I would like to make a proposal if I might.
It seems that there are a lot of up-and-coming designers in this forum that are willing to do whatever it takes to get a start in the industry. It also seems that there are more established practitioners chiding, or advising these youngsters against some of the less lucrative avenues for gaining experience.

Personally I am tempted to use these services because it gives me a legitimate opportunity to deal with clients and get a stronger appreciation for the business side of graphic design which we could not get during school. As an alternative to using these services I would suggest that we possibly start some sort of mentoring-contest program.

This may sound silly but this is what I was thinking. What if we paired up a younger designer with an older more established professional. We could pair up teams on the basis of experience (a fresh grad would be teamed up with a grisly old veteran). Each week we could propose an exercise or contest that would be completed by each team, at the end of each week the entries could be submitted and voting or judging would commence.

I think the assignments would give us all an opportunity to keep sharp and the healthy competition would be about as close to inustry competetition as I could come up with. We could even keep a running tab of the teams scoring and things.

I understand that this would take a fair bit of commitment and I am sure everyone is busy. But I think it might be something that could benefit everyone involved.


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Match in the gas tank, boom boom.