Just wondering how everyone got to be so good?
I enjoy trying to design as a hobby and I love drawing and making stuff up. I was just interested to hear how those of you who design as your 'job' how you got there?
Did you do graphic design courses and things or did you just go it alone, teach yourselves and then applied for places with your portfolio?
I am really looking into doing a proper graphics course but its going to be real expensive. I was wondering if there was any other alternative and would be real interested to hear anyones advice.
Thanks.
35 Comments
ChadDoesDesign said 4 months ago
idk if im "good" at it but i only took a high school course and learned everything on my own. but i mainly make myspace layouts.lol i plan on going to college soon though.
Quest said 4 months ago
I personally didnt even go to Highschool, i got my GED after being fruitlessly homeschooled for several years. But ive been doing graphic design since i was 9 using MS Paint to make banners for websites and whatnot. But everything up to this point is completely self taught. But if i had the money/time/opportunity, i would have definitely gone to college for it.
Ameeee said 4 months ago
Computer Graphic Design course which focused on the programs, come to Australia and do it in 3 months ft..haha www.shillingtoncollege.com.au
They’re opening one up in Manchester...I’d highly recommend it.
quakerninja said 4 months ago
I went to University of Hawaii with a BFA in FA.
Started with finger paints in Kindergarden and worked my way up. I did traditional media, Ink and paints, but tired of the gallery snobs and went digital about two years ago. I’m still trying to dial it in. Education is always a good idea. Keep at it, draw everyday, try new things. You get out what you put in.
make planes not waste said 4 months ago
Thats awesome I just requested a brochure for Melbourne. I have folks over in Victoria anyway so I could easily stay for nothing , would just have to fund the rest of it. Sweet. Thanks I really appreciate that!!!
Ameeee said 4 months ago
No problem - the guy that runs it is super nice. The teachers all work as graphic designers - and Melbourne is freaking awesome for design and fashion etc. Good luck!
I should also mention that I did it Part Time for a year, and it’s perfectly managable with full time job. You can pay for the course up front or pay week by week.
discordantart said 4 months ago
i like drawing a lot and have my whole life. started teaching myself web design and photoshop in sixth grade (7-8 years ago) due to a lack of companionship. took every art class offered in high school once and some twice, but only what was offered. then i went to CIA for a sec, dropped out, and yeahhh, here i am!
i started merch early sophomore year, so around 5 years ago. and have been a slave since, its fun
Quest said 4 months ago
Randomentity said 4 months ago
I was supposed to be a surgeon, or something in the medical field. But I really didn’t want to go through 8 years of school. I took art classes in high school, i was "the worst drawing student i’ve ever had", thank you Ms. Anthony. I went to community college for um, communications specialization, picked up a copy of illustrator 9 on the gov’t's dollar, thank you grants. Then dropped out of college cuz I really didn’t want to be there. I was too busy surviving for a few years, and had no idea what i wanted to be when i grew up, until about a year ago, my girlfriend at the time persuaded me to go back to school, so i started at the Art Institute Online since i had to work full time. Took about 2 semesters, and then dropped out. Going back to school was the worst thing i’ve ever done. I’ve taught myself more, and learned more from talking to people in the field then i did in those classes.
I"m not quite a professional yet, but I think i’m coming along.
School works for some people, some people it doesn’t. I think if it’s something you want bad enough, and you feel the need to do it, then school is just a waste of time.
corefolio said 4 months ago
I did an Art School at high school and an Academy Art course for two years... plus one useless course as 'web-designer'...
now I work for a clothing company (not the style I like to draw) and draw some merch for small death/core bands :]
justinryan said 4 months ago
I don’t know if I’m "good" at this either, but I’ve been doing it full time for a few years. I didn’t have any training or anything.. just did it all myself. Read a lot, practiced a lot, etc. Whether you decide to go to school/take classes or not, never stop learning. Always have your eyes open.
shantyshawn said 4 months ago
I’ve been drawing my whole life. When I was a kid, we lived next door to this old lady whose son was an animator for Disney. He used to bring me coloring books, crayons, etc.
