Channel 4 - www.ideasfactory.com - 2003
Back to the Drawing Board - V. Verdi
Lawrence Zeegen, Deputy Head of the
Design Faculty at Brighton University, has strong views about
the skills design students need to cope with the commercial world.
V.Verdi finds out there's more to design than Quark shortcuts.
The stakes are high. There are more design students, from all
disciplines, knocking around the UK than the population of grey
squirrels. Well, it seems like that. The job market is saturated
and competition is rife.
It's the ten-million-dollar question - how to assemble the perfect
portfolio to hook your first design job? But before you get to
that stage it's important to step back and consider where your
work was devised. For many it would have been at art college.
So what you were taught at art college may help or hinder your
prospects.
Ideas versus the hard-sell
Lawrence Zeegen, Deputy Head of School of Arts and Communication
at Brighton University has controversial views about the state
of design education. He believes that education should concentrate
on creative thinking rather than solely getting to grips with
the hard sell of the commercial world. This may sound like he
is shooting himself in the foot - where's the sense in churning
out students full of wacky ideas who have no understanding of
commercial working methods? Lawrence counters that the design
industry needs an injection of ideas if it is to revive itself
from its comatose outlook, where everyone hankers after a double-spread
feature in Creative Review.
He argues, "The commercial world has a very fixed view of what
they need. They don't look longer term. At Brighton we aren't
just training someone to use Quark in order to get that first
job. Those things are important, but I think that if anyone is
going to survive, they need far greater skills. You can learn
to use software or how to lay something out in a certain way,
but there are skills you need to know that are more in tune with
creative thinking. If you couple analytical problem solving with
theories of design and communication and strong typographic and
illustration skills, then you get the beginnings of a great graduate.
If you've got those things and the ability to design, you're off
the starting blocks. I think the industry doesn't want high-flying
creative thinkers. They just want people that can get on with
the project and get it to the client."
Rock the boat
Lawrence emphasises that the design course at Brighton aims to, "rock the boat, rather than row it. Students have to have something to say about their work." He continues, "The courses are about having an opinion and producing the kind of work that will stand the test of time. It's a fact of life that students, when they graduate, will have to pay off their debts and fit into the commercial world. But if they're going to make their work original, they need to be creative. Design is about being creative but industry will never see that. In the greater scheme of things you want people who've got the ability to think."
Winners
The curriculum's concentration on conceptualisation has paid off, with some of Lawrence's students scooping a gold and silver D&AD award for student TV advertising. Lawrence remarks, "The best design communication says something. There's a message in there: there's thinking and ideas. My job in education is to instil enthusiasm and confidence in people to do what they think is right. Not try and be a Tomato or an Attik. It's about finding their own voice."
Not Popstars, it's graphic design
His tip for getting a job in design is not to wait for an advert
to appear in design magazines. "What graduates have to do is set
up their own opportunities, make their own chances and create
their own luck. It's about contacting the type of companies they
want to work for. Keeping in touch with people and letting them
know what you're doing is so much more important then turning
up in a smart suit for an interview where there are 400 people
outside the door. It's not Popstars, it's graphic design. You've
got to find you're own way of doing things."
So to package yourself as graphic design material Lawrence advises:
- Be honest
- On your CV make sure everything is typographically perfect and that there are no spelling mistakes. There are two schools of thought about CVs: produce a CV that is creative or a traditional CV that is beautifully presented
- The covering letter is important. It gives you a chance to say something about yourself and your personality
- When writing to 20 different companies, you have to write 20 different letters
- Portfolios are where you can be creative. Make sure you present your work in a logical order.
- You need a big dose of 'gumption' - don't give up
V.Verdi
For more information about design courses
at Brighton University go to http://www.brighton.ac.uk/structure/soac.html
To see research work go to http://www.brighton.ac.uk/arts/research/
Lawrence Zeegen's own site is http://www.zeegen.com
