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Anyone else watched Shtisel?! Sooo funny.
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For those of you who build websites, how do you display your built sites on your portfolio site? Do you have a page where you mock up the site or do you do a direct link? I currently have both. I’m just trying to figure out the best way for me. Here is my site for reference. The links for the sites are in the menu and below in the gallery. Sarahbellestudios.com
How do you handle revisions at a company?
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Anyone at Nike? What’s the vibe?
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I initially pictured learning on the job and working my way up, but quickly realized with working at an early startup, things are super chaotic and im doing rushed design work without any process, and more importantly no mentorship. As a young designer, i want to be great in this field that I’m passionate about and i feel im not learning things the right way and i get the feeling I will attract similar companies where i am now without going to school. I know that i can always self learn as well at night, but I work 50h-60+ a week (design/startup generalist tasks) 🙃 so really thinking about learning design the right way and intern at big companies/agency. It’s costly and would cost me approx 40k in loans, but i have seen alumnis in the programnow work at google/facebook/ueno/concrete which is promising. I would love to hear anyone’s thoughts.
I’ll just say as someone who has worked at some of the more established tech companies you listed that even there things can be chaotic and rushed. School can be great, but real work in your portfolio is typically more meaningful than school work made in a vacuum and optimal conditions. If you feel the culture at your startup can evolve to give you more space to go deep with your work, I’d say stay and supplement your knowledge with books and online classes.
Not worth the debt! Job experience and portfolio will always trump a degree. Unless the design school really hooks ya up in a community with good jobs, you’re going to have to hustle either way to get anywhere.
pro of school is the possibility to intern somewhere big that sets you up for success. Looking through LinkedIn at people employed at Apple, Netflix, google, Airbnb, Uber... mostly interned at one of them as their in
Sounds like you’re 21 with no formal training working in an unstructured environment with no design leadership to frame how things ought to or could be done, or mentorship to guide your growth. Yeah, get out of there, invest in yourself, get into a good program that can help you leapfrog the low-end and propel you to be great. I was hired out of college without a portfolio at a global ad agency in NY and left after 3 years for a 2-yr program because I wasn’t growing I was flailing. I didn’t think I could flail my way to greatness.
I’m self taught everything. I learned a lot on the job (since I was doing a little of everything: UI, print, digital, etc). I took a lot of risks! somehow nobody really caught on.
I ask a lot of questions (sorry i’m annoying). I watched a lot of tutorials online.. and learned by watching others/dissecting other designers files. I study others portfolios/behance. Continuously try to expose myself to great work/campaigns.
I would say I am SUPER lucky. Never went to art school.. or anything related. It’s important to listen to your client and fulfill their creative needs. Not your creative vision. Find your niche (as a designer). I do corporate design (it’s easier!). I don’t tend to do fun/super creative designs.
my opinion: school is a waste of money and time. nobody (really) cares where you went to school.. they just care about how talented are you & can you complete my task.
I was exactly where you were and stayed working in early startup and now trying to get out and work somewhere bigger is hard. I wish I did what you’re thinking and doing a focused program in UI/UX and interning at big companies. Would of set me up for better opportunities earlier. I’m on the job hunt now and if someplace doesn’t give me a chance I may end up trying to do that anyway but at 28 not 21.
I have heard similar stories! For me, While I’ve obviously learned valuable things, part of the concern i have is that I’m picking up bad habits due to the desire to scale fast (which ive heard is normal for early tech startups).. things like designing straight to figma without any proper research/user testing to inform design.. I can imagine providing a case study for a portfolio will be rough as it’s not how most companies operate (at least for well paying product design jobs i wanted to work at). Later learned Founders dont believe in branding too, which is the work i wanted to do before getting hired. I kind of envisioned how difficult or ineffective any brand will be if the founders from the very beginning dont believe or understand its value.
Depends on your book. Be selective on schools and what you hope to achieve. Take out minimal loans.
I always wondered if it was worth it, -going to school I mean. In the end all that matters is the quality of your portfolio. If you can squeeze as much as you can out of faculty and if you need the time and space to work on your book then I will say that it is worth it. Hell you don't even have to graduate just take the classes that will get you the good work.
It’s all about the book.
I only went to community college and interned, but put endless hours into my portfolio. Stay outta debt!!!
For me, I found a night class portfolio program (like a boot camp) that cost under 5k. I combined that with udemy courses to polish my skills in Sketch and then worked on side projects with developer friends to create front end designs that I wanted to play with. I worked 3 years in places that let me touch some national clients (but not FANG). Now I’m 26 and just got hired as a Lead Product Designer at an SF startup- I think partly because we’re under the 100 employee mark but also because I had a portfolio and lots of case studies with a range of both UI/UX and visual designs. It doesn’t hurt to stay hungry too!!
These are all valuable insights, thank you for sharing all your input! :)