your first job
- Started
- Last post
- 29 Responses
- ricstultz
A lot of people on NT are right outta school or in school, always askin about jobs. So I thought this might help.
Post the story, how did you land your first real job? Freelance or Full time.
Dunno if a thread like this exists yet, I searched and didn't find anything...
- jevad0
I landed my first job through gift of teh blag !
Mind you this was back when nobody really knew what the internets was - so I could talk about stuff and they would just nod along like they knew what I was saying.
First job was for a financials company in the city of london redesigning their website and then they kept me on to start a web division. Oh the memories....
- spendogg0
When I started in the early 90's computers were not it use as much as they are now - i landed a pre-press job doing typesetting and camera work for a high-end printer. did club flyers on the side so i could get into bars and clubs for free until the local clubs saw the value and started paying me, then tons of identity work started coming my way - this is how i built my professional portfolio then landed an agency job.
- ricstultz0
I was working for a small screenprinting firm to get myself thru college, about 2001ish. A coworker and his father decided to start up a sporting goods company. They needed a designer, I needed a job.
I met with my coworkers father, the client, in a Minneapolis cafe. He had a bunch of scrap papers he handed me. Then we talked awhile over coffee. I gave him an estimate of $350 for the buisness identity and one technical illustration ($35/hr for 10hrs worth of work).
The second meeting we went over my rough logo ideas. He told me what he liked and didn't like. I made the changes and sent further proofs to him over email.
Our third meeting was final, I handed him a disc and told him i could work with the printer if he wanted. he said he already had it set up and handed me a check.
Just like that.
- T-Dawg0
this is my first job, small company, pay ain't great, boss gets more control over the design of things than i do.
Just passed my 1 year mark last month. I'll probably last a few more before I can post on the "your second job" thread.
lol i'm bitter today :)
- normal0
Some of my close friends were graphic designers and older than I was. Just sat around watching them and reading the magazines, askin' questions. But officially I started off in High School doing the yearbook layouts. Then started working under the art director at Revelation Records as a lackey. The rest is history.
- vespa0
first real job as a photographic assistant - spent months honing my tea making skills and then turned up on photographers' doorsteps asking for work.
- JazX0
Well, I think from my user experience here, a lot of people on NT aren't in school and have been working in some form of graphic or programming industry for at least 5 years. Me = 8 years. Not that young bucks are bad at design and programming. Age means nothing.
I landed my first job programming HTML and doing the most basic Photoshop cropping in 1993. Basically was freelance gig during the early .com boom.
- algorithm0
couple part time design jobs during school. After I graduated I got hooked up with a agency full time.
- tank0
my first job,well they actually called me.i graduated in june and in july they called me if i wanted to work as a motion designer at their company..thats the good part..i also freelance...and i was freelancing at a festival(filming the event) and that turned into a conflict of interest with one of their big clinetns so they fired me about two weeks ago,last week another frim called me to see if i was free and wanted to work as a print designer and start up their motion department;of cousre is said yes...the freelance stuff coms trough word of mouth(or how do you say that) i did a videoclip that that was on a lot in belgium,and that really opens doors....doing some animations for a big exhibition right now,working on illustrations for a site and doing some coorperate identiy..a wrd of advice for all you motion designers(if you work a lot with after effects)try to be as versitale as possible because teh after effects bubble wil explode just as in the early nineties it did with photoshop->do not specialize in one thing...okay,my 2 cents
- shellie0
first job as a nanny.. and that suuuuucked. then i got a job as a graphic designer. that was better. but then my boss went through my bag and read my journal. and then i quit. what a fucker. he was so weird.
- pepe0
i got a job working for one of my teachers....
- hiphoprelic0
I have just landed right back where I started, 8 yrs ago.
I came to work for the Department of Insurance in BR. That was back in '96. They put me in Public Affairs drawing illustrations for brochures and stuff.
I installed my copy of Photoshop4 on one of the computers and, when I had free time, which was alot, I'd scan pictures of the comissioner and workmates and fool around with them.
A girl who worked there in PR had a boyfriend with a small web co who was looking for a graphics person. She told him that I knew photoshop pretty well, so he called me up. We played phone tag for acouple of weeks and then he invited me down to have a look.
"I hope you don't mind that the majority of our content is adult."
I was 20 so I said "nope."
I had me do some simple Photoshop shit... gradients, text fades, drop shadows, etc.
He asked "when can you start?"
I did not want to leave the Dept high and dry since they had helped me out with a job when I first moved to BR, so I worked 1 more full week and then half days for another.
I was good with Photoshop and that was it at that point. The guys I started working with had the web know how but no design sense, so they taught me the ropes... upload, download, html, and I just built from there.
I worked there for about 7 years until I was fired because I would not give up my life for the company.
I was fortunate to have friends at the Dept, so here I am. Back at square 1. Public Affairs. Of course I have infinitly more knowledge than I had 8 years ago, of design and also of the real world.
I am very glad to be away from my previous boss;a drunken porn guy with serious control issues.
"Thank you for firing me, ***."
- tymeframe0
I lied on my resume to get out of tech support (mac) and into prepress. I also took a $2/hour pay cut.
2 years later I'm paid $3/hour above my tech support job and doing design and prepress work, as well as a lot more freelance.
everyone thought i was such a fool for taking a pay cut , i love it.
- raybolger20
web banners-I might as well have been a meter maid. someone who annoys people for a living. luckily I got to do a lot of in-house projects like their website which got me through that first job(9 months)
- vespa0
"teh after effects bubble wil explode just as in the early nineties it did with photoshop"
tank
(oct 12 04, 09:07)there was a photoshop bubble? i guess as long as we specialise in good ideas we'll never go out of fashion...
- canuck0
Did freelance web work while at university to build up a porfolio of work (weak as hell mind you). Got my first full time job this year, took a while mind you and I felt like giving up on a couple of occasions, but I ended up landing a web design job in North Toronto.
- pepe0
i know im confused that there is an aftereffects bubble... that will explode on top of it!
- MrDinky0
my first job was with some dot com
i bs-ed my way in to that company
- ninjasavant0
I got an internship at IBM while in school. Then they hired me.
- raybolger20
if you use boris continuum you can get a good AE bubble burst effect in the presets