Starting a design career in a corporate
Last year, as a young designer, fresh out of university, I had to make the grand decision of how and where to start my design career. For most people, deciding on where to begin your career journey is no easy task, but when it comes to designers, I feel that making this decision becomes infinitely more complicated.
We struggle with a magnitude of decisions that come from the paining questions we ask our-selves on a daily basis, “What kind of a designer do I want to be?” “Brand or advertising, agency or company, illustrator or editor, digital or print?” and the list could go on and on. If you are one of those people who wakes up one morning knowing, “I want to be a UI designer and work for Google”, I envy you! But for us mere mortals down here we face a steep climb in arriving at a decision that our design fate rests upon.
I have to say that not once during my studies and decision making process did I think about joining the work force of a large corporation. And why would I? For years I have been fed information that has lead me to believe big corporates are places where one’s creative soul goes to die, a bit morbid I know, but that was my impression. It was only when an amazing opportunity for design blew my way at the hands of a giant corporation, did I find myself second guessing all my other design career decisions and assumptions. I had been looking for jobs and design opportunities for over 6 months, going from agency to agency with no luck. They either offered me a salary that I wouldn’t have even been able to pay my rent with or they wouldn’t take a designer without at least a year of work experience. So for a designer fresh out of varsity, it was rough out there.
For the past year and a half I have been able to work for one of South Africa’s largest banks. It was here that I began my design career, not the most common choice for a new designer. So as most of us would, I had my reservations, “How would my design skills or creativity grow in the confinements of a corporation?” and “what if I become a corporate sell-out?” I mean, we do tend to lean more towards the creative, fun looking agency which seems to hold lots of development potential, even though it that doesn’t pay well, over a better paid less exciting alternative. a.k.a, the corporate.
“I’m here today to tell you that making the decision to join this corporation was the best decision I think I could have made for my design career.”
Starting your design journey in a corporation could be an amazing choice for you, no matter what type of designer you may be; this could even be the best place to figure that out. The idea I had for my design career before, and the design direction I am on now is the opposite of what I had imagined. I believed I was going to start as a graphic and print designer and slowly work my way up to a creative or art director position for an agency and oh how the tables have turned. I am now currently working and learning to become a UX and service designer, design disciplines I had never even taken into consideration. The corporate environment is ripe with opportunity for you to flourish, always learning, discovering and growing, as only a new designer should.
The skills you learn in the landscape of a working environment are very different to those of a classroom or lecture hall. It’s when you are placed into the runnings of a company and its work culture that your skills and knowledge are truly tested and expanded. Designers come in many different forms, there are no two skill sets alike, which is why I believe designers are an incredible force to be reckoned with in the work place. It is very rare that two designers will share the same thought and work process. We all tend to have our strengths in different places, which allow us to build strong and agile design teams. Every designer and all their skills are able to play a different part in a problem solution.
The skills I have learnt in the corporate space are skills I had never expected to learn. Now, these skills I am talking about are not necessarily technical skills, such as your Photoshop, Illustrator or Sketch skills, not that those don’t grow, the more you practice and more you use your design tools, your application skills are bound to improve. The skills I am talking about allow you to push passed being only an application based designer and work in a way that allows you to utilize all avenues of design and push the boundaries of a company or business and implement change. You will learn that what makes a good designer, is not necessarily being able to visually create something, but rather how you think and work towards solving a complex problem, with a myriad of constraints, in the best way possible to help people.
My corporate design learnings
1. Patience and understanding is key
When working for a corporate, unlike an agency, you have to interact with different people from different parts of the business everyday. Not everyone understands the way we designers think or work which can be scary and frustrating for us at times and we can often take offense because we can become a little protective over our work and our teams. With time you do learn that this can be a perfect design opportunity and not necessarily a problem. This is where we can prove ourselves and what we can do for our co-workers.
Designers have the power to change the mindsets of even those who have had their eyes tightly shut to design for years. After all, isn’t selling our awesome design ideas and concepts what we as designers do! So, it’s time to be patient and recognize the opportunity in front of us. Shedding light on design and its importance, selling ourselves and showing the people around us what we are capable of will only make us and future designers bloom in the business world. Design thinking can start small and grow with practice and time, opening up the hardest of shells and making a positive change not only for ourselves but for others around us.
2. Be adaptive
Like the amazing Camel of the desert, we must learn to be adaptive and co-exist in an ever-changing environment with many challenges. Coming straight out of university, all my work was produced and created in a design space with very few blockers standing in the way of me creating what I wanted to the way I wanted to. The space of a corporate is wildly different.
