Before you start your design business
A few things you should know (or be ready to learn the hard way)
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A lot of designers have dreams of starting their own design businesses.
The dream of being your own boss, making your own hours, choosing your own clients, having (almost, depending on the client) full creative control.
There is a definitely an appeal to it. Though it’s not always sunshine and rainbows, starting and running my own design business has been one of the most fulfilling things that I’ve done in my career.
Recently I’ve been asked a few young designers whether they should start their own design businesses right out of school, or whether they should work in the industry for a few years first.
If I think back to when I first graduated and I was working my first real design job, I would have struggled to do what I am doing now. If I had my own design business then, I just would not have had a clue what to do and probably failed.
There are certainly driven people who have started very successful design businesses early in their careers. My friend and fellow RISD graduate Joey Guerra started his design studio, Guerra Office (formerly Visibility), with his business partner not long after graduating and became quite successful and well-known in the design world.
The inimitable Chris Do started his agency, Blind, right after graduating from Art Center and built that into a multi-million dollar business. Chris has talked on many podcasts about his early struggles as a young design business owner. I recognize a lot of my own learnings over the years in what he says.
If you think you want to one day run your own design business, I think there are some critical areas of knowledge you need to develop that can only be learned through experience.
And that experience can either be gained through working for others or by grinding and learning things the hard way on your own. Both are valid ways to do it, and it depends on how you like to learn.
It also doesn’t all have to be one way. You can mix and match. Some things you can learn at a company, and some things you can learn on your own.
I’d like to share these areas of knowledge with you over the next few weeks as a multi-part newsletter series.
Part 1: Learn your craft (as it applies to the real world) (this issue)
Part 2: Learn to sell
Part 3: Learn to build relationships
Part 4: Learn to manage
Part 1: Learn your craft (as it applies to the real world)
You’re a talented new design graduate. You have big ideas.
Should you get a job or try to go out on your own?
When you graduate from design school (especially if you did well in school), you might think you’re hot stuff and ready to give your gift to the world.
First of all, you’re probably wrong and having that mindset will only slow down your development. You can be confident in your skills but also cultivate a growth mindset, which will allow you to absorb what you are learning quickly without your ego getting in the way.
Even if you ARE really good, I think it’s hard to have any real understanding of how your craft maps onto problems that are faced by designers and companies in the real world without having done anything outside of school.
Internships definitely help with this, but those 3-6 month stints are only a small slice of what a real design process is. Especially in industrial design, where a product design cycle could be a year or more.
Continuing to develop your craft, learning how to apply it to real world problems and create commercially viable solutions is something that I think is best done within the context of a job.
One of the best things about working a job is having access to mentors. These can be your manager or more senior design professionals around you. You don’t have to engage in some formal mentor-mentee relationship to benefit from this (though it can’t hurt to ask!). Simply being around people who have been doing it in the real world far longer than you and being able to observe and imitate is going to teach you more than you learned in school, and fast.
Being in a real-world design organization, you’ll also start to be exposed to all the real-world concerns that people have. Things that you probably didn’t need to worry about in school, like profit margins and production quantities. Being exposed to these things (without having to be personally responsible for them) is a great position to be in because you’ll be able to observe and learn how design and real commercial problems intersect.
A job also gives you structure. You are kind of forced to show up every day and to do the work. And when things get hard, you don’t really have the option to just throw in the towel or phone it in. This is how you get the reps in. By practicing your craft repeatedly and working through the tough spots, you can’t help but get better at it. It almost happens by default.
You can do all this and learn on your own, but I think it’s incredibly hard. Not having more experienced professionals to guide you and critique you, and not having daily accountability to keep showing up, you can easily end up lost and confused.
If you start your own design business early in your career, you may miss the opportunity to spend your most energetic years getting the reps in and getting really good at the craft. You might still be able to do it, and in some cases you might learn even faster by throwing yourself into the deep end with no floatation device. But there will be a lot of variables outside of your control.
You may not be able to get as good clients compared to working at a company, and the work may not be as consistent. You may not be able to price yourself at a decent level and end up overworked and stressed out of your mind just to pay the bills. You’ll have a lot of other distractions pulling at you like, “Where will my next project come from?” or, “Did I pay my quarterly estimated taxes correctly??”.
My recommendation on this area is probably clear at this point. Unless you are confident that you can develop your craft on your own while handling all the other aspects of running a business (and yes, even freelancing is running a business), I think the best way to get real-world experience and improve your craft is to get a good design job, at least for a few years.
The benefit of having a job early in your career is that you don’t need to worry about anything but improving your craft and working well with others. You get to concentrate on skill building, application, and collaboration.
You can focus purely on honing your craft as it applies to the real world.
After all, if you plan to run your own design business one day, that is what you will be selling to your customers in one form or another.
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Just the ID Jobs - 13x Full-Time, 2x Internship
Just the Industrial Design Jobs is a segment of this newsletter that lists only industrial design jobs that were posted within the last week to various job board websites.
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Radio Flyer Inc. - Industrial Design Intern - Fall 2023
Chicago IL
Toys
0 years experience minimum
Chamberlain Group - Co-Op, Industrial Design (Spring 2024)
Oak Brook IL
Technology
0 years experience minimum
The Aspen Brands - Industrial Designer
Duluth GA
Baby products
3 years experience minimum
Hudson Valley Lighting Group - Industrial Designer
Wappingers Falls NY
Lighting
3-7 years experience
Hudson Valley Lighting Group - Senior Industrial Designer
Wappingers Falls NY
Lighting
7-15 years experience
Ovyl - Lead Industrial Designer
Nashville TN
Consulting
$105,000 - $130,000 a year
10 years experience minimum
Formlabs - Senior Industrial Designer
Somerville MA
Technology
4 years experience minimum
Whipsaw - Industrial Designer
San Francisco CA
Consulting
0 years experience minimum
Nugget - Industrial Designer
Butner NC
Furniture
$83,164 - $92,097 a year
4-6 years experience
Core Home - Junior Industrial Designer
New York NY
Home goods
$50,000 - $60,000 a year
0 years experience minimum
International Paper - Structural Designer
Aurora IL
Packaging
3 years experience minimum
New Balance - Associate Footwear Designer - Kids
Brighton MA
Footwear
2 years experience minimum
Delta Power Equipment Corporation - Industrial Designer
Spartanburg SC
Equipment
1-3 years experience
NEW VISION INTERNATIONAL INC - Furniture Designer
Ontario CA
Furniture
$55,000 - $70,000 a year
2 years experience minimum
The Estée Lauder Companies - Manager, Packaging Design, Creative
New York NY
Packaging
5 years experience minimum