Transitions, May 2003

Issue 9      May 2003

Contents

Exit ethics: seven strategies for karmic relief
Leaving a job is a complicated maneuver—one that involves clients, your employers and your future. There are certain steps you can take that will benefit both you and the company you are leaving. Protect your integrity by behaving in the businesslike manner, and you will not burn any bridges.

Good habits and smart decisions: what to do in school and in the studio
How do you get the most from school and your job? Here are more tips on how to take advantage of your opportunities and situations, and how to still keep your sanity.

Book tips from the top
Stefan G. Bucher and Bill Grant describe their favorite and most influential volumes.

Executive director's letter
In this last issue of the school year, AIGA Transitions talks about transitions of all kinds. First, either now or at the end of the summer, you may be leaving a job or internship. Be careful to do it in a way that will damage neither you nor your firm. Also included in this month's issue is an article regarding how to make any transitions in your professional life a bit smoother—being more prepared, more knowledgeable and more efficient with your own time and experiences.

Richard Grefé, executive director, AIGA

EXIT ETHICS: SEVEN STRATEGIES FOR KARMIC RELIEF
Leaving a design firm--for a better offer, to start your own gig or because you've just had enough--presents a unique set of circumstances to deal with. Choices regarding these issues can have a major effect on the future of your career. Here are seven strategies that will eliminate some of the common problems that might come up when leaving a company.

1) Credit where credit is due
Grey areas concerning whose work it is seem to exist in tint values from 1 percent to 99 percent. Taking credit for your design by including a copy in your actual portfolio is probably okay. (Hopefully the firm is giving you design credit when the work is submitted to contests and publications.) The bigger issue is in taking credit for the client, which can easily be implied if the work appears on your site or in your resume.

The latter is not only an ethical issue but a legal one as well. Design firms have specific contractual agreements with clients requesting permission to use the work for the studio's self-promotion. (Copyright usually transfers to the client when the final payment is made.) It is a violation of the client's copyright if their work is used outside of the design firm. Scary, huh?

2) Keep your mouth shut
Never say anything bad about a previous employer, however tempting it may be. Go one step further and don't say anything--it will come back to you. At the least, your talking will cause a lack of trust about how you handle sensitive information.

Designers leave for many reasons, the least of which could be simply that it was time to move on. Even if you are prodded by others to share the "dirt," you'll be making bad karma points if you talk.

If asked, the most a firm should say about you would be that you held "such and such" position at the firm from this date to that. Any comments made beyond these are discouraged by legal counsel.

3) Commandment #7: Thou shalt not steal
It's insulting to think clients can be "stolen." They do whatever they think best for their companies. It is inappropriate to call on them as a free agent after leaving a firm. Any action considered proactive is discouraged. You should ask the firm what they would like you to say to clients you have had ongoing contact with. Respect their wishes. Patience pays off. If the client sees a drop in the quality of the firm's work or in the service they receive, they will find you.

If you truly believe that your exit will end the relationship the client has with the firm, you can discreetly give them an e-mail address or phone number so they know how to reach you. This should be in an unsolicitous way and not be followed up on. They will call you if they need you.

4) To agree or not to agree
All confidentiality agreements signed during your employment must be adhered to after you leave. Ask for an exit interview to understand the fine print of agreements you have signed or those that the firm agreed to during your employment. There are tight restrictions concerning the development of comps, prototypes and ongoing documentation. You don't know what you don't know. Ask.

5) Strength in week-ness
Giving at least two weeks notice is a must. If you are a key team member on a project, consider it good karma to see things through. Another important thing is to give 100 percent during those two weeks. It’s common for an exiting employee to check out, mentally and emotionally, once they drop the bomb. It’s adding insult to injury from an employer’s perspective. If you’ve agreed to stay for a given time, really be there!

6) Sins of the fathers
If your previous employer was a complete knucklehead, then know that you will need outside help to set up and run your own gig. Otherwise you are destined to be Knucklehead Jr.

Too many times designers go into business themselves thinking if the people they worked for could do it, they certainly can. Be grateful that you can learn from their mistakes. In your position you can observe how to, and how not to, run a business.

7) Plan your escape
Okay, it sounds crazy, but the first task in your new position is to plan your next move. There’s never a better time to map out your goals than when you’re feeling this good about yourself.