Businesses, customers or clients have needs that can change very quickly. Something you may have had a few months to accomplish may now need to be completed in a matter of days to keep up with competitors or business needs. You have to be willing to work with and embrace the change. Something that may have been a print solution two years ago may now need to be recreated into a digital solution. The world is changing everyday and if we want to make it better, we need to be able to keep up and know when its time to renew. This is how I believe we as designers are able learn and grow so much, we are never able to sit in one place for too long, we have to move with or overtake the flow. Our skills and knowledge are forever expanding and adapting with the changing design eco-system, making us one hell of a weapon for a growing business.
3. This is a two way street, not a highway and a bike path
As designers, I feel we sometimes forget about the people paying our salaries and how a business needs to make money in order to survive. Money and business obstacles aren’t normally things we have had to take into consideration when designing, we are normally told about a solution that needs to be made and we run with it, coming up multiple ideas and concepts that could not potentially be feasible.
It is important to work hand-in-hand with the people running the company so we are able to create sensible and functional designs. “Sensible and functional”, two words I am sure most of you are reading and cringing at right now. Now, I am not saying your designs have to become boring or to tone down the creativity to only create solutions that the business wants. In fact, I am stating the opposite. I have heard this phrase from many of my co-workers, “the best forms of creativity and innovation come from when we are facing real constraints”. It is when we can create amazing, show stopping designs and solutions with heavy business constraints that we prove our worth and capabilities further.
Stakeholders and the people who run the ins and outs of a business have the potential to become our greatest allies, so rather than trying to work around them, we need to include them in the design process. Learn from them, try and see their point of view, enlighten and share your understanding with them or it can even be as simple as starting a conversation. You will find that when business and design work together like a smooth flowing road, the design opportunities are endless.
4. Designers are problem solvers
When working for a corporate, the change we are able to influence as designers is astounding. You have been reading me talk about solving problems and creating solutions, the reason I keep using these terms is because we have the ability to affect change for the people around us, being our customers, stakeholders, co-workers and everyone in-between. People who may face some real challenges in their day-to-day life.
Like I have said before, design does not always have to be the act of creating something aesthetically pleasing. Think about the simple knife handle. It is not the most beautiful thing to look at, but it was still designed and created to serve a purpose and solve an underlying problem. If we were to think about cutting a piece of meat with a knife that had no handle, how would you imagine that experience to be? The knife would not be comfortable to hold, it would most likely slip out of your hand and could possibly cut you. It took someone to see a problem and want to fix it that lead to the design of something as simple as the knife handle.
We live in a world, made up of some incredible human beings who give us some amazing design challenges to solve for. Something I believe we tend to forget. We need to remember what goal are designs are striving towards and what we want them to achieve ? What is the change we want to make for people and how can we make their lives that little bit better or simpler? Even the smallest design solution, if done properly can make a difference to someone. The moment you start thinking of yourself as a designer who can effect change, even if it’s in the smallest way possible, your outlook on design changes. Designing with people as the core motivator, can allow you to achieve some pretty amazing things. It is a mindset we are also able to change in other designers and non-designers alike, which could eventually lead to an entire business changing and directing their focus to the people they try to serve everyday. Don’t underestimate yourself; designers can change the world one person at a time.
Calling all South African design lovers
The opportunity I was given in 2017 jumpstarted my design career, and I believe it could do the same for others out there. For any young South African designers / aspiring designers who have an interest in learning about design thinking and practices and who want to grow as a designer by solving some pretty awesome design problems, this might be the golden ticket you have been looking for. The Africa Design Office offers a Padawan (Star Wars themed, how awesome!) Design Graduate Program to young dreamers who want to start their career in design and design thinking. Growth and learning is what this program prides itself on achieving, giving you every opportunity to enhance your skills and design knowledge. You will become part of an amazing family who take the time to mentor and discover your hidden strengths. You will get to work with a number of different design teams allowing your designs skills to become as diverse as you want them. A philosophy we also tend to live bye is work hard, play hard so when it comes to team dinners and get togethers, the fun is never in short supply.
This graduate program introduced me to my design family and during my time in the program I have learnt more about myself and my design capabilities than I thought possible. I did not learn these things from a book, I had some extraordinary people pushing and guiding me, people who wanted to see me grow as much as I did. I learnt that design comes in many shapes and forms and we will find where our strengths lie at along the way, with hard work and support.
Conclusion
Being a designer in a corporation there are many opportunities and rewards, but, and I cannot stress this enough, it is not for the faint hearted. If you are a designer who likes to push the boundaries of their skills and capabilities, solve some incredible design problems with some pretty big blockers, that can make a difference to people in this world, then a corporate might just be the place for you. A corporate may not be the dream work place for many designers and two years ago I may have agreed, but I have since changed my tune and can say that starting my design career in a corporation has lead me to meet and work with some incredible people, push my design abilities to new limits I never new they could reach and found a place that allows me to effect change for the people around me through design, a discipline I love. I still have a lot to learn and have a long road ahead of me and I couldn’t be more excited to see where this journey will take me!
