- When you go looking for a design job,
the first decision you should make
isn't which company is the most impressive
or who has the best website,
it's what kind of situation you want to end up working in.
No matter what type of design you do,
there are three main job types for a designer;
agency, in house or freelance.
In this video we're gonna discuss
the differences between them and try to help you
figure out which one might suit you best.
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When I was studying design at university,
most of the talk around our future careers
was centered around working in the agency or a studio.
Those types of design jobs
were seen as the way to be successful.
Once I was out in the real world of design though,
I realized that they were many different options for me
to have a successful design career.
So that's why I wanted to make this video,
to let you know about your different options
and try and help you figure out what would be best for you.
This video is the start of a series
that I'm making about design careers,
so we will be digging deeper into each one of these options
in future videos, but for now,
I just wanna give you an overview
and some of the pros and cons.
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Agencies, or studios, are companies
that create design work for clients.
Generally speaking, an agency will be a larger company
and a studio will be smaller,
but essentially the job concept is the same.
You'll be working with a team to answer client briefs.
An agency might not necessarily be
a design agency, specifically.
It could be advertising, social media,
branding, marketing, but all those things
need design and all those agencies will need
designers to help provide the service
that their client needs.
Working at an agency, you can expect
to be working with multiple clients on multiple projects,
so you definitely need to enjoy taking on new challenges.
The cool thing about working for a larger agency,
in particular, is that you might get to
work on some pretty big budget projects,
which will be pretty fun, but remember
you won't be working on them by yourself,
you will be part of the team
and you will likely have to work your way up
and sometimes that can be quite a climb.
That likely won't be the case with smaller agencies
or studios, but like with everything,
it depends on what you want out of your career.
So if you choose the agency route
you also need to decide if you want to
go for the big famous corporate
or something smaller and more boutique.
(gentle music)
If you're in house, you're a designer based at a company,
working on their brand and projects.
Over the years, as the tech industry has boomed
and more of an importance has been placed on design,
in house roles have definitely exploded in popularity.
Designers who work at Facebook,
Twitter, Google they're all in house designers.
Just like with agency though, there are in house roles
at smaller companies, like mine for example.
I'm the marketing designer at ConvertKit
and we're a team made up of only 28 people.
I should note that it's not just tech companies
where you can be an in house designer.
Other companies like, for example;
colleges, magazines, retailers,
they all hire in house designers too,
in many different design specializations.
When you're in house designing,
you get to know the brand and the audience
you design for really deeply and you also
have the opportunity to learn from things like user research
and improve on your designs over time.
Of course there will be new challenges coming your way,
with new types of projects you work on,
because you won't just be redesigning the same thing
over and over again.
But there definitely needs to be a lot of consistency
and so if you're someone who enjoys
working with new styles a lot of the time,
perhaps you might get bored working for the same brand.
(upbeat music)
Freelance designers kind of operate
as their own little studios.
They take on clients and they create design work for them.
Generally speaking, these clients and projects
will be smaller than an agency would take on
and also, unlike an agency,
you won't be working in a team to answer the briefs.
Instead, you will be in charge of answering them yourself.
To be a freelancer, you need to
learn to be good at business, because essentially
you're running your own small business,
whether you think of it that way or not.
You'll also need to be really self motivated,
because you'll be your own boss
and you'll need to find the clients yourself too.
So while you get a lot of freedom and flexibility
being a freelancer, you also have
all of the pressures of running your own business.
From listening to the descriptions
of those different job types,
is there one that appeals to you most?
Let me know about it down below, in the comments.
As I mentioned, I will be making specific,
in depth videos on each of these topics
and I'll be bringing on an expert
who works in each different type of situation,
to tell us more about what it's like
and also share advice on how to be successful in each.
So stay tuned for those videos later on in the series.
Give this video here a thumbs up if you enjoyed it
or found it useful and if you'd like to be notified
when new videos, in this design career series,
goes live then you can sign up to my email list.
It's at charlimarie.com/designjobs.
And I've also left a link in the description,
if you'd rather click it, rather than type it in.
All right.
Thanks for watching and I'll see you in the next one.
Bye.
(upbeat music)