Hi there! Welcome back to this week’s blog post about the 5 Steps Towards Landing A Design Job. I am currently in college, and aiming towards getting my Bachelors Degree in Visual Communication & Design with focuses in Graphic Design and Photography. With this post I am trying to help the future college students that are focusing within the same degree the help in taking the next steps towards achieving the career goals, and what it will take to make their dreams come too.
These are the steps I have learned throughout my process towards achieving my career dreams as well. If there is any steps that I am missing, please leave me a message within the comments and we can discuss the topic more at a further time. I am open to any advice that anyone is willing to give. So, I hope this helps anyone that is needing some advice towards the next steps within the design career.
Step One: Look Professional
Professional appearance is a key element towards taking the step towards a successful career jump. Look your best with a great outfit that fits your personality, good hygiene, and nice smelling cologne/perfume but do not over do it! Keep a professional appearance at all times during your interview, which will make or break it. Also during anything with business involved, keep it professional and proper.
Step Two: Artist Statement
Yep, this step is one of the roughest parts of being in this career field. *laughs* A artist statement is all about selling yourself to whomever you are trying to establish a position towards. Some of the key elements that need to be presented within your artist statement are:
- Why are you an artist?
- What are you doing?
- What are you passionate about?
- What do you want to pursue the rest of your life?
Make sure to keep your statement is between two sentences or about a paragraph in length.
Step Three: Design Your Voice
You are going to need your own voice, which signifies you as a designer. Identify your voice with creating a personalized theme that identifies you, which means to Brand Identify Yourself! Design a digital portfolio and establish yourself a personalized logo that represents you. Be creative and original with it, or even try using just your initials for a creative spark. Keep your eye out on color themes that are representative of you which can be through a piece of art, a photograph, or a design scheme with a certain color pallet.
When you establish your final concepts put together, remember to establish these elements towards other business aspects as well such as any social media that you present your work upon, business cards, and your paper resume and portfolio.
Also, make sure to incorporate your BEST pieces into your portfolio! Do not pick anything that took you five minutes to create, or is well under the craftsmanship mark. Companies want to see your best work, and with that you need to pick and choose between all of your pieces of art, design, or photograph pieces and choose your most creative, eye catching, and composition towards your pieces. If you need more help towards finding the best photographs that apply towards your portfolio, take a look at my post about the 12 Elements of a Remarkable Photograph to help you make the final choices for your portfolio.
Step Four: Research, Research, and more Research
Yep, research your butt off for where you fit in within the design world. Try and figure out if you are interested in:
- Being located within a big city, smaller city, or even a small town environment.
- Work within a small business environment, or a larger big firm.
- Maybe you are more of a hip and funky type of person, or maybe more simple and quaint.
Also, look into FOUR different places within different regions that you could possibly see yourself being employed and/or possibly establish a career.
- Start by looking locally within your community, or a nearby city which for me would be Fort Wayne, IN or Indianapolis, IN.
- Next, go more of a regional aspect such as a city that is more than 2 hours away, which for me would be Chicago, IL, Detroit, MI, or Columbus, OH.
- Then lastly, go national or out of your state of origin. Which for me would be California, Colorado, Alabama, and so on… Heck maybe even Hawaii. *laughs*
- Take a bigger step and you can go internationally. Who would not want to work in Paris or London? The transition would be an interesting process, but nothing wrong with living your life to the fullest!
Research these companies, organizations, or businesses through their websites and figure out what type of work they provide, their clientele base, background of the cities/towns they are located in, and very importantly who to contact when the time comes!
Step Five: Work Experience
This step is probably one of the best steps within blog post. Having job experience is a big thing when it comes towards establishing a place within the design world. Try and land yourself an internship (paid or unpaid), work-study, a part-time gig, or try out some freelancing as well. Incorporate your work from your experience into your portfolio, so when clients or employers go to look at your portfolio they see what you are capable of.
Having this experience within your portfolio, and resume is a great plus side towards employers when it comes to that time to apply or cold call companies for a potential job or gig. Apply your resume upon your portfolio webpage within your about page – Preview of Mine – so after they read about you and your work they can go ahead and instantly download your resume, and possibly give you a call the next day! YAY!
Thank you for reading this weeks blog, and I hope this helps out anyone who is in the need for furthering their career within the design world. Have a great week!
Jennifer's Visual Design 
