To be honest, I’ve had my doubts about the value of a graphic design degree. But weighing the good with the bad, I’ve decided that going for a degree in graphic design is definitely worthwhile (if your heart is set on becoming a graphic designer). Here are some of the things I’ve felt were beneficial from having completed a three-year degree (B.A.) in graphic design:

1) Learning about stuff I just would never’ve learned about otherwise.

When else would I have learned about Italian handwriting and Venetian printers? The history of the book and the history of printing is fascinating, and really helpful to understand why the internet is so popular today. Even learning about papermaking machines was interesting (really!), especially when you tie it in with how difficult and expensive it actually was to produce books. We take accessibility to printed words for granted these days, and the internet is a real information machine. Information never used to be so easy to access, and the chance to know about my subject beyond the modern state of things really enhanced my appreciation of what I do, and also my appreciation of what I have. I love being able to access information so easily, and from so many different sources. It’s really fantastic!

Learning about the history of printing, and even theory of legibility, helped me to put graphic design in context and has given me unique skills. I gained far more as well; I learned about the industry of communication and business. In addition to this I gained research skills and had an opportunity to get involved with an AHRC research project in my final year, which not only gave me research skills, but I was paid for the work.

Writing a dissertation in my final year (12,000+ words on the history of the broadside ballad) was also a valuable experience, and I learned skills I would never otherwise learn. How to really concentrate, for one(!); and also how to skim stacks of books and make notes. Writing a long essay is far more challenging than a short piece of writing, as you are forced to learn how to fit and connect small ideas into the jigsaw puzzle of a large gestalt.

2) Meeting people of the same age who are facing the same challenges.

Most, if not all of my coursemates, have graphic design-related jobs now. It’s interesting to see their choices and learn from their experiences as well. Not only this, but I have a network of people to turn to in future.

Having a network of people I know, all with something in common, is really helpful to have. Some people abhor “networking” because it implies superficial interest in other people for selfish gain, but I think it depends entirely on how you look at it. Networking is something I’ve always done without thinking, before realising there’s a word for it: just by following up a genuine interest in other people and what they’re doing. (Being interested in people is a good career move!)

The industry of graphic design, as I’ve said before, is tied closely to business. I think it’s essential that graphic designers remember why their profession exists in the first place (it was born in its modern state, after all, during the industrial revolution). It’s necessary to keep on top of industry developments and trends, and also to meet other people working in the “industry”. The industry, a somewhat dehumanized word, actually means a vast international network of human beings.

3) Gaining knowledge about the industry (in the comfort of student-status).

Working with real human beings is always a difficult and delicate business, especially when they’re involved in critiquing your creative work. One client actually tried to design the work for me — and get my feedback on their work, true story! — when I failed to pull off their vision. Pulling off someone else’s vision is never easy to do, especially if they’re not clear what their vision actually is (and of course it’s no easier when they do have a specific vision).

In early 2007 I got to work on a “real-life” project as part of the course, along with coursemate Nathan Crawley. The design is here, and the live site, which I didn’t develop, is here. Working with a client on a project is a much more organic and iterative approach than frankly sterile studio projects.

Studio projects were helpful for one thing: the absence of client’s whims meant I could focus solely on designing. But the reality is that design exists in the area between the designer’s skills and the client’s desires, and the sensitive business of working with a client must slowly be mastered in the real world. This calls for empathy and great social skills.

5) Having a specialism.

Something to set you apart from the sea of other designers is always helpful. This depends where you study. I specialised in typography and information design. Since graduating, I decided to specialise even more, by working as a mobile designer. So: “typography” and “mobile” rather than a jack of all trades, and that suits me. It gives me an identity as a designer and an area I can really get to know well. I wanted to find a niche, which drew me to typography in the first place. Mobile is interesting for lots of reasons. The ironic thing is that mobile isn’t really specialised, as its possibilities are so vast.

That’s it. I could write a piece arguing why you shouldn’t do a graphic design degree, or the benefits of going straight into the working world. There are many, I’m sure. Having an income larger than a student loan is an obvious benefit, and having hands-on experience in a studio is really quite invaluable. But as I’ve argued, the benefit of focusing on design, rather than pleasing a client, is clear; and depending on your level of interest, the chance to learn about legibility theory (and even modernity and modernist literature of the fin-de-siècle) was enriching and enjoyable, and fed into everything else I was learning.