Stuff happens: companies fail, clients leave, circumstances occur causing kingdoms to crumble. The middle of a crisis is the weakest place to figure out where your career can take you next. Take 10 minutes to jot down your thoughts and put them in a place you can easily find them in a year or two.

And always remember: practice safe design—use a concept.

Petrula Vrontikis is principal of Vrontikis Design Office and a faculty member at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena. She lectures at universities, to professional organizations and at conferences nationwide about her work and about graphic design education and inspiration. She is currently on the national board of AIGA. Petrula recently authored and designed inspiration=ideas, a creativity sourcebook for graphic designers.

GOOD HABITS AND SMART DECISIONS: WHAT TO DO IN SCHOOL AND IN THE STUDIO

How to build upon the opportunities you have
You’re paying a lot of money (or someone who loves you is) so don’t blow it. Here is some very basic, but often overlooked, advice:

Show up. Sounds simple, but as a design teacher, I can tell you that attendance is directly proportional to success, now and later.

Assume that every teacher knows something that you should learn. This is not always the case, but assume it anyway. You may not realize until much later which instructors are really valuable and which ones are jiving you.

In class, participate in every discussion. Present your work as if the audience is new.

Be prepared. Always. Your instructors are and you should be too. Again, this is a life-long habit. Ask questions. Then ask more questions. Expect answers and opinions. Disagree and challenge opinions. But know when to stop disagreeing.

Stop trying to be an artist. This is about communication, not self-expression. If you want to make art, go down the hall and change majors.

Accepting the right compensation and the right job
Except for a weird two-year period in the late 1990s, there has seldom been real opportunity for negotiation at an entry-level design position. My advice:

Concentrate on quality not quantity. The idea is to work at a great place; the amount of your first paycheck is irrelevant.

Agree with their offer. The really good places will tell you what the salary is. Accept it and get to work.

Readjust with experience. Now, your second job (or staying after a year on the first one) is where you can begin negotiating.

Develop your “elevator” speech. Practice what you can get across about you, your abilities or your project in one to two minutes.

Steps to live up to your potential
You have your own personal potential. The idea is to be the best you can be (without joining the Army). In your specialty, whatever it is, there is a pyramid of quality with the very best practitioners at the top and everybody else at various levels below. Your career strategy should be to work as high up on the pyramid as your ability, ambition and luck allows. Note, however, a pyramid has very little room at the top. Some ways to move up the food chain:

Always do a little more than asked. Arrive earlier and leave later. Exceed expectations.

Cultivate enthusiasm and good attitude. Nothing kills an office like an attitude problem. So always be positive—a constant challenge for natural cynics like me.

Be the “no problem, can-do” person. I’ve got several of these and they’re invaluable.

Stay current. Know who is doing the great work.

Get active in professional organizations. Making contacts and gaining knowledge in your professional sector is invaluable.

Get some presentation skills. Life itself is a daily presentation. Like Billy Flynn says in Chicago, “Keep the sequins in their eyes.”

When presenting, start big; finish bigger. Another show business axiom; what’s in between is less important.

Staying fresh
I hope there is no designer life cycle—if so I’m headed soon for that blue bin behind my office. The cycles of your professional life are unpredictable. Your life plan will change regardless. Sure, think ahead, but whatever long-range plan you make, you will likely not follow exactly anyway. So, stay fresh. Have a life outside of design with distinctly nondesign activities. Take lots of trips. Go places often. Exercise and eat sushi.

Wayne Hunt is founding principal of Hunt Design Associates in Pasadena, California, a consulting design office specializing in graphic design for buildings, places and spaces. The firm’s clients include The Walt Disney Company, Kennedy Space Center, Henry Ford Museum, MGM Grand and over 20 cities and public institutions. He teaches at Art Center College of Design and is past national president of the Society for Environmental Graphic Design. Wayne has written three books: Designing and Planning Environmental Graphics, Urban Entertainment Graphics and Environmental Graphics: Projects & Process; he is also a frequent speaker at design conferences and events.

BOOK TIPS FROM THE TOP: STEFAN G. BUCHER AND BILL GRANT

More books from top designers.

Stefan G. Bucher: 344 Design

Art & Fear
By David Bayles and Ted Orland

In Art & Fear, David Bayles and Ted Orland describe the fear involved in the process of art making. It also offers strategies to move past that point towards greater joy and productivity.

