I completely understand everyone’s guarded attitude. I get it and of course, am concerned by what is to come. We all see, every day, the legions of uneducated wannabes with no experience, knowledge or talent scratching around in the dirt for crumbs on competition sites. It serves nothing than to bring the whole industry and expectation down.
I know AI is going to have a huge impact and you’d be naive not to be concerned about its impact, but recently I read an article that said something like, ‘… your job will not be replaced by AI, but rather, by someone using AI.’ Step back 35 tears and swap the word AI for the word, computer.
These days, any talk of, type galleys, casting off, chromalins and transparencies is a thing of the (not too distant) past, but designers still exist. Who knows what the future holds, but I’d say your best chance is to embrace it. In reality, you won’t have much choice, it will become embedded in the tools you use every day.
I do think it will see the end of the alacritous ignorants scratching around in the dirt. Conversely, I think it will aid the higher echelons of the industry. There will always be the need for good non-linear thinking (for now). The best designers have always been those who can interpret emotion, understand the subtleties of the human psyche and interpret and communicate these things visually.
One day AI may do this effectively, but I think we are a little way off that just yet and even when we do get there, the job of the designer will have evolved in ways we can’t yet envisage. You have to get on the ride to experience the thrill.
At your age, I think there are exciting times ahead, if you embrace them. As I hinted at, although I think the field will narrow and it will return to being a more specialist career, with fewer protagonists, it will overall, become higher quality – which, to me, is not a bad thing. I’d happily see things return to a point where experts and people who really know what they are doing are producing the work and the dirt is no longer scratched around in, by hopeful kids with no idea what they are doing, but who think it’s cool, Thevworld will be less saturated with current levels of ugly visual noise.
Design has been a good career for me. I have worked (and thankfully still do) on some really fun projects. Whether you get to the top (and that’s a very movable and subjective feast), is anyone’s guess, but you have to aim for it.
Of course, you have to have the requisite talent and ability, plus a good education. I’m with Just-B, in that, I feel that a real-world, face-to-face education is the gold standard, but times change and as long as it is a reputable degree from a serious university with a time-honoured syllabus and not some fly-by-night private establishment, then, who knows, they may be able to accommodate the shortcomings of remote learning. The one thing you will definitely miss out on, though, is the student lifestyle, which is not to be underestimated, on many levels.
Of all the designers I know or knew, the ones who started out settling for the easy, close-to-home options when we left university, have almost all migrated to different careers. The ones who were prepared to make the sacrifices and move to the cities where the best work is, have all stayed in the industry and though we’ve all gone in different directions, most have had very interesting careers in all sorts of fields. Often they tend to specialise. Not with early intent, but as they grow they simply find areas that fit, as happened with me
I’d say, go for it, have fun, be prepared to evolve in ways you can’t even begin to imagine now and ALWAYS aim for the top, or you’ll very quickly find yourself scratching in the dirt.
I may be proved wrong and have to eat my words and that AI will take over, but at which point the savvy designers will have evolved their careers with it anyway. I do think you’ll likely have to move to one of the cultural capitals, but you don’t need to stay forever. I am now pretty much double your age and for the last 20 years of my career have lived in the exact opposite of big cities, in a few different places, but I did my first ten years after university in London to earn my stripes. Most of my clients and work still come from there.
Even now, when it is far easier to work remotely than it was when I first bailed on the rat race, I think for many reasons, it’s important to be in a major city after uni. I never regret my 10 years in London. Would I want to do it now? Probably not, unless I had pots and pots of money, but even then… in my 20s and early 30s, though, it was a real blast. Exhausting and expensive, but fantastic.
I’d be interested to see your portfolio. In fact, as you won’t have the face-to-face critique option doing a remote, places like this will be invaluable to you in order to get honest (if often, brutally so), unbiased feedback.
Anyway, that’s my 2-penneths worth – for what it’s worth.
Good luck.
