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Becoming a Graphic Designer: A Guide to Careers in Design

Becoming a Graphic Designer: A Guide to Careers in Design

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Becoming a Graphic Designer : A Guide to Careers in Design
Review: Coming from a graphic design student in my senior year, this book has been so helpful in pointing me in the direction of where I want to go after I graduate in the spring. BUY THIS BOOK! You won't be disappointed. The insight of the designers featured in this book is very informative.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Design Career Guide
Review: Everyday, more and more university students are choosing some area of design as a career field. This guidebook is divided into four major information sections: Design Specialties, Design Businesses, Design Options and Design Education, followed by a Resource Guide, which consists of the names and addresses of design-related organizations and publications. Interwoven with these sections are portions of interviews with about 90 design professionals on such subjects as How I Became a Graphic Designer; Advice to Designers; On Personal Style; Major Influences; and The Future of Graphic Design. Other informative features include How Many Graphic Designers Are There? What Do They Earn? and The Optimum Portfolio. For the curious but uninformed, this is very likely the best introduction available. (Copyright by Roy R. Behrens from Ballast Quarterly Review, Vol. 15, No. 1, Autumn 1999.)

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Fantastic Overview for a career in graphic design
Review: I am a recent college graduate looking to get into a graphic design career and I found this guide to be excellent. At first I was a bit skeptical because it is heavy on interviews from practitioners but the later sections really delve into the business climate, how design companies grow and develop, and what career trajectories are like. Really, I do recommend this one.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Fantastic Overview for a career in graphic design
Review: I am a recent college graduate looking to get into a graphic design career and I found this guide to be excellent. At first I was a bit skeptical because it is heavy on interviews from practitioners but the later sections really delve into the business climate, how design companies grow and develop, and what career trajectories are like. Really, I do recommend this one.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Wow
Review: I can't believe this book. It encompasses everything an aspiring graphic designer needs to know, including art schools, design organizations, and what you need in a portfolio. My teacher lent me this book, and I didn't want to give it back! Get this book!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A valuable resource for the beginning designer
Review: I wish that I had discovered this book before I had graduated from design school. Not only does this user friendly book offer excellent advice from all the tops in the industry (done in short - to the point paragraphs), it is very informative as well. The book is divided into different sections on different types of design along with an interview of sorts with a person in that industry. What I found to be most informative was that at the beginning of each section there are recommendations on the types (as well as number) of pieces your portfolio should contain if you are interested in going for a job in that particular part of the industry. I would recommend this book to people in school, just graduating, or perhaps looking to reenter the job market in a different specialization of the field.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Wide range. Good read. Heavy on interviews
Review: The good part was its breadth covering more than just 2D design (which is what I thought graphic design was before reading the book!). There are interviews with designers from each field that they talk about. A bit too many interviews in my opinion which is the weak point about the book. Nevertheless, looking at the other books available, it's worth getting to some degree.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Somewhat vexing, but a nice casual browse nonetheless
Review: There is a lot of good to be said for this book. But the thing that jumps out and slaps me in the face, right off, maybe because I have dealt with new design students and new professionals for the past several years, is a few dumb comments such as "If you are going to be a good designer, fine. If you aren't don't bother. The field is full of mediocre talents as it is."

And how, pray tell, does one know whether one is going to "be good" during the first year of ones study? --Or even during the first few years of ones professional practice, when sweeping out the place may be included in your job description, and hands-on real world work may come your way slowly and in small discreet bits? And doesn't every creative person at one point or another question the worth and validity of what he or she is doing, EVEN after recognition has started rolling in and they understand that their work is generally perceived by their peers as good? Further, I would ask whether everyone HAS to be a Saul Bass or a Neville Brody. Isn't design a broad enough field to encompass the work of those with less Olympian ambition? Comments such as the one above are relatively few and far between, to be certain. But where on earth was the editor when pompous uninsightful stuff like this flew in under the radar? Although the sheer snideness of the comment may make many jaded pros cheer, I have to wonder what useable information this kind of comment contains for the neophyte at whom the book is supposedly aimed? --To show that a lot of jaded pros have a really bad attitude?

I do not favor the Pollyanna view whether we are talking art or careers. But I believe it is impossible to know how you will fare at something before you have been doing it a while. Thinking otherwise --for example, that a teacher in a design 101 class can tell you whether you are "any good" (and I have seen or heard about many students asking this very question)-- just intimidates and discourages people from being brave enough to give the life that they would see for themselves a try. To me, that is way too limiting.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: good book for students
Review: This book is a good overview of what it means to be a graphic designer. It goes through the different areas of design, and different job positions.
Everything you need to know about the design world is in this book.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: good book for students
Review: This book is a good overview of what it means to be a graphic designer. It goes through the different areas of design, and different job positions.
Everything you need to know about the design world is in this book.


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