I went to college, but dropped out in my junior year. It was a huge help though! If I had it to do all over, I woulda said fuck partying and concentrated on school. Either way, even in the Army infantry, I managed to keep doing art and when I got out, I became a tattoo artist.
That was a way for me to do art and pay my bills. Now it’s given me the ability to work at that part time and concentrate fully on painting and design work.
The cool thing about art today, is the conventions of a degree no longer prevent us from becoming successful, eating artists. However, school will offer you things beyond, just classes. Like self-discipline, the experience of your instructors and cool stickers for the back window of your car.
My advice is practice your ass off, learn everything you can, read, read , read, especially about all those who’ve come before you. Designers, painters, illustrators, etc., you can learn something from all of them and derive a great deal of inspiration.
This message has been brought to you by Painters Opening Opportunities for People, or POOP, as we like to call it!
Ameeee said 4 months ago
I went to Sydney - so I’ll be biased and recommend that. However - Melbourne is fantastic for music/design and has a great cafe culture..so it’s pretty cool too..
justinryan said 4 months ago
My first few years, I remember people flat out refusing to even look at my portfolio because I didn’t have a bachelors. Now, as long as the work is good, that’s all that seems to matter.
And I agree with your advice.
wotto said 4 months ago
I have a degree in illustration and have been freelancing for 10 years. It aint been easy but I am finally getting somewhere in terms of money and clients.
justgeoff said 4 months ago
Well, I’m not speaking on behalf of the good or great artists, I’m just offering up my journey, good or bad.
I’ve been drawing as long as I can remember. It’s just what came natural to me. When other kids were drawing stick figures I was already drawing pictures that had some sort of composition to them. They weren’t amazing but they were definitely past stick figures. All through elementary school, middle school, and high school art is what always came natural to me. I loved going to art classes because it never seemed like work, it was second nature.
After high school I enrolled at The University of Akron. Originally I wanted to go into art education but eventually settled on graphic design, figuring if I ever wanted to teach I could always go that route in the future. Art school was pretty easy, for the most part. I graduated in 4 years but in the end I wonder how necessary my diploma is. I definitely learned more on my own after college than I did in college.
The one class that always sticks out to me from college is life drawing. Those life drawing classes DEFINITELY helped my drawing abilities. I really think it helps a ton to understand what’s happening on the inside in order to draw what’s on the outside. I believe this holds true for drawing many realistic things, not just people. College also taught me how to have a thick skin, since everything you do gets critiqued by the class. You learn to stop getting hurt by the critiques and start using them to your advantage.
After college I spent some time working for small design firms, managing a screen printing department while doing all the design, and even working for a performance art theater as the box office manager and graphic designer.
Eventually I just said "screw it" and went out on my own. Was it the smartest decision? Not initially. I struggled a lot. It was harder getting work than I thought. I eventually hooked up with a consortium of designers, programmers, marketing people, etc. called Sprokets. That helped a ton because people came to THEM for work. Finally I was making decent, not great, money.
In December of 2007 I stumbled upon Emptees while just looking for tee shirt designs. I knew I really wanted to do merch design but had no clue how to snag good clients. I posted a few of my designs on Emptees. Some were well received, others not so much (get used to that, all you new designers!). Eventually small brands and labels were contacting me and asking if I could do designs! From there it just snowballed to the point that I have to turn down quite a bit of work due to my schedule. I’ve raised my rates a number of times in order to lighten the workload while still making the same amount of money, or more if possible. I’ve also found that not doing spec work has been a big turning point. About 5 months ago a lot of my work was spec and it was killing me. Nothing like competing against 20 artists for 1 or 2 designs. It ended up wasting a lot of my time. At this point, people are aware of my work, either on Emptees or on my portfolio
Whew, that was a mouthful! At any rate, that’s me in a nutshell. I’m very very grateful for Emptees. This site helped put me in a position to do what I want by making my work visible to the right people.
