Today I have a special edition of a Q&A video for you it's all questions that you guys have
asked me that are related to design school and studying design. I asked for questions
over on Twitter and also on Facebook so if you want to be involved in the next Q&A then
make sure you check out the description box for links to follow me on those things. I've
got quite a few questions through so I will just try and get through as many as possible.
Did you find it easy or difficult to get into the design industry after graduating?
I wouldn't say easy but I also wouldn't say difficult. When I first started studying design
it wasn't that big of a career. it wasn't as big of a thing as it is now, if that makes
sense so I think that I just had the timing right and now design is a huge industry and
every company is starting to see the value of hiring designers which is awesome. So there
is lots of design jobs out there. But as with any job, you've still gotta have that go-getter
attitude and you've gotta be good at what you do in order to actually be able to get
into the industry.
How did you pick which school or course to enrol in?
I did my research for this and found that Massey University was the best design school
in New Zealand so that's where I decided I wanted to go. Obviously the choices in New
Zealand are much more limited than overseas especially in America, but I think the thing
to do is do your own research and think about what kind of design you want to do and look
at what the universities and courses are that are best for that. Try and hear from some
alumni, some people who have studied there and see what they thought of the experience.
Maybe you know a friend of a friend or there's someone who used to go to your high school
and then went on to this thing. I dunno, there's lots of options out there to do your research
and hear from people about how they liked the course.
How did you know studying design was the right choice for you, and did you always want to
do web design?
I didn't always know that studying design was the right choice for me. Probably not
until I really got into doing and maybe in like my second year of university I think
is where I really decided that yup, I really like what I'm doing and this is going to be
my life. You know you've made the right choice in what you're studying when it just feels
right and when you're excited to do it, and when it's really interesting to you and you're
just feeling like, keen to learn more even outside of university. I definitely didn't
always want to do web design though I didn't really know that was a thing up until maybe
like my second or third year of university, that just had never crossed my mind before.
But now I love doing web design obviously.
This is a good one, what was the hardest lesson you had to learn while studying either design
related or just general uni life?
With design school I think the hardest thing to learn is taking critique and how to take
feedback without being offended. It's really hard because to start with you are pouring
your heart and soul into a project and you're trying so hard and you're just loving what
you do and loving your work. only to bring it into class and have your fellow students
and your teacher like pick it apart and point out all the little things that are wrong with
it that you need to work harder on, when you feel like you've already been working so hard.
It can really hurt your feelings to start with, when you're not used to it, but very
quickly you do get used to it and you learn to spearate your feelings from the work. They're
not insulting you, they're not insulting your work even. They're just trying to help you
improve it. So learning to take critique is a really important, but kind of hard to learn
lesson at design school.
Is design school for everyone? what are your thoughts on being self taught?
I have a whole video planned coming up about my thoughts on this called 'Should you go
to design school?' so stay tuned for that, but I don't think design school is for everyone.
people learn in different ways and some people can learn just as well teaching themselves
as they could in design school. I personally needed the discipline and the set curriculum
of a design school to be able to learn but some people don't. i have many more thoughts
on that that could fill a whole entire video and it will so like I said, subscribe and
you will see that soon.
Is it tough to study design when you're not good at drawing?
It's kind of tough I suppose to start studying design when you're not good at drawing, because
you will compare yourself to your peers who are amazing. And especially in my course the
first year is quite general so you end up doing a lot more fine arts stuff that does
involve a lot of drawing, but I soon learned that it really doesn't matter that I cannot
draw a realistic looking human face to do design. If I wanted to get into illustration
then perhaps my drawing abilities might have been a problem, but also if I wanted to get
into illustration I would have practiced and my drawing abilities would be a lot better
but that's just not something I prioritise. I can draw messy wireframes and I can do hand
lettering, that's about the only thing I can draw. What you need for design is to be able
to get your ideas across, so sometimes that does involve sketching, but I find ways around
that. my messy wireframes, people understand them just fine when I explain them so it's
alright. If you're not good at drawing, please don't let that hold you back from studying
design honestly, you will learn what you need to learn. You will get better at drawing the
things you need to draw, and you don't have to worry about everything else.
