Transitions, February 2003

Issue 6      February 2003

Contents

What graduates haven't learned
When you leave school, you will not have all the knowledge and skills that you need for the workplace. Why does this happen and how can you change it? Employers reveal the things school never taught you, so that you can have a leg up on the competition.

Book tips from the top
Steven Heller describes his favorite and most influential volumes.

Executive director's letter
Now is a time when many students may feel an anxiety about their chosen profession since the design economy seems so weak and the issues that dominate the attention span of peers and the public seem so far from the field of design. And yet it is an extraordinary time to be entering the profession. As the economy rebounds, we are confident that the role of design will be important to business' growth.

In an even more important measure, communication design will be critical in three areas that dominate the social consciousness today. Firstly, designers will contribute to making corporate finances and governance more transparent and accountable in the post-Enron era through effective information design and communication strategy. Secondly, the experiences within our country and in all the hotspots of the world reveal how critical your work can be, in using images and text to communicate across cultures. Communication designers can define effective communication across cultural differences, which can also help to reduce tensions and misunderstandings. And thirdly, the world as a whole is facing the need for thoughtful consideration of how we can leave behind more than we take away, supporting sustainability of what is precious, finite or unusual in our environment. You will be the generation to take on these issues and the entire profession is excited about the opportunity these challenges provide.

We hope you will consider carefully the importance of these issues and the relevance of your role with them; and, if at all possible, we would love for you to join us for the conference in Vancouver in the fall that will deal with all of these topics and more.

Richard Grefé, executive director, AIGA

WHAT GRADUATES HAVEN'T LEARNED
John, hired by a design firm right out of school, just finished his first design for a client. It's beautiful. And hip. But it has little to do with solving the problem. John's boss complains, "What did they teach you in school?"

Like many young creatives, John was lured into design school by the notion that graphic design is the best way for artists to make a living. While design certainly is a creative field, it is also part of the professional communications industry, and as such demands skills in both critical thinking and problem solving. Learning—and teaching—these skills is no easy task. This is a report card from the professional community on design education. What skills are students graduating with? What skills do they seem to lack?

The skills you already have
Computers and aesthetics. Everyone we asked gave high grades to graduates' computer skills. Today's grads are also more skilled in aesthetics than designers from previous generations. (This may be the result of sophisticated education techniques, and it may have to do with the fact that you've been bombarded since birth with well-funded consumer campaigns and pop-culture imagery.) Marry that well-developed aesthetic sense with advanced computer skills, and you get another strength: highly professional presentation skills. Practitioners and employers give schools high grades for teaching the surface techniques of graphic design.

The skills to build on
Think first. "Newcomers can spit out pretty darn spiffy work," says Tamar Rosenthal, creative director for FIDM in Los Angeles, "but the product is often idea poor." Pat Samata, of Samata Mason, a Chicago-area firm, tells of working with young designers who believe they've solved a client's problem by making a piece look "cool." It seems that some schools aren't teaching students to listen, or think, before they design.

Get up to pace. Steff Geissbuhler of Chermayeff & Geismar says that though schools are teaching the design process well, juniors are often shocked by timelines, budgets and the typically incomplete information clients give at the beginning of a project. Other designers agree that new graduates work too slowly, and that school has failed to prepare them for the pace of the real world.

Sharpen your business sense. Senior members in the firms I called also find that many juniors lack an understanding of basic business principles and the role a designer plays in the business world. Bryan Peterson, of Peterson & Co. in Dallas, Texas, added that though business knowledge develops thoughout a career, schools should cultivate students’ awareness and interest in the basics. “The designer who doesn’t understand business will be severely handicapped,” he says.

Practice speaking and writing. Another basic that juniors are found to lack is skilled communication. Both in writing and on the telephone, new grads are judged mediocre.

Concentrate on the problem. A common mistake young designers make is to eloquently and passionately solve the wrong problem. They think hard, care deeply and chase rainbows.

Why are there gaps?
So employers find today’s design graduates inarticulate; lacking in depth, judgment and business savvy; overly infatuated with everything “new”; and unaccustomed to workplace demands. Sounds familiar. What’s the difference between the cool-and-hip grad today and cool-and-hip grad 15 or 20 years ago? Probably very little. So what is different today?

Expectations have changed. The real changes seem to lie not in the people, but in the business. Studios, graduates and schools are working with higher expectations, higher expenses and less time. Project fees have held steady as we’ve grown increasingly dependent on expensive technology to produce designs faster. Tuition is up, and so is the cost of supplies (software and computers), leaving graduates deeply in debt and pressed to “pay their dues.” Design schools are expected to produce articulate, culturally literate, aesthetically developed, conceptually deep and business-wise graduates with expert computer production skills.

