kcollinsdesign said:
The graphic design industry is in flux. The good colleges still teach design principles and creative thinking, but the graduate must, and I mean must, aggressively learn the technical side of production on their own. The colleges do not have teachers in place that know this stuff, mostly because the industry is changing so rapidly there is no way they can keep up unless they are active in the profession.
The best art schools tend to have instructors who are actively working professionally in the specific field they teach (graphic design, illustration, type design, cartooning, etc, etc). The best schools also spend nearly all of the time teaching in cerebral side of things. The instructors are not going to waste time showing students the basics of how to click around in a specific piece of software. Anyone can learn how to do that
for free on their own free time.
There are countless hours worth of tutorial videos and other how-to resources freely available for learning how to use mainstream graphics applications. Why pay a bunch of tuition money
and waste valuable class time learning that? None of the software or any of the software tutorial videos teaches anything about visually conceiving a project in an effective way, planning it correctly and carrying it through to completion.
Too many smaller colleges and vo-tech schools offering graphic design education spend way too much time teaching courses on Photoshop and not nearly enough time teaching things like page layout, color theory, typography, visual communication, etc.
kcollinsdesign said:
The money today is in back-end web development and game design, and that's where many of them go. Most of the good candidates have been writing code and developing web sites and games since they were in high school. A strong development background coupled with an understanding of design principles can land them a $50k job, and if they continue learning the production side, that pay will go up. Those without the necessary math skills and a drive to learn the latest production technologies do not find jobs, and may be better off entering a different field (healthcare, customer service). Creative types with little demonstrable production skills are going to have difficulty in the market. Template driven design solutions, clip art and stock imagery make it simple for just about anybody to design professional looking graphics with little or no training.
While learning how to code is a valuable skill, it's not graphic design or "art." It's computer programming. It's easier (for now) to get a good paycheck being a programmer than it is being a graphic designer. A graphics person will improve his marketability by learning how to code, whether it's HTML and JavaScript for web-related stuff or more specialized things like being able to code advanced scripts for use in Adobe After Effects.
I think web development has turned into a waste land of sorts. It's dominated by WordPress and canned templates. As artificial intelligence and automation continue to advance we're going to see a lot of jobs in that area get eliminated. AI is also threatening a good number of software development jobs.
kcollinsdesign said:
Most sign shops need production technicians, not artists. Many high schools and local community colleges teach the basics; this is a good place to find affordable entry-level employees.
If the hire is going to be doing any design work that person should at least have at least some raw talent and demonstrable ability to think visually. The visual problem solving thing is good for tasks like installing vinyl graphics. The more advanced tasks, like installing vehicle wraps, takes hands-on practice.