LitoQ said 4 months ago
I piss excellence...
Ameeee said 4 months ago
haha
Tender Branson said 4 months ago
My dad worked for the local newspaper back in the day when they still used to cut and paste. I use to hang out there all day/summer when I wasn’t in school. That’s when I got into computers (when they finally started using them for production).
I started working for a weekly newspaper around age 12 doing all the design/layout, etc. so I got a lot of experience from that and high school for me was mostly filled with art classes.
I did a stint of college at SCAD (Savannah College of Art and Design) but went through a pretty tragic family matter and didn’t have the want to go back to school and finish.
Jump to the present: I have been with the same advertising agency for 8 years now doing graphic design/web design. We also now have a printing company and a billboard company so I basically try to dabble in a bit of everything.
Most everything I’ve learned has been self taught or learned through experience, I’m afraid that school didn’t really teach me much of anything.
derekdeal said 4 months ago
sweet story geoff
i always liked drawing, as a kid i used to try and draw my favorite heroes from my comic books, make ninja turtle characters and mega man enemies to send into nintendo power. I had friends who used to nerd it up with me and we would build on each others characters. I was always huge into animation, and thought it was what i wanted to do with my life so i went to school for it.
By the time i got my core classes out of the way and started getting into my major, i started lossing faith in my drawing abilities and level of patience for the trade so i started experimenting in other realms of media. I took classes in film, sequential art, stop motion animation and traditional graphic design before i settled in motion graphics. As far as i could tell at the time, it was the best combination of everything else that i was dabbling in.
What they didn’t tell me in school is that almost all of the broadcast design gigs are in New York or La, and since I didnt have the means to get there, I got work out of school at small agencies, doing anything from tv commercials to websites, branding, brochures, packaging, animation, fucking set design, you name it. Im still at one now, i get thrown different kinds of work all the time and it keeps me on my toes which is cool. I didnt know 75% of the stuff I should have to be able to excel at those jobs, but its sink or swim. If I didnt know something I looked it up and figured it out.
So now im back where I started in a sense, having a lot more fun drawing ninja turtle looking characters and building my skills as an illustrator.
One of the big things that’s changed is now I feel like I have the patience that I lacked in school. I spend a ton of time referencing subjects and studying techniques where I would have just hashed something together out of my head before. I think its helped a lot.
Like geoff I would also like to thank emptees, but not for the help getting jobs, but for giving me the opportunity to write introspective essays when I should be working. Thanks emptees, you’re the best.
a killer wombat said 4 months ago
Like everyone else here I started drawing back when I could first pick up a crayon (and still do when I go eat at restaurants. I’m the 22 year old guy that still gets a kid menu so I can color). I started out drawing ninja turtles and all that stuff. Taking the toys and trying to put them into different battle scenes and trying to recreate it on paper.
I never really took art classes in school because I found them so limiting. Everything was so tailored down to make everyone feel like they could draw that I got really frustrated being held back instead of allowing me to expend my creativity. In the end of middle school I started getting into web design and development and doing my art as a side thing, to me I never thought I would make any money drawing or anything along those lines so it was always the fall back... even though now I am getting paid to draw.
I ended up going to college for web design because once again, felt like I would make a better living doing that so it could support my love for design and art. I do love code though, im one of those strange people that will get as much joy from linking an AS file to Mysql as I will finishing up a new painting. I bounced around to a few places in the first year out of school and nothing seemed like the right fit for me. To much office politics and being so young in the industry no one was taking me seriously. So basically I told everyone I worked with to f-off and broke out on my own. Here I am 6-7 months later and loving life. Get to work on so many different things daily it keeps my creativity satisfied. I could be illustrating a book one day and building a CMS the next.