This book was suggested by one of my teachers years ago. I reread it every once in a while, because I need to. I’ve now been out of school for six years and I still encounter “art fear” almost every day. I’m getting the feeling that it’s a life-long condition. It’s chronic and demands constant work as a cure.

Bayles and Orland remind me that my problems and anxieties are not at all unique. This book will make you feel less isolated—understood, even. A good book to explain to your family why you act the way you do.

MicroSerfs
By Douglas Coupland

The same goes for Douglas Coupland’s MicroSerfs. If you want an entertaining, yet eerily true picture of the amount of work you’ll have to do after you graduate from art school, this is the one.

Everybody goes through a flat food period or its equivalent. And if you haven’t yet, you’re not working hard enough.

Decisive Moments in History: Twelve Historical Miniatures
By Stefan Zweig (translated by Lowell A. Bangerter)

Stefan Zweig gives accounts of, well, decisive moments in history. The moments of creative genius that are detailed here may be of particular interest: Handel’s Resurrection, Goethe’s Marienbad Elegy and the writing of the Marseillaise.

Zweig’s telling of these and other historic moments show the power one individual’s spirit and creativity can have on the course of human events. Read this and feel how ambitious and important our work can be.

Fear and Loathing in America—The Gonzo Letters, Volume II
By Hunter S. Thompson

This collection of Thompson’s correspondence from 1968 to 1976 spans the period in which he created his best-known books Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ‘72 (which I also highly recommend, especially now and in the run-up to the 2004 election). If you plan on freelancing after you graduate, this is the ghost-of-Christmas-future book for you. I marked any number of passages reading it, thinking, “Man, it’s not just me.” It’s another reminder of the passion that’s possible, that’s necessary, to be an artist in a dollar-focused world.

Genius Moves: 100 Icons of Graphic Design
By Steven Heller and Mirko Ilic

Make sure to get a copy of Genius Moves. Some days it’s my favorite design book ever. It shows 100 decisive moments in design history, with snapshots of what came before and after.
If you’ve ever felt disheartened that some people seem to be able to create designs that are amazing, stunning, groundbreaking and totally new—that some people are just born geniuses and the rest of us just aren’t—Genius Moves illustrates that no art exists in a vacuum. Most of our heroes stand on the shoulders of giants that came before them.

New Yorker magazine

Always, always keep your New Yorker subscription current. Whatever you do, take a few hours to read it every week. You will always find something beautiful and interesting in its pages and end up a better human being for it.

Bill Grant: Grant Design Collaborative

AIGA Design Business and Ethics series
By AIGA and various writers

Read it; practice it; live it!

The Brand Gap
By Marty Neumeier

This is a great book from the former publisher of Critique. Neumeier presents a unified theory of strategic branding that is easy to understand and includes some great current case studies.

The New Culture of Desire: The Pleasure Imperative Transforming Your Business and Your Life
By Melinda Davis

This provocative look at the consumer’s inner psyche provides profound insight into the relationship between marketing and emotional experience.

A New Brand World
By Scott Bedbury

Bedbury redefined the consumer-brand relationship with his work at Nike and Starbucks. This book offers practical, battle-tested advice on how to deepen brand relationships with physical and emotional appeal.

Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Volume One
By Julia Child

You need to have a life outside of design. After design, cooking is my next favorite passion, and Julia Child is a rock star! This classic cookbook distills the complexity of fine French cuisine down to the layperson’s level. It also contains hilarious anecdotes worthy of a cultural icon.

Publisher
AIGA Transitions is published once a month, September through May, nine times a year by AIGA (American Institute of Graphic Arts), 164 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010, www.aiga.org. The executive editor is AIGA national board member Petrula Vrontikis. AIGA Transitions is a benefit of student membership and is not available to nonmembers. AIGA seeks articles for this publication from knowledgeable, respected and experienced authors whose opinions are deemed relevant to the student and educator community. The opinions expressed by the authors are theirs alone and do not necessarily reflect the opinion or judgment of AIGA; further, they represent only one point of view and are not intended to be an exhaustive treatment. For further discussion of the issues with your colleagues and peers, please visit the AIGA Design Forum at www.aiga.org.