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Is UK design education an epic FAIL? (Part 1)

7th January 2009

At the tender age of 22 I consider myself to be privileged. I love being a freelance designer and have loved it ever since I got into it. Like most designers at times I’ve found it hard at times, the market is a tricky one and the work isn’t always as ample as you’d like but with no one to answer to, being your ‘own boss’ at such a young age has its perks.

I’ve been a freelance designer for about 5 years and most of this time I’ve spent working my way up to a period of steady work and reliable clients. The reason I’ve managed to squeeze 5 years in is unlike a lot of young designers I never went to college or university and I didn’t serve my time with an agency, instead I worked with businesses and contacts I met through my other company Rebelo from the word go and to cut a long story short over time I taught myself what I needed to make sure I was delivering on every job.

It wasn’t a walk in the park and at times I felt like I was in well above my head however today when I meet newly graduated designers I can’t help but think I’ve had it easy in comparison. In the last 2 months alone I’ve spoken with 5 local designers who finished their studies more than 12 months ago but are still struggling to find a job and get their foot on the first rung of the career ladder. With qualifications ranging from A-Levels to Degrees and the talents to match I can’t help but think that if this was any other sector they’d be offered reasonably paid jobs in a snap.

Now don’t get my wrong, I’m not surprised they can’t find jobs. The industry is jam packed with some amazingly talented people out of work and companies in the creative industry are going bust on weekly basis, what does surprise me however is their reaction to shortage of jobs, the high requirements agencies expect and the sheer number of people competing for each position, and I’m not the only person who thinks this. In the past I’ve spoken with a many experienced freelancers, senior designers and agency owners who mostly agree that young creative coming out the education system are pretty deluded when it comes to their views of the industry. Many comment that these young designers aren’t aware that to make moves in the early stages of their careers they need to be either uber talented or bring something to the table that the next applicant can’t.

Through universities and colleges students are lead to believe that they’ve got all the skills an employer could ever want, that gigs for juniors are in abundance and the pay is high and the perks are many, plus when all else fails you can always become a Rockstar Freelancer.

But in reality graduate designers (and developers) are leaving university with just a basic commercial skill set, sure they can hold their own in a font-pop-quiz and those awards do look nice and but in these financially unstable times design firms who are actually hiring are looking for much more than certificates and talent. They need creatives who know how to deal to clients, web designers that know about print and print designers that can code. They need juniors that can hit the ground running, fill gaps and who need as few resources as possible to get up to speed.

So who’s to blame? The students? The education system? The agencies? Hitler? To be honest I think its a little on all parts (apart from Hitler obviously) which I’ll go into in a later post or two.

In the mean time I’d love to hear peoples thoughts on this and especially like to hear what students think, who knows I could be totally wrong.

Thanks for reading.

10 Responses

Ben Fairless 7th January 2009 2:46 am

Hi there. I found your blog via your recent tweet. I’m a 19 year old Graphic Design student at Newcastle College and felt I’d share some feedback.

I’d say for the most part you a right. People enter into creative fields instantly expecting that they will be able to get a job as long as they have the qualifications. There are many many talented people in my building at college, but many seem naïve as to how easy it will be to get work.

We have visitors to the class on a weekly basis, often well-known and successful designers who spend a lot of time with us helping us with work and sharing experiences. However I feel that this is all well and good for once you are in a job, but you’ve got to get there first.

I considered going down your route, which I would say is not possible outside of the creative industry, and just diving straight in and getting jobs based on your portfolio. I’ve done paid web development in the past and considered this path. I’ve not come straight from A-levels to College, I’ve been out of education a couple of years and decided to get back into it.

My motivation for doing this course has never been to use it to secure a job in design, but simply to provide me with a structured environment in which to develop my skills and learn new techniques. This is the one area I feel that you can sometimes miss with ‘home-grown design’ which I felt I would enjoy doing. If I take the route of education, I’m going to be about 24 by the time I finish University and then need to start looking for work.

However, my desire to follow this path is minimal and I just take life as it comes. Although a career in design is very attractive I know how competitive the market is and chances are I’m not going to move into that industry. I started this course because I enjoy design, not because I felt it would improve my chances of landing a job.

I do believe though, that most people do see education this way and will be in for a big shock when they leave the world of education and attempt to walk straight into a job.

It’s 1:46am and I’m a little tired but I hope my ramblings make SOME sense.

Lee 7th January 2009 8:51 am

@Ben.

Cheers for the feedback mate. I’m glad to read that I pretty much spot on from a student point of view.

I like the idea that you tooks the course because its a ’structured environment which to develop your skills’, mainly because you’re already aware that you’ll need to do more that whats required to secure that job.

Sundeep Toor 7th January 2009 9:26 am

Hi Lee

Great subject to post about and something that I can relate to. I agree with practically everything you have said in your post.

I graduated this summer with a degree in computer animation and I’m still struggling to find something stable to make a living from.

Right now, I’m just trying to improve my skill set. The irony is, is that I’m learning far more on my own than I ever did at university. Some of the tutors were quite appaling i.e.they decided to take weeks at a time off from teaching us anything.

