Essential topics include chapters on: Why Go to Design School? Most people (and especially most parents who are sending their kid to college) assume that by going to design school you are purchasing a career. Go to school, do well, graduate, get a job, live happily ever after. Getting a job is an excellent reason to get an education, and working and making money is something I personally enjoy very much. The reality is that despite all the time and money spent, there is no guarantee that you will get a job when you graduate, no matter what your school’s marketing department says on the website. What you will get when you decide to go to design school is an education in creative practice and active curiosity — which may lead to a job, and very often does. Discomfort You should embrace both the comfort and the discomfort. It is not healthy to be constantly and endlessly uncomfortable and on edge the entire time you are at school —that can become damaging emotionally and physically. It is also equally unhealthy to always feel safe and perfectly in your comfort zone — so you become stagnant and float through your classes. You should seek out places to be both comfortable and uncomfortable. This extends to your life both while at school and after. The point here is that you need the contrast of both comfort and discomfort for each of them to be more valuable. You want to avoid an easy, predictable, and neutral design school experience. Failure An excellent way to make great work is to not be afraid of making bad work. We live in a goal-oriented culture, where you are always expected to be the best, to be at the top, and to win. Failure, as they say, is not an option. So of course, you come to school thinking that you can’t fail at anything, because you have been taught that for your entire life. The good news is that school is the best possible place to make the worst work you have ever made. You are inside a place of making and critique, where you have teachers and classmates who are all there for the same reason: to learn. (Yes, good teachers are there to learn as much as to teach.) In design school, failure can be incredibly valuable and, I would argue, necessary. Collaboration The way students react to a group project assignment has always amused me. There are always some groans and some exasperated sighs, their eyes get wide, they awkwardly shift in their seats, and you can tell they are uncomfortable — very uncomfortable — with the idea of doing a group project. Even the people who like doing group projects get uncomfortable when I first mention it. Here is the thing: design is a collaborative activity. Both in and out of school you are and will always be working with other people and collaborating on making work. Even if you are locked alone in a room creating work, you are still collaborating with a client or with the client’s audience. Collaboration is an important part of life as a designer. You have to learn how to do it, and I very strongly suggest you learn how to do it well. What About an MFA? A bfa should prepare you to start working in an entry-level design position, and from there you can move up all the way to the top of the profession. But what about getting a master’s degree? Should you be thinking about graduate school before you graduate from your undergrad? Good graduate programs are not just advanced versions of undergraduate programs. You have to think of a master’s degree in art and design as a two-year-long independent study rather than as a bunch of classes you have to pass to get a degree. This difference — which can be quite jarring for those who are not ready for it — is why I very strongly recommend students do not go directly from undergrad into grad. You need at least two to five years of professional experience as a designer before you should be ready to commit to grad school. Heroes As somebody who is curious about design, you see work on the Internet all the time, and you have some favorite artists and designers you admire and appreciate. In fact, you probably have some heroes of design: people who you think are nothing short of brilliant in the work they make and their creative practice. Heroes are good. Looking up to another designer, admiring them, and wanting to eventually get to their level is a good thing to do. What is not a good thing to do is to think of them as gods. Every single designer you like has made horrible, awful, crappy work. When you start moving forward in your career, something interesting might happen: people might start looking at you as a hero. If this happens — and I hope it does, because it is an amazing feeling — you should be honest about the good stuff and the bad stuff.
✔ Author(s): Mitch Goldstein,Jarrett Fuller
✔ Title: How to Be a Design Student (and How to Teach Them) (-)
✔ Rating : 4.9 out of 5 base on (25 reviews)
✔ ISBN-10: 1797222295
✔ ISBN-13: 9781797222295
✔ Language: English
✔ Format ebook: PDF, EPUB, Kindle, Audio, HTML and MOBI
✔ Device compatibles: Android, iOS, PC and Amazon Kindle
Readers' opinions about How to Be a Design Student by Mitch Goldstein
Katherine Stevenson
This book has reignited my passion for reading. It reminded me of the sheer joy that can be found in losing oneself in the pages of a good story. I can't wait to explore more books now.
Daphne Garner
The way the author handled complex emotions and relationships was remarkable. I felt deeply connected to the characters, and their growth throughout the story was both inspiring and moving.
Rosa Bax
The characters in this book felt like old friends, and I was sad to say goodbye to them at the end. It's a testament to the author's talent for creating memorable and relatable personas.
