I need career advice. I graduated in 2017 with a degree in graphic design. For the past seven years, I’ve been working at healthcare agencies. I just fell into it, I never expected to get into this industry and I didn’t realize how niche it is. I don’t enjoy the work – it’s a super regulated industry and not creative. I’m really under-stimulated all day and I constantly feel like I’m not living up to my potential.
I would love to work as a designer in a different industry but it feels impossible to get out of pharma. I don’t know anyone who has done it. I’m constantly getting rejected from jobs that aren’t at other healthcare agencies without even making it to an interview. I’m not proud of my portfolio and I think I should have more impressive or notable work at this point in my career. Plus, my title is senior art director, which is a higher title than I would have in a different industry - so it appears like I have more experience than I actually do.
I’ve considered switching into UX/UI design, but I’m not sure how much I would actually like it and bootcamps are sooo expensive. I’m not sure where to begin… I can create “fake” projects but that feels a little amateur at this stage in my career. If you have any advice or have switched out of healthcare/pharma design, please let me know. Thank you!!
Over the course of my 40-year career, I’ve never had a design job where I didn’t eventually become bored and frustrated with the work, upper management, bureaucracy, or clients.
I changed jobs and positions almost 20 times during those years — from an intern to creative director at design studios, advertising agencies, computer companies, publishers, universities, government agencies, and even running my own design business. They all started out interesting and fresh, but quickly became dull, monotonous, or downright maddening for various reasons.
Laying out uncreative trifolds for doctors’ offices and endless variations of the same generic packaging can’t be very stimulating, so I sympathize with your situation.
Maybe I’m just especially restless, but my point is that any job can become boring and frustrating for a designer who values creativity and wants to push the boundaries of what clients and employers are comfortable with. For what it’s worth, four of those jobs involved UX/UI, which I grew so bored with that I gave it up entirely. I once had a successful architect tell me he went into the field to design buildings, but that 95% of his time was spent researching and designing around building codes and figuring out stress limits for weight-bearing materials. He was just as bored as I ever was.
I’m guessing that you’re fairly compensated, have good benefits, and are working in a field with a future. When it comes down to it, graphic design isn’t all that creative most of the time; it’s a job that pays the bills.
If you really want to break free from the pharma/health care world, I don’t blame you. Have you tried after-hours freelance work to build your portfolio with a range of real projects? It usually worked for me when I wanted to change direction