I found that they do quite literally teach you the basics, which just isn’t enough these days. Adobe After effects wasn’t offered as a software to learn despite being one of the most popular packages in the industry. I’m not going to hold universities completely responsible because students do need to find out more about how people work in the real world.
Degrees don’t have the value they have. It’s all about experience.

UK Animation students just can’t compete with the French. For that i hold the education system responsible. degrees in this country rely on you ticking a certain number of boxes, which don’t accurately show off how brilliant and original a student is.

I think in the near future, students will be less specialised, and better all-rounders at all things digital when it comes to design.

I look forward to reading your next posts.

Gav 7th January 2009 11:58 am

Dude, what a great post this is, nice work!

I agree with you for sure, I too am in a super-privileged position, I’m very lucky to have freelance for many years which lead into a great job.

I feel like I was in the right place at the right time, just slugging away on the internet and building a name for yourself.

I think students and young creatives are aware of whats going on, and are utalizing the internet well to also build a name for themselves and their work, unfortunately it really is a shock when you’re finally thrust into the big wide world on your own and you realize how tricky it is.

The current economical climate isn’t helping anyone and there’s going to be some tough times ahead, but designers & developers are a resiliant bunch, so i think we’re going to alright in the end!

Lee 7th January 2009 12:16 pm

@Sundeep.

Thanks, and again I’m glad people can relate to this. I think the reality of lecturers and tutors is a lot of them haven’t worked in the industry themselves, and are basically teaching what they’ve been taught, so aren’t best placed to decide what students need (or must) know to compete.

@Gav.

Cheers bro. I know you did college for a while then tried to make it on your own which paid off massively. Maybe more young designers need to do this and forget about college/university.

I think the current community of UK designers & developers will cope fine in the long run, but I think graduates are going to struggle more in the next 18 months than anytime before.

Will 7th January 2009 12:39 pm

Hi,

great post Lee, it’s good to see people talking about the UK education system having recently completed a course myself. I think you hit the nail on the head really, most people who completed my course still haven’t found work in the industry and we completed in July, but it’s not entirely the education systems fault.

I was lucky enough to get a position straight away, but I worked extremely hard on the course and I think this is key. A lot of the students just stumbled through the course not putting in the personal work needed to develop a profile for themselves and then expected the job offers to come rolling in once they had their certificate. With regards to Sundeep, all the tutors will do with the software side of things is teach you the basics. It’s up to the student to take that further and advance the skills, the tutor’s just don’t have the time for that much lecturing. There are plenty of resources around to work with, it just requires personal effort.

But why go to university if your going to be teaching yourself most of the material anyway? As Ben said, it’s a ‘structured environment’ from which to develop that just wouldn’t be possible in other situations. I was very grateful for this, it allowed me to learn, experiment, find what I’m good at and progress. The problem is that students concentrate too much on the course requirements, not putting in the leg-work to find work themselves and pursue personal projects, which is vital.

I think my course identified the importance of client experience – towards the end they were introducing more and more work that was for actual local clients. It was just mock work, but it helped both parties in that we were able to network and experience a real brief and they could get some free ideas off creative students. It would be great if local agencies got involved more with the courses too, it would definitely be worth their while.

Great post, looking forward to part 2.

James McDonald 7th January 2009 7:23 pm

I couldn’t agree with you more. I think the education system has to change somehow. It’s needing a bit more thought, especially my course. They only teach us the necessity’s an basics.

Although, i’ve been at uni for 2 years now and have been freelancing for nearly five years. They have never talked about client communication, client meetings, how to approach clients. I think that is something that needs to be addressed in the course, because at the end of the day thats the main thing right?

Right now, I am really feeling under the weather at uni. I am learning 3D Studio Max -well trying- and I just have no visual aspect/concept of it whatsoever. I am actually even contemplating hiring a professional to do the work for me its that bad. I just can’t handle it anymore. The reason why I want to pass though is because I want a degree in the subject so it looks good on my CV. I know whats its like out in the real world, trying to get a job is the worst. I went for an interview as a freelance outsource designer for a company here in Glasgow and the communication and feedback from them was atrocious. Really felt that chances of getting a job here after university were small.

I am really stuck for what to do. Stay on? Pull through this module? Leave and try it out at becoming a full time freelancer? I really dont know. Anyways great post Lee, hope you have the time to read this very lost reply lol!

samuel g 16th January 2009 11:07 am

exactly the same in music education, only the ratio of flakes against the number of clued up folks with a full set of brain cells is huge.
Undereducated, overconfident students with too much of mum and dads money and an education system that’s too preoccupied in providing a means to grade students and get more funding than take a look at the real working environment and shape the system to that.
Skills education is a diluted concept now. see you later uni.

Lee 16th January 2009 11:32 am

@Sam.

Couldn’t agree more, although I think skills education is only diluted in creative based skills. If you want to be a plumber, a bricky or a hairdresser then theres plenty of practical courses out there, if you want to be a designer, commercial artist or make a living from any other creativity industry then you’re dead in the water.

www.mrleesimpson.co.uk | Portfolio of North East based website & graphic designer Lee Simpson. » Archive » Is UK design education an epic FAIL? (Part 2) 17th January 2009 4:52 pm

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