Design Interview - (current graphic designer)

[SMJdesign]

Hello everyone, I'm currently attending the art institutes and was assigned a network experience, or a two page paper on an interview with a current graphic designer.
I'm needing someone to do a quick interview over this forum so if you could, i would very much appreciate it since i do not have time to travel, and actually speak in person with one. I will list some questions below.

(1) your graphic design education. How did you decide to study graphic design? And how did you find a school?

(2)What do you most enjoy about being a graphic designer?

(3)What's the most challenging part of your work?

(4)How do you keep your creative life when you're working under pressure?

(5)What skills are most important for a designer?

(6)Where do you go for inspiration?

(7)What exactly do you do? What are your key responsibilities? On a basic level, what skills does your job demand?

(8)Best graphic design tip for a novice?

- any other information you would like to give -

[Chung Dha]

1) I actually choose it because I was a highly skilled texture designer for game mods and wanted to learn animations and games and choose GLR in the Netherlands, however the school fairly sucks because most of the teachers are not from the design field and actually don't know much about it at all. Or they are very old and don't follow the new trends. I've got a freelance job directly in my first year at a design agency called Brandmerk ( now called Spotz Media Group) and then changed educations a few times from police to game design to industrial design and came back to GLR with a little better infrastructure and did packaging design.

(2)To find and to innovate design which nobody have ever though about. Design is not only about making it pretty even though that is the main point, but you can copy old designs and still make pretty designs. But an innovative design have a bigger value and also a better wow effect.

(3)To find things nobody had thought about. Logo design isn't that easy as many people think, you have to do tons of research to be sure your logo is unique.

(4)Actually best designs often comes out of designers when they are most under pressure. But mainly my life is 24/7 into design to be the best. I do very little for having a social life, the only things to meet other people is to go to special design events and special seminars which I can find people that I have met before and talk with people I have never met.

(5)To be creative and also following the trend. Following the trend is a major thing which I have seen allot of old designers not doing and stayed behind making logo's that looks like clipart instead of real logo's. Also graphic design student nowadays follow the design then much too little, only just a handful which does have much better skills then others and find a job easily.

(6)Actually Google is a great source of inspiration you can search anything you want. Extra inspiration I just go outside and do something which you don't have to think about anything like jogging or cycling, and somehow new things comes in my head which I would had never though about if I was sitting behind my computer busting my brains to think of something.

(7)At the moment I am a student en ad owner of an own design company and soon might become an Art director for a design agency in Hong Kong and quit school. I am actually one of a very new breed of designer which have multiple skills from Graphic Design, Packaging Design, Industrial Design, Trend watcher and Game Design. Actually you can almost say I am an overall designer. Because of this I can do more then just Graphics and also implement the skills from the other trades to create designs that nobody ever had thought about.

(8)Watch for trend that are used and actually when you see something that you find pretty don't just stare at it, try to look how it was made. I don't mean copying the design but just to learn which process , which skill and which tools was use to make it and you will learn from it. Also your skill level will improve so you can also design similar things on the same level. You should never think that an education will learn you the best skills to be a designer, because the education is always out of date compared to what is happening to the current trend. You can better learn extra designs or tutorials from the internet next to a Graphic design education.

And keep on learning there is always something new up ahead. And when you finish studying Graphic Design I advice you to take a step futher to become a mix of designer like what I am. If you are a Industrial Designer with Graphic Design you can design both the product and the packaging or advertisement for the product. To have a mix trade you can offer more and easily apply for any design agency.

[SMJdesign]

thanks a ton. very much appreciated.

[guna2009]

When I go for freelance interviews I tend to adjust the order and what is in my portfolio and make sure I know roughly what I will say about each piece of work. I make sure I show examples of different types of work, I will show my creative stuff, but also heavily corporate work just to prove I am able to adhere to tight corporate guidelines when required. I also often include a piece of my personal work. I recently went for an interview with a reasonable sized printers who was looking to outsource design from freelancers. In my portfolio was some of my personal children’s characters and book I had designed, a few days later they called me in and asked if it would be possible for them to pitch my children’s characters to a large hotel chain in view of using them for branding their children’s menus, with the book as a kids giveaway. Unfortunately the pitch didn’t come off, but it was a possibility that wouldn’t have emerged if I hadn’t included the characters in my portfolio.
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