How to be a Graphic Designer (Book Review)
Adrian Shaughnessy’s How to be a graphic designer, without losing your soul was a title I stumbled across in the sidebar of Design Observer so based on their recommendation and the reputation of the author it made an appearance on my must read list. And to be honest I’m really glad I got hold of a copy. His current design agency is called This is Real Art. Wodcast.org, in 2007, have a podcast interview with Adrian worth downloading.
Attitude, how to find a job, being a freelancer or working in-house, setting up a studio and running it, winning new work, dealing with clients, self-promotion and the creative process. I’m cheating by simply taking the chapter names and feeding them back to you. But it gives you a good idea about what Adrian’s book is about and what its definately not about. Its not about how to do graphic design. Its about how to be a graphic designer and discusses the forces which impact you throughout your career.
His advice is to find your own path and base your career on solid original work. Among the sameness of graphic design the high quality work stands out and that’s where you build your reputation. If you’re hiring then get someone in who is better than you - probably the best advice in the entire book. And don’t be afraid to fire a client if you have to. Find a philosophy or a guiding principle and base your work on that, too. But no matter how many of these tidbits of Adrian’s knowledge I put into this review it would fall short of actually going out there and reading his book.
Some of the lessons in this book I’ve learned the hard way but others were gems worth the discovery - always open your portfolio for the viewers perspective and not your own. Never tell your client what to think of your work. Always look for the McGuffin in the brief.
As an industry we need to have books like How to be a graphic designer, without losing your soul. We need to read them ourselves and pass them onto others. We could keep a copy on a bookshelf and pass it to junior designers or apprentices when they come to work in our organisations. This book will probably save you money sometime.
August 19th, 2008 at 8:33 am
I’ll have to check it out. Being a graphic designer can be tough and I don’t think we’ll ever stop from learning from other companies and other graphic designers on how to improve ourself. I myself have had some good success. Now I’m trying to go from small firm to large firm.