What a difficult time it is for everyone. I really feel for everyone that is hurting during this recession, and with very little hope for an end any time soon, I know what it is like to feel the effects. I am currently in between jobs and I am quickly going to be running low on spendable money. You know what though, I am not worried.

Let me explain.
Yes, It is a very difficult time, I do not have a job, I am running out of money but those are negative things that anyone with a brain could dwell upon right now. Other people’s negatives may be a little different than mine, but they are all negatives just the same. As designers we strive to hold ourselves a little bit higher than this, and when I say a little bit I really mean if we do not we will not survive recession or not. WE WILL FAIL if we dwell on negatives about any project we have and refuse to fix them to make a perfectly working, smooth running, and well oiled machine for our client. With that last sentence I come to my point… Make your own luck!

If you do not make something happen in your life no one will. There are opportunities out there. They are probably not what you want right now, but life is tough sometimes, then the tough times end. I really do not want to preach, but sometimes people need to hear this stuff. I am not going to lie, the reason that I thought to write on the subject is because I recently had someone telling me the same thing and kind of set me straight.

 

Okay… What Can You Do

The first thing that I want to touch on in this section is the fact that I think that freelance work is very promising right now, and I know I am not alone in feeling that way (David Airey thinks so too). If you cannot find a full time job working for a design firm or any in house position, my recommendation would be first never give up. Keep looking for work, both full time and freelance. If all you can get is a freelance job here and there, take them.  After that I would recommend a couple of other things:

 

Consider Other Jobs

Now remember my first recommendation (NEVER GIVE UP). Never give up on your dream job. Sometimes you just have to pay the bills. Look in the local help wanted adds, get a job, pay the bills, but always freelance or be doing something that helps your design career too. Never stop looking for design jobs and continue to apply to them. Even if you consider getting a job in a different field you should start as close to your field as possible. If you are a web designer and can’t find a web job start looking for print positions. If that doesn’t work maybe you could get a job at a printer or something else loosely related to what you know. Please do not turn away a good job just because it is not your dream job. Make money, save money, and spend money. That is how we will get ourselves out of this mess anyway.

 

Consider The Job Market

Where do you live? I live in Iowa and here the unemployment rate is %5.8 according to cnnmoney. Please click the link to see all the unemployment rates in the United States.

Are you willing to relocate? If you are serious about what you want to do it is something that you will have to consider. Please do not only consider the unemployment rate as your criteria though. You have to consider many things. For instance just because Iowa unemployment is fairly low, You would still probably be better off moving to New York or California for a design job. You have a better chance of finding any old job in a state with the lowest unemployment though of course.

 

Make Your Work No Matter What

It is important that even if you take a job that is not in design that you continue to do design work. You will never get the job you want if you do not have a current work load. Employers do not want to see projects that you did ten years ago when you were in college. There are a few things that can help you stay busy.

 

Make up your own projects

Come up with an idea for a product and design an identity for it. Make a fake brochure. Redesign some info graphics in a way that you think makes them easier to use. These are all interesting things that you can do to add to a portfolio to let employers know that you are a thinker. I have been told by many of my colleges that this is a very good and respected practice. One of my teachers in college even did it on one of his sites (Jordan Gadapee). Please visit his link to see what he has come up with and search around a little.

 

Join A Competition

There are many design competitions that pay and pay well. This is not something that you can rely on as income and I would not recommend trying it. You have to understand no matter how fundamentally good your design is, judges choose a winner based on what they think is working the best and what they personally like. Do not rely on other people’s opinions and do not feel too bad if your stuff does not win. It very likely could have won in a contest with different judges.

Here are a couple of sites that I have come across that could potentially make you some competition money and provide you good work for a portfolio. It is difficult to win these because of how many people do them and because of what the client is looking for but here are a few links.

Crowdspring

99Designs

Elogocontest

There are probably more but I will give you these to get you started. I really hope this post is helpful to everyone!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 23rd, 2009 at 3:20 pm and is filed under design. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.