A few weeks ago it dawned upon me that it’s been 10 years since I graduated from college and started my professional career as a graphic designer.
10 Years is quite a considerable time, and although it sounds like a lot, strangely it doesn’t always feel that way – time flies when you’re busy, as they say.
Out of curiosity I started digging through my archives (yes, I’ve kept practically everything on disk) and started looking through all the work I’ve done so far. It was interesting to discover that – even though I think my work has massively changed over the years – some sort of common thread has been running through my work: a love for comics and science fiction.
At the same time I’ve been flipping through my copy of the excellent How To Be A Graphic Designer Without Losing Your Soul by Adrian Shaughnessy, and this all spurred me on to – over a series of blog posts – write about my education and experiences in design, the ups and downs, and how I learned from my mistakes along the way (never do 3D rotating logos or use lens flares “as a joke”).
Of course every story needs a proper setup. So instead of jumping right into the action, let’s rewind the clock a little.
I didn’t plan on becoming a graphic designer.
I kind of fell in to it. Having interior architects as parents had set me on a creative path for sure, but that path was largely determined by one thing: comic books. I got into them as a kid, and I’m still into them now. That obsession drove me through high school and college for the most part.
I wore my love for the medium as a badge of honour. Whenever I needed inspiration for a project, comics were the first thing I looked at.
After high school and a massively failed 2 year detour attempting Product Design I enrolled in 1994 in the Graphic Design & Advertising department at the Royal Academy for Fine Arts in Antwerp, one of the oldest art institutions in Europe and famous for kicking out Vincent Van Gogh and unleashing “The Antwerp Six” onto the fashion world during the 1980s. But that wasn’t the reason I went there. My parents studied there, my dad taught there and I ran around the hallways of the buildings when I was a little boy. In short, it was the easy choice.
Anyway,1998 arrived: graduation year. I had a computer, no internet and no clue what I was going to do after school. The thing was that I didn’t really feel I had a lot of prospects. Our teachers were all designers of the traditional kind to us. They worked either freelance or were part of small studio outfits that did nothing but book design, the odd museum or public service poster, and business reports as far as we knew. Some were illustrators specialized in childrens books. Basically everything I didn’t want to do. I wanted to do “cool stuff”. David Carson, Attik, Tomato and TDR ruled the world. That was what I wanted to do. The Cool Stuff!
For my graduation project I tried to combine all those things I wanted to do: comics, and “cool design”. The trick of course was to convince the teachers, who were looking for a subject worthy of a year long graduation project.
My first idea of doing a complete CI for my local comic shop (where I used to work) was shot down pretty fast.
In hindsight I can’t blame them – it was incredible limited in scope and not meaty enough to justify 10 months of work. But I still wanted to do something with comics! That was my goal – after 4 years I wanted to graduate with something that I was proud of and could use as a business card for job interviews.
So after some nerve-wracking days I had a brilliant idea: invent a book publisher of illustrated sci-fi books and design the whole identity for them, including one book. The pitch worked – it was a “proper” concept and although I had to convince the teachers that SF was a viable form of literature by throwing up the names of Asimov, Clarke and Gibson and their impact on popular culture they gave me the go-ahead.
The stage was thus set. I invented “Matrix Books” and chose William Gibson’s short story Johnny Mnemonic as my book – the way I saw it I could flesh out a 16 page story with design and illustration and I didn’t have to lay out too much text.
The cover to Johnny Mnemonic
While working on the project I had an epiphany of some sort. One of the guest lecturers that year (who had studied at the college) came to tell us about this wonderfull thing called THE INTERNET and his 10 year carreer in Silicon Valley where he, among other things, worked on video games, websites and 3D animation. Right then and there I decided that I’d become a multi-media designer (as it was then called). The work I was doing somehow perfectly gelled with all this cyberspace stuff. Suddenly I realized I could earn a living doing all this, which looked like complete sci-fi to me (remember, this was the time when movies like The Lawnmower Man hit the cinema’s).
More graduation work: I, Robot cover made from the insides of a walkman
My whole graduation project was one giant excuse for me to just experiment like crazy in Photoshop. I was constantly maxing out the 99 layer limit and tried to cram in as much stuff as possible (as long as it would fit on a Zip Disk). Less is more didn’t exist in my view.
More Johnny Mnemonic
As part of the project, each student was also required to design and build a small website. Since time was of the essence, we were only taught the bare basics of HTML, GIF animations and rudimentary tweening in Flash. I spent weeks building 5 pages in PageMill using only paragraph and line-break elements to positions everything. Luckily they didn’t evaluate our coding skills.
