I don't think I want to do graphic design anymore - burn out
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- argybargy1
So, in uni I used to love graphic design, I loved it's potential to inform and enthrall. I was enamoured with typography, form and it's purposeful application.
Then I started working. And now I'm sick of graphic design.
I've been out of uni for over a year and I'm doubting this whole thing. Junior positions in the city I'm in don't come up often and I have a pretty high standard with where I 'want' to work so this whittled my target studios to barely a handful. I've made myself known to these places and even had some work experience there but actual positions come up there very very rarely.
I have considered this and wondered if I was being elitist and hence narrowing my opportunities. So I went out, settled for something and then it didn't work out. Then tried some more places. And it didn't work out either. A combination of the people and the work turning into a dreadful grind really started killing it for me.
I'm not too sure what happened but I things I used to be interested in now seem so shallow. There's so much noise already, we don't need any more and I'm not comfortable with helping people sell things either.
The only thing I'm really interested in now is fine typography as a craft. But there really isn't much of a place professionally for this.
Anyone else have experience with / advice for burn out?
(I'm posting this under a pseudonym because we all know how small our fraternity here is...)
- dopepope0
Brian Taylor?
- Knuckleberry0
Bueller?
- Fax_Benson0
Try something different?
- keep your interest in typography as a hobby. It doesn't really go out of date, so you can go back to it if you want.Fax_Benson
- want to in the future.Fax_Benson
- fate0
Design is pretty much grease on the wheels of capitalism.
At best, it tells you how to find the bathroom in a shopping mall.
- Knowing where the bathroom is is pretty important for me these days.Fax_Benson
- me toohektor911
- it can save a lifePixter
- deep.CanHasQBN
- animatedgif0
It's garbage, get out while you can.
For 99% of people:
The good work pays fuck all.
The paying work is the worst shit in the world.Regular clients are morons and AD agency creatives are talentless cunts.
- plash0
I hear you. it really is getting difficult to deal with the same issues every day. lets see, things that have kept me from jumping of the ledge. i try to keep my professional and personal life segregated. you know, keep work at home. it also helped me to switch up my services. im totally engrossed in adps now. i've switched up my habits such as stopped smoking tobacco and curved my drinking to once a week (most of the time less), i exercise regularly, meditate and smoke some ganja..
i know your feeling and it sucks. hope shit works out for ya bro.
- BaskerviIle0
1 year? seriously? I question your motivation.
If you don't get fulfillment from a day job, then do your own project in your spare time. We all need to earn a living.- <monospaced
- yep, pretty much what i was gonna saysine
- <sherm
- < +1 to mono.dMullins
- monospaced0
sounds like a no talent cunt if I've ever heard one
- CALLES0
are you a hipster? emo-hipster perhaps?
- monospaced0
"So I went out, settled for something and then it didn't work out. Then tried some more places. And it didn't work out either. A combination of the people and the work turning into a dreadful grind really started killing it for me."
This is a bit disturbing. You bounced around that much just a year out of school? Not getting along with people? Sounds like there's a bigger issue, namely that graphic design doesn't seem to want to do you anymore.
- uan0
it's the 1 or 2 real cool projects a year that count...the daily routine is mostly boring.
- 20020
At you are finding this out now.
Most people would spend years and find out later.
Try some other things or go back to school.
You got youth on your hand.
- toodee0
Just sounds like post uni comedown.
Everyone hates working for a while, then it all goes numb...
- CALLES0
just enjoy your free time with the company of drugs
- bjladams0
i graduated 7 years ago alongside about a hundred in the graphic design dept. there are less than 10 of us from that group (that i'm aware of) still working in design. the other 90 are still looking for a career that will make them happy. i can't actually vouch for the other 90. but i know that some of them do make great coffee!
- BaskerviIle0
You never really appreciate the true creative freedom you have as a design student – open briefs, conceptual briefs, no client ruining the project.
I remember looking at various design awards annuals when I was a student and thinking, "this work's not much better than some of my friend's work"
The thing you never see, is all the challenges that a studio has come up against to manage to get a good piece of work out the other side of the project. Most project will be a compromise, but that's how commercial work happens.
You need to get used to the way the industry works, and learn to choose your battles carefully, when it's worth fighting for a piece of work you really believe in. Other times you need to learn when to give in and just get the job done professionally and quickly.There are no perfect jobs, but you can manage your expectations and really enjoy the design process. I've been a designer professionally for 10 years, and I'm still thankful that I have such a creative job, we're lucky, our job is so much more interesting and fun that most.
But never loose the mindset of the design student, you creativity is gone as soon as you loose that inquisitive spark.- Here, here.dopepope
- losetimeless
- Excellent post, sir. I totally agree with the particulars and the sentiment. It's maintaining an attitude that's half the craft.mikotondria3
- bulletfactory0
I feel like more and more young designers have an unearned sense of entitlement.
I can't even count how many resumes I've seen from new grads that say "art director" on them. I always think, "who the hell are they directing with their zero professional experience?"
Sometimes the project will be amazing and challenging; sometimes the work will be shit, the task will be mundane, and you will have a difference in opinion from your superiors. The bottom line is, the project still has to be completed regardless of where it falls in the creative/fun/challenge spectrum. I never have a designer work on anything that I personally wouldn't work on myself, if I had the time.
The simple fact is, as you gain experience your duties will evolve from taking direction and doing the work in the trenches to outlining the creative strategy and overseeing a team and the entire process.
However, once you're driving the strategy, you'll have new/young designers bitching about the projects being shit, just like we all have.
...and on, and on.
I think Baskerville said it well in the post above.
- I tend to think more and more young people in general have this unearned sense of entitlement. Then they get shut down and cry about it. Case in point.Nicelydrawn
- nocomply0
Dude I hear you. I used to love design when I was in college. I designed things I thought were cool, and in my mind I got to a point where I was doing them pretty well. I drew influences from everything around me. Architecture, gritty streets, magazines, apparel, the web, etc...
But as I became older and saw the same trends overused and abused I started to become sick of it. Everyone was doing the exact same thing. Most design is a just a commodity now. Maybe it always was, but when I was just a young punk I was naive to it and it all seemed exciting and "cutting edge" to me.
But at any rate, in conjunction with design I have always enjoyed web development, so over the years I've simply gravitated more to that field. I still design website interfaces and layouts, but no longer do any print work, logos, etc... That stuff just doesn't interest me the way it used to.
In some ways I've actually become kind of anti-design. I often just see it as cheap wrapping paper covering what I'm really after: content. I've gravitated towards a more minimalist aesthetic over the years because I've started to feel like design just doesn't matter as much as I used to think it did. Obviously things have to look "good," but I no longer incorporate "design" just for the hell of it.
Sorry, not sure if this is "advice" per se, but maybe it'll help to at least know you're not entirely alone.
- GeorgesII0
I put everything in prayer,
Dear Lord Jesus Christ (cthulhu, Jobs, Noodly, etc)please let tomorrow not be the same as today,
no more half-assed wireframes,
no more accounts,
no more soporific reunions,
dear lord, I want to get a raise but not too much,
I'm not too needy, just 15% more,Amen
ps: please clean this planet of all designers who pretend to be art directors because they did a site for the local hairdresser, or some shitty copy or a copy of a trendy print.
Amen X 2