... haha, like the others before me thanks emptees! I have met so many chill / awesome designers because of this site!... and a note to anyone new in the industry, don’t under estimate the value of working for someone else. You don’t need to start up your own company right out of school.
sockmonkee said 4 months ago
I pretty much drew ninja turtles as a kid. As time passed by, I started drawing batman to add to my arsenal. During middle school, music took a hold of my life and I put the pencil down. Throughout high school - 2nd year of college, music was everything and I was pretty set on making it...somehow.
Obviously, that didn’t work out, but during that time an awesome man by the name of Chris Rushing did my bands merch. His skills blew my mind away and I decided, I want to be like The Rush and design cool things all day, everyday, 100% of the day.
After I quit the band during my 2nd year of college, I headed over to The Rush’s apartment equipped with a brand new MacBook Pro. The Rush was saucesome enough to give me loads of tips and a helping hand (thank you still to this day Chris). From there I switched my major from music to Graphic Design which I’ll be done with in another year (sorry to all my clients for my wacky schedule).
Besides designing my bands ugly merch, my first real design jobs were for local bands and what not. From there, I used loads of Dover Clip Art images to help me along the way. About a year into designing, I decided this Dover thing isn’t me so I picked up the "mighty pencil" and popped out the Franky design for Gym Class Heroes. It turned out pretty well if I say so myself and it’s what I still do to this day. I’m still learning a lot about my drawing/skills/etc since I had such a huge break of not drawing beforehand. So thats my story in a super small nutshell.
Like everyone else and their mother has stated, I give loads of thanks to emptees. It has proved to be a very useful tool in reaching other designers, work, and what not. It’s also a great way to waste your day instead of working :D
restartmyheart said 4 months ago
rather than give my whole life story i’m going to sum it up:
i never went to college nor had a real job my entire life. i’ve been using photoshop since i was like 11. i started freelancing my junior year of high school doing projects for rise, epitaph and a few other labels. my parents were going through a shitty time right after i graduated high school so i started taking design more seriously. a year later i had money saved up, moved out and got my own place. so far it’s been 2-3 years on my own and it’s been great. i still haven’t had a real job and currently living very comfortably by freelancing.
skullface said 4 months ago
these replies are very interesting reads
I feel so much closer to you all knowing this
cajun metal said 4 months ago
oh man you should totally go. The one thing I’ve learned is, like Shawn up there said, it will be worth it if you actually concentrate on design and just say no to partying. Treat design like your favorite band. Buy everything you can about it and live it. Shawns also right about getting by without a degree. But a school will have a concentrated flow of info about the stuff you’re concerned with: Design. Which is way easier than tracking it down on your own. Some people are great at this and seemed to have come out of the womb making perfect compositions but being able to explain why that composition works always feels good.
edgillustrator said 4 months ago
heres my life story in a nutshell.
i started drawing when i found out i could hold a pencil which was when i was about 5-6, the first thing i remember drawing use to be me kissing a girl i use to like in kindergarten while id watch power rangers. i then found out people actually took a liking in my drawings when i was in 5th grade when my teacher approached me about some drawings i did in my books and told me i had talent and as i have parents who, unfortunately, dont show much interest in me or what i do unless i leave the house (for some reason i get the sense they keep me prisoner in my own home. anyway) i really depended on other peoples encouragement to keep on drawing. though for a period of time i stopped drawing and that was when i was about 11, only because i got into dancing alot and put all my time into that.
when i was about 15 or so i think, i got sick of the dancing scene since the movie 'you got served' provided every dance hall with kids who thought dancing was all about dressing up gangster and seeing who can say 'yo' as much as possible in their sentences, and that is where i started drawing full time again.
when i was 16 i found out that i could actually make money from what drawing, and a local band who i was friends with told me that they wold actually use my design for a shirt ( which unfortunately, came out AWFUL)and that was when i decided to start my career as a designer.
im 17 going onto 18 now and ive taught myself everything i know, it wasnt easy finding out how to do everything myself, but now that i look at it, i feel it was really worth it and mind you, ive never had a job that required me to leave the house OR mop the floors which is great!
the down fall of teaching myself everything i know is that i feel REALLY uncomfortable and sometimes annoyed when people ask me how i do my stuff and what i use and such, especially when they just have that annoying aura around them ... you all know what i mean.
the only time i really talk about design techniques and drawing tips to people is actually on this website, only because i feel everybody on this site is genuinely talented and giving, so the least i can do is give something back.
make planes not waste said 4 months ago
Thanks Everyone its really been helpful this thread.
