Advice for Design Students 2008

With my alma mater beginning a new school year this week, I want to give the students at the Design Program there two more advice to continue from the list I started last November.

Have a Life Outside of Design

Don’t let design be your life. I’m not talking about doing all-nighters in the final two or three weeks of each quarter/term and declining invitations to parties. You may love design, but it’s not everything. I have quoted Michael Bierut before that “design is about everything,” but that doesn’t mean design is everything; it’s about everything else.

Have a separate passion: music, the environment, politics, sports, love, whatever. That way, 1) you have an escape if you get frustrated with design or have a designer’s block, and 2) you have a topic on which to base your next design project.

That’s partly why I chose to go to UC Davis instead of an art school; I got to be around people of different interests: Bio-chem majors, Engineering majors, Sociology majors, etc., and I got to take different types of classes, and learn about nutrition and grammar and neuroscience and exercise and acting and a bunch of other non-design topics. Take advantage of college, especially since you’re paying so much for it.

Teach Yourself

It’s not that they’re not doing a good job, but our professors and faculty are there to give you information and guide you with their knowledge about the subject; you have to use that information for what you want to do. Just because it’s a class on ActionScript doesn’t mean that you just need to complete the bare minimum of the assignments and you’ll be an AS expert. You know that one student who’s exceptionally good with it? Yeah, he/she didn’t learn it from a class, it’s from self-teaching.

So do yourself a favor, and teach yourself what you don’t know but want to, be it a programming language or the history of printing. You can take a class if you don’t know where to start, but in the end you are the one who’s going to have to do it; no one can live your life and learn ActionScript for you.

Flush.

Those Who Can’t Do

“Those who can’t do, teach. Those who can’t teach, judge.”

The first part is a common saying, and I made up the second part. If this was true, I wonder if those who judge are the public. And is it fitting for design?

Now, of course, those who can do can also teach and judge. It’s one of those category-within-category concepts: Everyone can judge; some can teach; a few can do/design.

This came to me when my family and I were watching this Taiwanese show with an American Idol-derived competition for magic, where the judges were really critical on the contestants’ performances. I’m sure the judges had some experience with performing magic, but what about the judges out there who can’t do whatever task they’re judging?

I often picture situations where a contestant, or student, is being critiqued by judges or teachers for not doing something well, and he or she comes back with, “Why don’t I see you try to do that?” (I know I thought about this many times at swim practices in high school after hearing the coaches’ criticism.)

So is the opening statement valid, in general and in design?

Flush.