Design is at once personal and impersonal. Design is catalysed by, let’s face it, Bobby at Bobby’s car reselling business. Design works closely with business, and it’s not surprising that people like Nussbaum at BusinessWeek are excited about “design thinking”. At the same time, design is personal: driven by an intangible mix of the emotional and cerebral. No wonder there’s so much confusion on both business and design sides.

I’ve long respected Poynor as a writer and critic, and found his recent article (’Down with Innovation‘) in International Design Magazine troubling on one level, and on another, comforting. Comforting because he raises the value of what designers make. So why do I feel troubled? I’m not sure: perhaps because I feel he’s right, and perhaps because — in my gut — I feel threatened. I will never be able to completely separate myself from the thing he feels is making design, in a sense, impure. Poynor’s vision of a designer’s work is, after all, hard to live up to: “something brilliant and extraordinary that illuminates our perception of what human life can be”. Doesn’t that sound more like art?

Poynor’s views on design thinkers like Nussbaum are clear:

Poynor’s article has been described as cynical. My interpretation is that he is railing angrily against design that is degraded, stripped down, and tossed around as a funky new business toy. He’s railing against design that forgets both the original role of graphic designers and the “inherent intelligence” in the beauty of design. He simply doesn’t want to forget what design is (something tangible, an elegant book jacket design) with something airy, intangible, and transient (an elegant business strategy). So: “Give me something tangible, something brilliant and extraordinary that illuminates our perception of what human life can be. For that, we still need designers.”

“Making things look nice”, “stylizing”, “colouring in”. Design is often sneered at as trivial work. Apply whatever logical process to design you want. There is no framework or formula to arrive at a great design. I wouldn’t call it emotional and I wouldn’t call it cerebral — it’s a bit of both — and it’s definitely personal. The way I solve a design problem is totally different from the way another designer solves a problem. It is not easy work: I’m often tearing out my hair. In the end, I find myself in partial agreement with Poynor. Let’s not forget the aesthetic value of what we produce. Business moves on to the next goal; aesthetic value lasts. Who’s going to queue to see a business strategy in a museum in 2108, after all?

There’s more discussion about Poynor’s article at IxDA. Here it’s pointed out by a clever commentator that we shouldn’t confuse conscientious designers with those who believe “design is too important to be left to designers”.

Chris just sent me a link to this fascinating New York Magazine article on how young people are using the internet to build their identity online.

I was, to some extent, part of the phenomenon of exhibitionist, obsessively-self-documenting teens on Livejournal. I started off on Livejournal writing plain, dull, what-I-had-for-lunch journal entries (FYI, I now do this on Twitter).

As I connected with other Livejournal users, I realised that I could tailor my posts to garner more comments (the cherished stamp of popularity). Comments motivated my writing, and I wrote to amuse, entertain, and to provoke commentry. I enjoyed having readers who commented on my posts as much as I enjoyed writing the posts.

I wasn’t as as obsessed with it as some. Some contacts on Livejournal would document themselves with endless photographs. And then I remember a community popping up on Livejournal, sometime in 2003, called “Nonuglies”. To join this community, wannabe members were asked to submit a journal entry to the community featuring three photos of themselves. Existing members would then vote “yes” or “no” on whether the applicant was beautiful enough to be accepted to the site. After the board had cast their votes, they would be counted. Accepted members were officially “non-ugly”. Rejects were hounded off the site.

Nonuglies was incredibly cold, elitist, and nasty. The original community shut down after a few months, and was reborn in various guises. And at the time, Nonuglies was very popular: loved and hated in equal measure — a squirming petri-dish of human nature.

What’s really amazing to me is the levels of self-exhibitionism the internet allows. Livejournal gives teens a platform to write about their lives, and garner popularity from it. We have self-made YouTube stars (leading to real-life, six-figure TV contracts). We have people documenting their lives in visual minutiae on their Flickr photo accounts. Facebook allows people to build an entire persona. Chris Pirillo streams live from his desk 24/7.

Who’s watching all this? What motivates it?

The “invisible audience” is an interesting term and is brought up in the NY Magazine article linked above. It really is possible to be famous on the internet, and I think it’s the motivation to be seen that motivates this self-documentation. Teenagers in particular battle for a sense of individuality, and they are making use of these online tools to do it. Inhibition is overcome in the process. On one hand, this self-confidence is great; on the other, it could be self-sabotaging — for starters, Google might be unforgiving to the data-trail you left throughout your confused teenage years. Nevertheless: the desire for self-invention in young people is there; the internet has given them the tools.