Just Lke To Say A Big Thanks To You Ameeee! That place looks awesome and I am looking at going to melbourne next may. Just trying to get some cash for a deposit and I am gone haha! Thanks :)
a killer wombat said 4 months ago
... the other owner of we are synapse lives in melbourne, i wanna go soon!
MICHAEL SHANTZ said 4 months ago
i went to university for 4 years. i have a bachelor in fine arts.. and took 2 years of psychology, creative writing and history.
in fine arts i specialized in drawing but also took 3 years of video, photography, mixed media and design
make planes not waste said 4 months ago
well I have got A-Levels in art film and media studies, and I have just finished a degree in Photography. But I am really into design and its a passion I have discovered and really want to learn more and more. I wanted to do a course somehow but everywhere is so expensive to do another 3 year Univeristy course so this thing at Shillington is absolutely perfect!!!
Randomentity said 4 months ago
wow, it’s like everyone in here was drawing since like, forever. I’m totally not one of the cool kids.
Benjamin Lande said 4 months ago
I basically drew Guns N Roses, The Joker and Ninja Turtles over and over when I was a kid. By middle school I became pretty obsessed with Mortal Kombat, Valiant comics and punk and started making these hilarious overly violent comics with way too many big boobs and really bad social commentaries. This continued through high school where I decided I was going to be a comic artist.
I went to SCAD where I became a total teachers pet and spent most of my free time making Derek Hess inspired art. I decided on an illustration major, figuring that an editorial illustration career would be my most realistic option.
After a handful of shitty jobs and bad freelance projects I never thought I would be working with bands full time...mission accomplished!! fin.
Ameeee said 4 months ago
That’s really exciting! You’ll have soooo much fun!!!! Good luck!!!!
Do it, Melbourne rocks!
"Crazy" Mike said 4 months ago
As kid . . . I used to draw cartoon and video stuff in crayons all the time, then when I got older I started doodling in pencil. Then eventually I started doing work that was drawn in pencil and inked in pen and colored in pencil. Then when I got into high school I took some multimedia classes and a digital art class and realized that seemed fun and I was decent at it. I mean originally I wanted to major in computer science but realized I sucked hard at it.
So I went to college and decided to major in digital graphics and multimedia instead. Did that graduated. Then I had pretty much no success finding a design job and ending up working at a electronic store selling DVD’s . . . which was horrible so I quit that and continued to look for a design job to do. A couple months into that I wasn’t having too much success with that again.
So I decided to spice up my portfolio site a little, and while doing that I decided to attempt my plan B. Which was if no one was gonna pay me to do art . . . so I figured to start taking this company that I made up a little more seriously and make it some kind of job and gain some experience off it. Because heck even if it becomes like a huge epic fail like it probably is, at least I could say I had experience running my own freelance/design company . . . or does it not work like that O_o?
rlhcreations said 4 months ago
I’ve been drawing since I could pick up a crayon, marker, anything that left color behind. lol. I drew on anything and everything. Loved to draw and have done it all my life. When computers became more commonplace in the house I used Paint all the time to make desktop backgrounds. lol.
In high school I took any art class and computer class they had available. Senior year of high school, some chick from the Art Institute came to talk to my English class about graphic design so I thought that would be prefect for me since I didn’t think fine art was my future or being a art teacher (my councilor kept telling me that was my only choice if I wanted to do something with drawing). Went to a different, less expensive design school and got my degree. I learned a lot from school but I think I learned more after I got a job in the field.