How did your study experiences differ from what you expected from your courses?
I expected to be doing proper design briefs straight away, but actually my course had
like a pretty general first year so you dida bit of photography, fine arts, industrial
design along with graphics. And you could have done fashion if you wanted. There was
lots of choices, so the idea was to try out lots of things before picking which stream
you go down.
Is there anything you would have done differently at design school?
Not really. the only thing I can think of is that maybe I should have spent more time
working in the studios on campus rather than at home at my desk. Just because it's good
to be around fellow design students. you can all go through it together and give each other
feedback on your work. I dunno. I felt like the design studios were quite cliquey and
I didn't fit into any group so, I dunno, story of my life!
Do you need any background before entering?
The answer is no. You don't need to have studied design before entering design school because
the point is you're gonna learn. But what you will have to do is submit a portfolio
to get in that shows you have a desire to learn and that you've been trying things on
your own. So you can't really get into design school having never attempted any sort of
design before in your life. So set yourself some personal projects. Start doing some learning
in your own time. Just start creating things and making things.because that's what I think
the university people are looking for when they're accepting people into a course.
What's the balance with doing what your teachers want vs going with your gut?
You should never do a design assignment that's just exactly what your teacher tells you to
do because you're not going to learn a single thing doing that. Also though, you should
realise that you're in design school to train your gut if that makes sense. So you really
need to listen to what your tutor is saying and look at the thing they're critiquing and
ask yourself why they're saying those things and see if you can make some improvements
to your work. In my experience when the tutor is making a suggestion to you of what they
think could be replaced in a piece of your work (i'm trying to keep this really general),
they're not telling you to do exactly that. What they're trying to do is open your mind
to other possibilities, so that's a really important thing to try and explore.
How big is the leap from third to fourth year? Currently in 3rd and all the talk about 4th
is slightly stressing me out.
I think Sophie is doing the same course that I did at Massey university, where fourth year
is the final year of your degree and you do what's called a 'major project' where you
do a lot of research and then create something and it takes the whole year, so it's a pretty
big project and it is a lot of work. I felt like it was a natural progression on from
third year, like I was ready for another challenge after that, so I think you'll find that you
are too. Fourth year was a lot more fun than third year for me because you get to set your
own project and decide what you want to do. I'm not gonna lie, it was a lot of work I
didn't get much sleep but it was all worth it in the end.
This is worded a bit weird, but 'the ability to design cool and nice things, is it something
you're born with or is it something a 20 year old guy can learn?'
Yes definitely. At twenty you have your whole life ahead of you and it's the perfect time
to start learning something new. You don't have to be born with design skills, you can
start learning design at any time of your life. twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, even in
your retirement age if you really want to. Though if you're in your retirement age you're
probably not watching this youtube video. All you really need is a creative spark and
a desire to learn.
How did you design exactly what you wanted to work on inside design?
This is where that first year of my design course was really handy, when I said that
you had to do a little bit of everything. It really helped me see that A) I did NOT
want to do advertising and photography probably wasn't going to be a longterm career option
for me. I decided that graphic design is what I wanted to go with because that's what I
was best at. And it's what I was best at because it was what i was most interested in doing,
so I spent the most time on it. There's so many different fields of design you can go
into and you don't have to pick straight away. I've switched over to doing web design now,
I've made a whole video on that that you can see linked down below so it's never too late
to change it up. Don't be afraid of picking something and going with it and then changing
your mind, that's perfectly fine.
that is all the questions we have time for today. I have done a video in the past called
how i became a designer, i think, that talked a lot about my design school experience which
I'll link down below. There's also gonna be a playlist down there full of other videos
that will help you out if you're studying design. Leave any other questions you have
about design school in the comments and I will answer them as best i can. Thanks so
much for watching this video. Give it a thumbs up if you enjoyed it and I will see you next time. Bye!