The recession is over!! Right? Uh…well, I guess that kinda depends.
IF you’re a highly connected designer, with a killer book/site, AND you are well versed in something digital (e.g. Mobile Apps, web development, etc.) you are probably feeling a fair upswing. However, for the new grad, the newly relocated, or those otherwise without ALL three aforementioned qualities, you are probably still wildly wielding your machete to maintain a slight view out of the woods. Well folks, this isn’t a Get-The-Answers-to-Finding-Your-Perfect-Gig-Post. In fact if you see one of those…it’s probably loaded with a bunch of cockamamie information that doesn’t really apply to you 100%. You see, and this is going to be profound, you may consider employing some advance jaw support in case of abrupt droppage: everyone’s situation is different. Whoa… huh.
So, you ask, if I’m not offering the holy grail of Job-Acquiring-Advice, then what is the point?
Answer: The one thing all ye of the struggling design class do have in common, is that you do plan to eventually leave your filler job at “Cuppa Joe” or “Jiggles” (a specialty Jello mold shop, of course) to return to your design career. So… you need to stay sharp!
One good way to keep your skills honed and your portfolio from starving a slow death from lack of new content is to pick up pro bono work. Easier said than done, I’m aware. But, check with non-profits, small businesses, your brother’s snow cone stand. Check out organizations like Creative Cares . If that doesn’t work out, when you’re not making iced skinny caramel macchiatos, develop a personal project. Learn letterpress, make a series of t-shirts or create spec work. (You have to be careful not to misrepresent spec work in your book though!) To keep costs down, and to avoid a skipping-record-redundancy in your work, check out sites like Bittbox.com. Bittbox offers high quality “freebies” to any designer looking. Things like fonts, backgrounds, brushes, textures, vectors, etc. Pretty wicked cool if you ask me. Don’t forget to post all this work where the people that do the hiring will see it: LinkedIn. Yes, we all know about Behance, and Coroflot but many hiring managers do not. So, go ahead and create a profile and throw the link to your portfolio site up there. It can only help your chances!
Don’t get discouraged. Keep hacking away at the foliage standing between you and that design gig. It’ll give eventually. We don’t know when… could be 50 more lattes, could be 5,000… but it will. And when it does, you want to be ready!
