Comments on: How Inexperience can teach you about Design

By: Dot Design

Dot Design — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 15:28:00 +0000

I good list tracey, point 4 is always worth reminding yourself of. its good to get away from the mac to form ideas, have a scribble etc! You have a good blog here, I will be back! Cheers, Gareth

By: Tracey Grady

Tracey Grady — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 04:54:59 +0000

Tara:
A very discouraging start for schoolkids to go to all that effort for such a low return! And the tea-towel printer probably wasn‚Äôt making a lot of money from the enterprise himself I guess, but it‚Äôs amazing how some people will take advantage of a student who thinks a few pounds is a lot of money. I‚Äôm glad things have improved since those days!

By: Tara

Tara — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 15:19:35 +0000

Hi Tracey,

Your story takes me back to some of things I have done. When I was in the 6th form at school we had to set up a mini company made of of students and try to make money and see how a company works. I ended up doing loads of pen and ink sketches of local village churches which we photocopied and make into calendars. I think I ended up getting just a few pounds for my trouble.

Also when I was first at college I used to do pen and ink drawings of local scenes for a guy who lived in my village and printed tea towels. I think I got about ¬£10.00 then extra if they were reprinted (it seemed like a lot for a poor student at the time)

By: Tracey

Tracey — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 07:57:46 +0000

Lucinda:
There are definitely times when the experience is the most valuable thing you can gain out of a project, especially if it produces a piece of work you can put in your portfolio.

Vivien:
Approaching a store like that with your designs is a pretty brave thing to do, especially when you’re 15. Fantastic that one of your cards got sold, first try! It sounds like the experience encouraged you to push on to bigger and better things, which is how it should be.

By: inspirationbit

inspirationbit — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 01:06:51 +0000

It is a very interesting topic indeed.
My first paid Graphic design experience is similar to Tracey’s in that it also involved designing a card. I was 15. There was one store that I really liked with lots of handmade stuff, so I thought of designing a couple of cards for the upcoming Easter and submitting them to this store. Most of my young life i was always drawing cards for my family, so this time I wondered if I can actually get paid for that. I drew two very cute Easter cards with chicks and eggs, and even sprinkled them with tiny colourful glass pieces (from a broken Christmas decoration). One of my cards was sold the next day, the other one the store owner returned to me a week later, and paid me $3.

What I have learned from this experience is that I better design something that can bring me more money, and that it’s quite difficult to promote and sell your work even in stores where handmade craft is appreciated.

By: Lucinda Thompson - Eightyone Design

Lucinda Thompson - Eightyone Design — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 13:09:27 +0000

I definitely agree with your friend, they are more demanding, however you gain a lot of experience rather than money, and sometimes money isn’t everything (that was what I was telling myself at the time anyway!)!

By: Tracey

Tracey — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 22:16:26 +0000

Kevin:
Sounds great! I hope he was happy with the website. It’s good to have such a positive experience of starting out.

Lucinda:
I’m glad you enjoyed the post. One of the things I remember from the time when I was first contemplating moving into Graphic Design, was a friend (a Designer) telling me that in her experience the pro-bono jobs were the most demanding – always changing their minds or wanting a bit more here, a bit more there. I’m not sure that that’s true in every case, but it sounds like it matches your story. You learned some good lessons early on from the sound of it.

By: Lucinda Thompson - Eightyone Design

Lucinda Thompson - Eightyone Design — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 16:33:47 +0000

Hi Tracey

What an interesting topic!

I remember one of my first jobs, it was whilst I was still in full time employment and trying to build up my portfolio to go freelance. I had agreed to do a flyer for a small company (the owner was a friend of a friend) I agreed to do this for free. It should have been a relatively easy task but the client kept changing their mind about the design and concept and it dragged out for ages. From this I learnt to have a limited amount of amends for the agreed price so I can keep a hold of the project. I also learnt to be more assertive and ensure that the client knows what their objectives are before I start any work.

I think it’s important to look back (even if it’s just 3 months) and see how far you’ve come (or not if that’s the case). I try to look at every project and assess the good and bad points and try to learn from them so I don’t make the same mistakes the next time round.

Lucinda Thompson – Eightyone Design’s last blog post … Pattern design inspiration from Spain

By: Kevin Boss

Kevin Boss — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 13:17:28 +0000

A bottle of wine? Awesome payment. My first job was a full website for a friend of mine. Every time I stopped over his house to work on the site, he fed me pizza, cheese steaks, etc. Good times! Kevin Boss's last blog post ... Clients and Creative Control