Below please find links and support materials to help you succeed in this course and beyond. If you don’t find the resources you’re looking for, just ask!

Readings

Articles and Books About Picking a Design Job & Keeping a Design Job

  • The AIGA Guide to Careers in Graphic and Communication Design: This book just came out last year, it is the definitive guide to your design career. I can’t recommend it enough. 
  • Design is a Job: A frank book about the realities of working as a designer.
  • The Graphic Artist Guild Handbook: Pricing & Ethical Guidelines: This handbook will describe everything from pricing scales for freelance work to salary scales for in-house work. You should have this book.
  • AIGA Survey of Design Salaries: This is a searchable database of self reported data on current design salaries. You can search even more granularly if you’re an AIGA member. You should consult this site before every interview so that you know what a fair salary is for the position you’re looking for.
  • A Designer’s Code of Ethics: Very important. It’s not just about finding a job. Ethical conduct within the field of design is paramount.
  • Questioning Graphic Design’s Ethicality: Design Observer essay about design ethics. 
  • Readings.Design: This is a one-of-kind listing of seminal texts about design theory and practice. The list includes, books and articles. In the case of the articles, the PDFs are made available straight from the site. Visit this site often. Read as many of these texts as you can. Reading should be an integral part of your design practice. Reading should be viewed as a practice in of itself. 

Design Organizations

Design Organizations You Should Know

In my opinion Twitter and Instagram are the best way to stay up to date with what all these organizations are doing. Even if Tweeting and Gramming are not for you I would recommend keeping an account to follow all these groups—use it like a news aggregator.

  • Type Director’s Club: A professional organization for type directors and type designers, but their membership also includes many graphic designers. This is an intimate, NYC only, single chapter club. A great place to network. For starters I highly recommend you attend one of their Type Thursday events. I would recommend entering your work in their annual competition.
  • AtypI: An international organization for Type designers.
  • AIGA/NY: A very active chapter of AIGA. AIGA is a national organization focused on uniting and supporting graphic designers. AIGA/NY hosts many talks, a great way to continue your education after school. It’s a little harder to network at their events because they’re bigger.
  • The One Club for Creativity/The Art Director’s Club: This is a group that’s primarily focused on the advertising side of the design world—it’s more expensive as a result. Not my favorite club, but I would recommend keeping an eye on and eventually applying for their “under 30” Young Guns competition.
  • D&AD: Basically the British version of One Club/ADC.
  • Society of Illustrators: If you’re an illustrator this club is for you. Like TDC this place is single chapter and NYC specific. They hold weekly life drawing meetings. And exhibitions in their two floor gallery. I would recommend entering your work in their annual competition.
  • American Illustration: another important annual illustration competition if illustration is your focus. 
  • Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum: This NYC-based museum is an amazing resource. I highly recommend that you stay on top of their programming and exhibitions and attend whenever possible.
  • Herb Lubalin Study Center: This is the archive of Herb Lubalin’s work at Cooper Union. There’s a TON of other amazing historical artifacts there and they are super friendly and accommodating. I would highly recommend reaching out and scheduling a visit.

Podcasts

Design Podcasts

Many of the podcasts listed below feature guests who tell the stories of their careers. They describe step by step how they went from where you are now to where you want to be. The models these stories provide are incredibly valuable.

  • Design Matters: Hosted by Debbie Millman. Now that her podcast has become popular beyond the design industry she’s begun to host creative people from outside the design industry. I would recommend going back to her first season and listening forward from there. Back then she primarily interviewed graphic designers. 
  • The Observatory: Michael Bierut and Jessica Helfand are design leaders you should know. On this podcast you get to sit in on a weekly conversation between them.
  • The Design of Business | The Business of Design: This podcast is also by Michael Bierut and Jessica Helfand. In this podcast they interview people who’s job place them at the intersection of the business and design worlds. 
  • Wireframe: This is brand new podcast from Khoi Vinh, Principal Designer at Adobe—he is also someone you should know. This podcast is about UI/UX design I believe. 
  • Talking Practice: This is also a brand new podcast from Harvard’s Graduate School Design. Here they interview all kinds of designers from architects, to industrial designers, to graphic designers.
  • Scratching the Surface: This podcast is very specifically about the intersection of design theory and practice. Jarrett Fuller interviews (primarily graphic) designers who also have active writing practices. 
  • Three Point Perspective: This is all about illustration. The job, the jobs, the work, the practice. If you want a career in illustration this a must-listen.

Design Jobs

Where to Find a Design Job

  • Creative Circle: recruiters who will help you find freelance and full-time jobs in design, illustration, UX
  • Design Observer: Go here to see design jobs from across the “Design Employment Network” which includes jobs posted to other orgs like TDC, Print, How, Brand New, The One Club/ADC, etc.
  • Society of Publication Designers: Go here to see, very specifically, design jobs in magazine publishing.
  • Publishers Weekly: Go here to see, very specifically, design jobs in book publishing.
  • Publisher’s Lunch Job Board: Go here to see, very specifically, design jobs in book publishing.
  • Dribbble Jobs: Go here for a lot of UI/UX jobs, there are some graphic design jobs mixed in there too.
  • LinkedIn Jobs: Note: your LinkedIn profile should be complete, remain up to date, and you should make an effort to connect with all of your real life academic and professional connections there. Regarding the job site, there’s a lot here, and some jobs will allow you to apply with your LinkedIn profile, another reason to keep it up to date. Also note: To my mind LinkedIn doesn’t count as a social platform—LinkedIn would disagree—don’t use it to post and engage, only as an online resume and as a way to manage professional connections. 

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