are, continues to learn all the time,
whether that's reading books.
That's one of the best ways of learning.
Taking courses.
Self-Development is huge.
Advice I've lived by is failed to success.
I have failed more times than I've succeeded in things,
even down to one single logo project.
Most of my ideas will fail.
I keep going until I succeed at something.
Don't be discouraged by bad work.
Everyone has the ability to create
bad work, but those who stick around,
those who put the effort in create good work.
Obviously, there's a lot of knowledge
that's involved with logo design, typography,
a lot of experience as well, and it's easier for those
who are more experienced to do these better.
But keep failing, keep going.
All you're doing when you're failing
is you're learning how not to fail again.
In that same way.
To this day, I get imposter syndrome.
I'm as creative people.
We are known to compare our work with other peoples.
As a student, that's probably what you're going to be doing.
A lot of critiquing other people's work and seeing
how good that person is at that sort of type of work they do.
And then you look at yourself
and you hate your work because it's nowhere near.
Well, some advice is always someone better, faster, smarter than you.
There will always be someone better.
Now, this isn't me saying not to try and be the best.
You can always try and get better.
This is me saying, Just relax.
It's okay not to be good at certain things.
If you're passionate and you're wanting to do well in something.
Keep going.
Asking Mayfield for some advice for students and he said,
Watch real passion.
Thank them.
I also asked Ali Abdallah for some advice.
He linked me to a video from four years ago.
In fact, they still play this video for the first year medical students
during their Cambridge University induction.
And so you're going to find yourself with a surplus of excess time,
especially if you've been revising efficiently
and consistently
so that you're not just bogged down by the workload completely.
So what do we do with all this spare time that we may or may not have?
Well, obviously we want to be enjoying
the university experience and doing whatever
floats your boat, essentially.
But in addition, I'd suggest that it's a really good idea
to spend some of these next three years
trying to pick up some new skills or working on existing
skills and hobbies that you might have.
One life changing piece of advice I've been given
is to take inspiration and to learn from different backgrounds.
For example, if you're a graphic designer, don't
just read books about graphic design and typography.
Read something about music.
You might be thinking, Where's the connection
between music and graphic design?
But there is a connection in that.
Creativity is about making connections
with nuanced things, ideas, connecting them together
and mashing them up.
For instance, I'm a graphic designer,
but product design really intrigues me,
so I like to look at how people make products and design them.
That helps me make more functional designs for my clients.
Here's some advice from Stefan Koons.
Hey, dude, I hope you're doing well.
I've been a long time since we've heard from each other.
So a couple of things
that I would do differently as an entrepreneur and right now.
One is think about it long term, not short term.
You can do a lot and fast in a sprint and
and create like a lot of things.
But if you look at things long term, it's kind of like investing.
You compound interest on everything and so that's always better
than trying to get the quickest buck out of everything.
So building up your social community
or just the following is always worth it.
Investing in your skills, building those skills up is really,
really worth it.
And also, if you have a long term strategy, you'll not get stuck in
the short term.
So I was stuck for about two or three years
not knowing what I would do next.
And it's really impressive how how long things take
and that you don't always have an answer in the short term.
Another piece of advice creative business is not only
creativity that is really important, but it's also business.
And so if you or if anybody wants to
to grow as a business, they also need to take some business
lessons, skills, coaching, all of that.
They need to learn
how the business works, how it runs, how to run people.
It's always possible that creatives really don't like doing that.
In that case, always find a partner to partner with
and and then just work on it together.
But you definitely need both sides to, to, to work well.
So not a lot of creatives have the ability to,
to create and also to do business well.
That's why sometimes like businessmen come in or agents come in,
but if you can, it's always worth it
to invest in those skills as well of like how to negotiate,
how to set up a business, all that stuff and enjoy
General, just think like, oh, I'm not good at it or that's not
something that I'm interested in that it's not going to apply to you.
It's kind of like physics, gravity.
It's not that you want things to pull you down, it's just that
the Earth is or the rule is that it's built that way.
So yeah, hopefully those two things help you out.
And if there's anything else that I remember, I'll let you know.
Cheers.
That is a real advice from Stefan.
I mean, Stefan,
go way back into doing hand lettering in Iceland for Skillshare.
I also asked you guys what your advice would be,
and here's some of the ones that stood out.
If you have some advice you think would really help
students, please leave it in a comment below.
Being a good businessman is huge.
As a student, maybe you want to go into freelance design.
Maybe you don't want to work for someone.
Maybe it's just yourself.
This is why I brought entrepreneurs into the studio, because business
is just as important.
And if you're going to be successful as a graphic designer,
especially if you're going freelance,
I had a similar situation to Stefan where a lot of work is coming in.
Client work.
Maybe I was doing lots of videos as well
and I was spending so much time trading.
It was difficult to find time to do the business
side of things, hence why Naomi, my wife, came on board.
Near me is literally the business lady, The business man,
the business person of the whole thing.
Don't do it alone.
Another piece of cheeky advice is to have a website.
A lot of you do have a website, but some of you don't.
And for those of you that don't, Squarespace is sponsoring this video
to let you know that they have thousands of award winning,
fully customizable templates that you can customize
to make it your very own website to showcase your portfolio.
That's how you gain clients.
That's how you get your work out there.
One piece of advice
I would give anyone out there who's looking to make a name
for themselves on social media is it's important
to have a website also and to spend time on that website.
A website allows clients to come and see your work in a fully branded
way, and Squarespace allows you to do that
without even needing to know code.
But if you do know code
and know how to code a website, then you can use
it doesn't just stop there that you can actually sell
your artwork, you can sell resources like templates that you've created
on Squarespace to anyone who wants them
to make a bit of money on the site
for 10% of Squarespace and a free trial.
Then click the link down below.
All put in that code in on screen.
A little tip.
You can actually design the website before you even pay for it.
When you're ready to rock and roll
and get that website going, that's when you pay.
But use the code so you get the 10% off.
Thanks for sponsoring.
There's so much advice out there for students,
but it's difficult to know who to listen to.
Take everything here with a pinch of salt.
Obviously, everyone I've spoken to are successful professionals
who have been in a similar situation to the one that you are right now.
For any of you that not gotten much out of this,
maybe you already know all this advice.
Kudos to you.
But if you want another one, it's to have fun where you are.
It's a marathon, not a sprint.
There's no end point to this journey.
A lot of you guys may look up
to people in your life and think, that's where I need to go.
Because we see them on top of a mountain
and we think that's it. And that's where I need to go.
When I'm that everything will be sweet.
Everything's going to be great
to only get there eventually
and then
see them on top of another mountain top on top of another peak.
And you're like, I thought this was it.
Don't stagnate.
There's never a point of where this stops.
Your journey is a constant marathon.
There are goals along the way that you want to hit.
Hit them, but keep going. Never stop learning.
Never stop trying to do better in your work.
I'm a big believer that progression is good.
Be content where you are because you know where you're going.
Thanks to everyone who gave advice
that links down below in the description.
If you enjoyed it, subscribe to me and all those guys
and I'll catch you in the next video.
See you soon.
Watch this great video. Promise you
this video.
It's unreal.
Honestly.