About Starting Your Design Career
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This Monday, I volunteered for AIGA SF event “Career Path in Design” which was a group meeting for people to discuss with speakers and ask them questions. The meeting separated people into small groups by different topics such as “Design from Print to Digital”, “How to Start to Be a Freelancer“, and “From Digital to Real Production. The separation gathered people with similar interest together, so that the questions would be very related to what people are concerned about.
I was in the “How to Start Your Design Career” hosted by Tomoko Fushimi, who now is in Uber as a Visual Experience Designer. What made the meeting very encouraging was that Tomoko graduated from Academy of Art University, the same school that I am studying in. She shared her experience about her design path and gave great advice when searching jobs.
In her sharing, there are two major attitudes which are very important. First, showing eagerness to learn new things and volunteer for helping other teams in your workplace will always help, and you will learn various skills and make you a person who is good at collaborating with people with different design thinking. The other thing she mentioned again and again was asking questions when having an interview, because it would not only a opportunities for the company to know about you, but also a chance to know the place you are going to work. So, be active, ask about the culture in the company, ask lots of questions to make you understand more about the company. It will be a benefit when you have to make a decision in the future. “Knowing what kind of working environment that you want to be in, sometimes is more important than how famous the company is,” she said.
This advice really helped and started to make me think about exploring myself when considering the future career path. I think that is the best part of volunteering in AIGA, because you can always gain some great insights from designers and speakers who have great experience in their fields. Design is not from a vacuum, you need stimulations from others and observation through daily detail. AlGA brings design diversity in each different event, and help both junior and senior designers share thoughts and information to create a good supporting system. I hope there will be more and more people joining in the big family soon.
If you are interested in being a volunteer: Go to AIGA.SF
Hope will see you in next event!