When I finally graduated, I didn’t have the best grade in the world (a respectable 70%). Not too bad. My teachers patted me on the back for having made the finishing line, but I sensed that they didn’t really get what I tried to do. Except for the guest lecturer, who pulled me aside during our graduation show and told me he’d given me 90% because he’d gotten it, and encouraged me to keep at it. That vindicated everything for me. I couldn’t care less about my grade now. I knew I was on the right track.
Fine. Now all I needed was a job. Easier said than done. I’d planned to try and enjoy “my last summer holiday”, but my dad was adamant I had to step it up now. In the real world people don’t wait, so I spent a few weeks thrawling the yellow pages looking for agencies.
That summer saw another edition of the yearly Young Talent exhibition at the art gallery of my local comic shop. What had started with me and 3 friends during a slow period during the summer had by now become a somewhat national event that attracted wannabe artists from all over Belgium. So naturally I printed out some pieces of my graduation project to be included in the exhibit.
And then, on the opening day of the show the weirdest thing happened.
As I’m walking around the gallery I get approached by a visitor, a regular at the store whom I had failed to recognize. He starts asking me all these questions about my work and is getting quite worked up and fanboy-ish about it. He’s lavishing laying praise on me and the work, but there was an open bar that had been going for a few hours so I didn’t take him too seriously. The reason he latched on to me was because he’d spotted a fictious (and blatantly wrong formatted) URL on one of the prints and starts telling me about his buddy who’s really into motorbikes, who also works at an ad agency that “does all that computer stuff and you’d be perfect for it!”. After 30 minutes I relent and give him my phone number.
Eventually he dissapears, and I think nothing of it. The day winds to a close, and we all end up in the pub around the corner and proceed to get royally shattered.
The next morning at 9am the phone rings. With a hangover from hell I answer… and its The Guy From The Shop! He’s almost shouting with delight. He’d spoken with his friend the motorbike ad guy, gives me his number and tells me I need to call him the next week and then he hangs up. I wasn’t sure what to make of it, but it sure beat having to flip through the yellow pages! So the next week I call motorbike guy (his name was Gunther) who apparently already knew all about me and book a meeting with him on the Thursday that week. Crap! This is really happening!
On Thursday I put on my best clothes, pack too much work in my portfolio and manage to be on time for my meeting at the ad agency, with the classy name Vintage Productions. I get greeted by an American receptionist on the first floor and after some confusion end up in the kitchen on the 2nd floor, where I get greeted by Gunther (who I find out is actually the Creative Director) and Luc, the MD. After the required short intro and showing my work, they ask me what experience I have with websites. Sensing I’m way out of my league I sheepishly tell them I’ve used PageMill and GIFBuilder. They look at each other and chuckle – then tell me that “well, if you get the job you’ll learn to use proper tools”.
The discussion then quickly wraps up. They liked my work and the fact I graduated (“Its important that you can show us that you can start something and finish it.”), and after a fast tour of the company I got the “We’ll be in touch next week” line and get shown out.
A couple of hours later I’m home again when the phone rings. It’s Luc from Vintage. “Hello Tom, we’ve just been talking – and if it is OK with you, we’d like you to start Monday.” Whaaaaaaaaaat?! Trying not to yelp I tell him thats perfect for me, and that I didn’t expect a descision, if any, so fast. “Oh well” Luc says, “You’ll find out soon enough that things go really fast here. After you left we ordered your desk and computer. See you Monday!” *click*
That next Monday, I walked through the doors at Vintage ready to be thrown into the deep end head first…
Next: 1998 – 2008, part 2: How The Web Was Won.
July 11th, 2008
Funny, its this project that made go the Antwerp Academy.
Assuming i would get a proper eduction, in retrospect, how wrong was i.
Nicely written though….
July 11th, 2008
By the way,
you should really make your own comic.
If you think away some layer (to much visual clutter)
the style is really good.
July 11th, 2008
I’ve been researching and collection materials for the past year… Someday It’ll happen…
July 12th, 2008
that was a nice read. i spotted a couple of pretty familiar points in it – especially the dream of making an own comic. when visiting the comic-salon this year i was left with a true gap regarding innovative works. all the international artists show up there and are surely very talented and everything, but the big news are missing.
i feel it’s time to do something about it. i pre-pre-order whatever you come up with this way…
August 5th, 2008
Looking forward to part two!
I too spotted a few familiar parts, albeit at around about the same time but with Kleber!
October 4th, 2008
Man, I’m glad I read this. I am in a similar position that you were 10 years ago and feel like giving up. Thanks for this post! I feel refreshed!