The time frame is too short. Most design programs in the U.S. are expected to do all of this within three or four years, putting an enormous amount of pressure on faculty and students. Given the time frame allowed, it’s inevitable that gaps will appear. Whether it’s in the cultivation of design skills, business skills or social maturity, filling these gaps now falls in the lap of the first employer.

Who is your competition?
Meanwhile, you’d be surprised how many firms prefer to hire graduates from Europe. “There’s more rigor in the education there,” says Terry Irwin of San Francisco. The one problem she confirms: “visa problems.” Otherwise, it seems studios would be full of Europeans. Their attractiveness is due to a combination of discipline, eagerness, and problem-solving and aesthetic skills.

What gives Europeans this edge? First, the average design program across the Atlantic lasts six years: enough time to smoothly integrate knowledge with practice, get grounded in liberal studies and gain personal maturity. Most European schools are supported by their governments, too, so they’re less expensive to attend. Europeans can afford to stay in school longer than their American counterparts, and they aren’t harried by debt after graduation.

Survival through learning
Schools are under a lot of pressure in this highly competitive industry to create the best possible curriculum while keeping costs reasonable. They’ll have to prioritize what they can provide within tight time parameters. One solution might be to require computer skills or basic liberal studies as a condition of acceptance. (They can be studied much more cheaply at community or junior colleges, anyway.) Employers may have to accept that they can’t have it all in a 22-year-old. And graduates may have to realize that getting a degree is only the first stage in a lifetime of learning.

Petrula Vrontikis is principal of Vrontikis Design Office and a faculty member at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena. She lectures at universities, to professional organizations and at conferences nationwide about her work and about graphic design education and inspiration. She is currently on the National Advisory Board of AIGA. Petrula recently authored and designed inspiration=ideas, a creativity sourcebook for graphic designers.

BOOK TIPS FROM THE TOP: STEVEN HELLER

More books from top designers.

Steven Heller:

Design books are not always fun to read but many are good for you. Those recommended below fall into the well-written category. I’d like to recommend a few of my own books but I’ll leave that to others if they are so inclined.

Paul Rand: A Designer’s Art
by Paul Rand

There can be no better textbook for a student on the formal, aesthetic and philosophical issues of graphic design. Rand, who died in 1996, was the master modernist, but beyond the label, he was the most eloquent proponent of the rightness of form I have ever heard (or read). I may be biased since I wrote a biographical book on Rand, but I’ve read other designer monographs without the same level of enjoyment or insight.

Obey the Giant: Life in the Image World
By Rick Poynor

There are some real literary gems stuck here and there in the literature of graphic design, but Poynor’s essays—journalism, commentary and reflection—are consistently among the most astute and informed. He cares about a sentence the way a designer should care about the kerning of type. You can tell that each word, phrase, paragraph has been massaged into the perfect form so that the reader never feels like he/she is doing work. Of course, the ideas he addresses—from globalization to the politics of type—are necessary for any well-rounded education. (For additional essays on design that are both important and enjoyable, Looking Closer 3 (which I coedited with Poynor, Michael Beirut and Bill Drenttel) is worth a read.)

Make It Bigger
by Paula Scher

In recent years there has been a plethora of ego-fest monographs on graphic designers—omnibus volumes of work and/or pretentious philosophical musings. The texts are often contributions by a gaggle of writers—a critic, a few friends, an historian—as though the designer demands as much validation as possible or the work is worthless. Scher’s monograph is her voice alone, and it’s a strong, self-confident, witty and extremely knowledgeable voice. The other monographs on the market are probably worth having, if only as a record of designers who are presumably worthy enough to have an expensive monograph, but this is a delight not only for the eye, but the mind as well. Scher’s view of the business is instructively sobering, and her secrets for success can actually serve as a model for some of you.

Graphic Design: A Concise History
By Richard Hollis
A History of Graphic Design
By Philip B. Meggs

Both books are essential background on the history of this field. It has been said that without a history this is not a field, simply a service. Every student should have a grounding in the movements, individuals, schools, styles and, yes, philosophies of design. Ignorance is not bliss. Hollis’ book fits nicely in your bookbag or cargo pants; Meggs’ is the desktop reader.

Well, I’ve tried not to hawk my own wares but I know that no one will mention this book, so forgive me:

The Swastika: Symbol Beyond Redemption?
By Steven Heller

Not everyone wants to read about this symbol and the tragic time it represents, but I urge students to be aware of the power of symbols—and by extension, the power of design as a force for good and evil. This book is a polemic history of one of the oldest symbols in the world that was perverted and transformed into a mark of horror. Will you enjoy reading this? Maybe and maybe not. But you will be faced with questions at the end which every designer should address.