Comments | blythechild: I feel as though art college sold me 4 years of snake oil

blythechild

I feel as though art college sold me 4 years of snake oil

Jul 09, 2015 17:01

So, today I had to bail on the Tentacle Big Bang. I feel sad and guilty and all kinds of terrible, but there just wasn't enough time to get the artwork finished for the deadline. I was hoping to squeak out an 11th hour finish this week, but the clients dumped a metric fuckton of work on me (you know, the kind that pays boring things like rent an' ( Read more... )

powerpoint, stop the world - i wanna get off, the mind is a terrible thing to taste, fan art, youtube, music, video, this is why we can't have nice things, fuckity fuck fuck, design, stupid clients, blythe is gonna blow, work, pissed off, tentacles, desk dancing, musical tastes

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amberdreams July 9 2015, 21:10:21 UTC

What is your job then, do you mind me asking?

blythechild July 9 2015, 21:19:13 UTC

I'm a Powerpoint designer. I work mostly for those who have little or no creative impulses (like doctors, lawyers, bankers, pharma companies etc.) and I create animated modules for conferences, meetings, quarterly reporting sessions, product roll-outs and other things like that. I also go onsite to conferences to operate the modules if the clients require it (that's my mostly my second job - I work for 2 companies at the moment).

But I went to art school to be an illustrator *sniffles*...

amberdreams July 9 2015, 21:36:08 UTC

oooooh! But at least your job is sort of design related - there are, after all, many much more boring areas of work you could have slid into. I actually studied to be an archaeologist and ended up spending 24 years in the civil service doing various office monkey jobs. It did actually end up being quite good fun most of the time but it wasn't much like archaeology! LOL

blythechild July 9 2015, 21:43:59 UTC

Yeah, I'm lucky to being doing anything related to design. Before this, I was working in sales and I hated it. The biggest challenge of my current job is dealing with people who aren't creative on a regular basis. I don't expect people to see things the way I do, but I spend a lot of time listening to "advice" from doctors and lawyers about how things should look, and it usually makes me want to give them "advice" about their next surgery or torts case. I guess working in sales taught me some people skills because I haven't told any of them to shut their traps yet ;)

You're the third person I've met this month who studied archaeology and is doing something else instead. *spooky fingers*

amberdreams July 9 2015, 21:57:09 UTC

Ha ha really? Who'd have thought there'd be so many archaeologists around! LOL

But yeah, I've done some work both sides of the design fence - as a customer and as a designer (not professional or qualified but in the civil service we have to turn our hands to all sorts of roles). It's interesting how opinionated some people are about colour and text and suchlike while having absolutely no idea what looks good and what doesn't. But you can really tell the difference between someone with zero ability, someone with a dash of an idea, and a person who is actually a for real designer.

blythechild July 10 2015, 13:24:09 UTC

Colour is very personal, like music, but I'm always surprised by people's strong reactions to fonts. I've never thought of typography to be emotional except to designers (or maybe I have an unusual amount of clients with synesthesia?). I encourage opinions from clients - they are paying, after all - but there's a line. If you hired a professional, you should listen to their advice, right? Listening isn't so hard ;)

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