Self-Taught or GD Degree: will EITHER be enough?
I saw this question posed in a thread on the Graphic Design Forum and thought I’d re-introduce it as a new entry and expand the question.
So which is better? Is having a bachelors degree more important or do hirers in the industry care more about portfolio and experience in years? Will having an associates degree affect me negatively in any way at all once I graduate and start contributing to the industry?
This topic comes up quite a bit in graphic design circles and there is hardly a consensus of thought on it. However, I’ve recently been doing a lot of reading about the design industry and the current/future demands on designers from the marketplace and it has raised some interesting points/questions in my mind.
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times
In many ways, we’re in the beginnings of a design heyday. Respected publications like Businessweek, FastCompany, Business 2.0 and The New York Times have run entire magazine editions featuring the huge impact of design and innovation on business. As the production of things is increasingly commoditized, the recognition is finally taking hold that people who can come up with ideas will lead and prosper in the 21st century.
It’s about time! We may not all be aware of it yet but many business schools are beginning to feature design & innovation modules in their programs. There are even more innovation & design seminars aimed at teaching corporate managers how to manage creativity and create atmospheres within their organization where creativity can flourish.
But what does this mean for Graphic Designers?
Good question. Here are some more:
- Will those of us with traditional, design school educations have the training, skills and organizational capabilities to manage increasingly interdisciplinary teams of individuals for whom the design/innovation process is no longer a mystery? Will the processes we were taught in design school be enough and sufficient to manage those interdisciplinary teams?
- Will those of us who are self-taught be able to acquire these skills on their own? If so, how?
- How will designers — formally-trained and self-taught — learn to utilize tools like design research, ethnography, user-centered design, strategic visualization which are slowly becoming more common and accepted forms of the design/innovation “Discovery” period and process?
- How will designers know which (from the neck up) skills we need to focus on and which will be less necessary?
- If we designers, in general, lack the necessary design/innovation management skills to lead these interdisciplinary teams, who will emerge as the new design leaders and what will OUR role then be?
- How do we teach ourselves to craft meaningful experiences? Is it merely a matter of SAYING we do, or will it require that most of us will have to acquire new skills?
I haven’t a clue as to the answers to any of these problems but I think we need to start thinking about them and others.
We could really be at the beginnings of a new design renaissance OR we could be at the beginnings of a new design dark ages.
We could be at the beginning of rising to the level currently enjoyed by the architecture industry and even to a lesser degree the industrial/product design industry OR we could be at the beginning of sinking to the level where the illustration and photography industries currently languish.
In many ways, the choice is ours.
Posted on August 2nd, 2005 at 1:03 am. About 'Self-Taught or GD Degree: will EITHER be enough?'.
Chris,
I think the choice is ours for the taking and you’re right, it is about time. The B-schools are certainly looking to the D-schools to find out how to implement design strategy into their programs. So why not take advantage of it? Why not, as designers, influence how this new age of design prospers? Steve Jobs is obviously at the forefront of design innovation, Business Week has already proven that with their recent article.
If we don’t, it’s another “bury the head in the sand” scenario and we will end up like the photography and illustration giant that once was, but is long forgotten or at least dwindled to merely a few.
Chris
Posted on August 17th, 2005 at 9:07 pm. About 'Self-Taught or GD Degree: will EITHER be enough?'.
This is an issue that concerns me so much. I am a 28yr old graphic design student persuing an AS degree from one of the local 2yr colleges down here in Miami. I”m faced with a dilema, I dont have the luxury of chasing after a BS degree at the one of the Art Institutes down here for example, so i’m preassured to graduate quickly in order have as much as experience as possible knowing that i’ll be competing with kids atleast 5 years younger that I. Also, because i’m doing an associates in science degree, i lack those fundamental design classes that seperate the great designer from the mediocre ones. Almost makes me want to re-think my whole career choice, but Graphic Design is what I love. Most of my close friends, family see this field in the same way people view acting as a career. They just dont think it is a serious industry. So hard for me right now. Any other designers who only went as far as an Associates degree out there?
Posted on August 21st, 2005 at 12:16 am. About 'Self-Taught or GD Degree: will EITHER be enough?'.
Great post Chris and some hard questions at the end, for sure. I think we designers are at the point where it’s time to step up to the plate and become the leaders. This may mean we’ll need to figure out what those new buzzwords mean and define them, and might even mean getting serious about business and management issues.
I think the days are rapidly disappearing where a designer could happily sit in a cube or at a computer and work without interruption on “cool stuff”. Both the aspects of globalization and design focus of late are making it so that successful designers must become multi-disciplinary.
We must increasingly become effective communicators in text and voice (especially as many clients will become remote) and definitely stronger in blending design skills with people skills, sales skills, business and management skills.
I’m starting to strongly that having a balance of these disciplines is going to be a base requirement going forward — if you don’t want to become commoditized as “just another designer” like the thousands being churned from design schools out there.
Novaburn, I have an AS as well, received back in ‘89 at a local technical college, followed by 16 years working in the field. I learned on the job, moving from the old manual design (sketching, paste-ups, typesetting, etc.) to desktop publishing.
I still want to return to school for a bachelor’s degree, though it may indeed be in business or another discipline rather than art or design actually. That’s hoe strongly I feel about designers who want to succeed being able to not only talk design and aesthetics, but business, marketing and other areas we should be in the loop on.
I think if you focus on these things with an AS — getting a well-rounded education from books, talking with business folks and picking their minds, reading blogs and writing blogs/comments, you’ll do OK.
In the end it comes down to your desire to continually learn new things — this is the real key to relevancy in the design world going forward IMO.
Chris, excellent work here with your colleagues and on your podcast — heard my first (001) today and thought it rocked!
(RSS feed now added to NetNewsWire!).