Part 1: Is design for me? And what are my options?
Chances are you landed on this post because: 1) you hate your job, 2) you need a change, and 3) you’re thinking about making design your new career.
If so, congratulations — you’ve already taken the first, and perhaps the hardest, step. You’ve set your heart on a career in design, and you’ve committed to a new, more rewarding professional path.
If, however, you’ve only recently started considering a career change into design, it’s worth taking a bit of time to get familiar with the design profession, to explore the different career paths that are open to you, and to think about whether you might eventually want to specialize in any particular field.
1. What is design?
It’s interesting how we identify the “beginnings” of modern design. The website Online Design Teacher begins its timeline in the Victorian period, around the 1830s. Meanwhile, Design Is History begins in 1450, a period which marked the introduction of printing presses in Europe, and the beginnings of the mechanical reproduction of graphic media. Going further back still, Meggs’ History of Graphic Design (a big book now in its 6th edition) starts its detailed timeline right back at the invention of writing systems, around 15,000 BCE.
In truth, humans have been designing since the dawn of our species. Whether by building bonfires, planting fields of crops, or laying out words on a page, we’ve been solving problems by shaping the form and function of the things around us. As Frieze explain in their article “What Is Design”, ……
