Hi, Mrs Monsta has a fine art degree but has been in an office administrator since she graduated. Having given up on the rat race, she wants to transfer her admin skills into a design environment where she can hopefully continue doing adminy things but also get involved in 'design' (she's also a photographer and has her own private client base for that). We know those roles are rare as hen's teeth but it seems worth finding out about anyway. So if anyone has done this, and/or did do a post-grad/professional skills course, what course did you do - or which course would you recommend?
Cheers.
I'm a bit surprised nobody's answered. Sounds to me like Mrs Monsta would be suited to an Account Manager/Director type role depending on age experience and all that.
Coming from a creative background is a definite plus, especially if she really does have admin - logical? - skills. She might well not need to do any further courses, just get stuck in on the job as it were.
Where are you both based?
HTH
to get work as a designer it's all about who you know not what you know, either that or work as an intern and work your way up,
here's an example, I have a product design degree, have spent 3 years since graduating trying to get a job in this sector, which is pretty much dead with lots of graduates willing to work for nowt, I am skilled up in all sort of design software, so can do anything from web design to full on 3d cad visualization, luckily I gained other engineering skills and am getting work that way,
a friend of mine has no design education background, her friend's husband works in IT, he wanted to offer webdesign but didn't have the creative talent, approached her and she is now making a reasonable living out of designing websites and her clients are growing, she learns skills as and when she needs them, started off with a few basic photoshop skills and went from there,
networking is the answer, don't waste your money on courses unless you need to build up a portfolio,
Amt - agree with your sentiment, but surely it's all about that first break?
Might be because you know somebody... might be something else....
And Product Design degrees are not all equal.
3rd para? Hmm
But you are right.
Thanks for that, some useful points. We're in the leafy Cotswolds and not the throbbing heart of a cutting-edge city like Bristol where there might be more opportunities.
I know of a few people who trained as product designers, couldn't get a job and changed careers. From what I could make out, that particular aspect of the design industry is extremely difficult to break into. But that's the design side of the industry, not the core group of people that do things like run the office, make the tea, buy the biscuits, that sort of thing.
I did a product design degree (a good course and I got a 1st) but like most others struggled to get a job. I eventually through networking got into retail design have been doing that for 10 years. The 3 jobs I have in the industry have all been obtained by networking and I've just been offered another one, again by networking.
I currently work in the south Cotswolds and we have many graphic designer, artworker, account manager and traffickers role that may suit. Drop me a mail and I'll take a look when I'm back in the office on Thursday.