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Why Design?

Hi! I just want to ask all of you designers out there, "why did you choose design?". Why did you choose it as a career path? I have always loved design but when a person asks me why I chose it, I seem to have the answer but it's stuck at the back of my mind. I am hoping to have some insights so maybe someone can take the words out of my mouth. Thank you!

#design #career-path #designers #graphic-design #user-experience #artist

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James’s Answer

You will find you will get a lot of different answers with maybe one or two things in common.

Why did I choose the field? When I was a graphic designer, I wanted to design for my clients; I wanted their work to stand out and I thought I was capable of providing them just that. In the ten years I was a professional advertising designer, I won awards and had a lot of requests for me to work on pieces personally. It felt GREAT to have that reputation.

I am now in instructional design because, at my core, I am a teacher. I used to teach science, I have taught people how to design as well as use the tools of the trade. Now, I design materials and courses for aviation professionals who, again, request me by name. I have worked on quick compliance training materials to projects lasting over a year. I build all of the materials in-house, so I am responsible and in charge of designing and developing all of the images, animations, videos, audio, and layouts of the courses I develop. I create handouts, infographics, client guides and workbooks to supplement the course's eLearning modules I build.

And I never stop learning. Every day is something new and I get to work with some fantastic - and no so fantastic - people.

It's an incredible career to have and be passionate about.
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JB’s Answer

Why Design? A more general question that applies to, "Why do we choose to do what we do?"

We do what we do because we LOVE to do it! When we do what we love, it's our passion for doing what we do that makes us great.
Designers are great at:
- Creating appealing art to support someone's message
- Emphasizing the emotional connection between a product and a client's need
- Grabbing the attention of people long enough so they take a moment to absorb the message being transmitted

Everyone should be prepared to answer this question. It's very common for recruiters to understand your passion. If you can't project your passion during an interview, some other candidate will...and likely get the job.
Good luck!
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Nicole’s Answer

I chose design because I love to understand people and solve problems. At first I thought I could do this as a doctor, but after getting a few years into it, I realized I loved technology and art. Boom! I uncovered the ability to funnel my passions into User Experience Design and Human Centered Design. I get to meet new people everyday, dive into their needs and discover opportunities to push their technology forward. Nothing is more satisfying than seeing people's joy in experiencing simpler processes and workflows in their everyday work. You don't have to be artistic to do design. You have to be able to think outside of the box. You have thirst for innovative concepts. You have to be able to empathize with your users. You have to be able to see the beauty in simplicity. Some of the most successful designers came from other degrees and or sorts of walks of life.
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Gloria’s Answer

Hi Jersey,

It can often be difficult to explain why you want to do something, especially if you really haven't settled on how you want to use that talent. I presume that you want to do design because it makes you happy or it seems very easy for you. The second one isn't always a positive. I have a friend who is a good cook doesn't actually enjoy it. So I would say that you should first have a desire to do graphic design. I am an instructional designer who has to have some talent for graphic design. The things that I enjoy about graphic design is creating an image (through photography) and then altering that image for use in something. I like editing the image to make it useful in the training that I create, either print or online. I also like the ability to merge images to make something completely new. It is creatively awarding to take something and make it into something very different. And graphic design can be done anywhere. I use it for training, but it is also used to support a variety of industries.

Gloria
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Eric’s Answer

As a kid I was very artistically inclined and enjoyed art and music. I remember always seeing tv commercials for starving artist sales at the local airport hotel lounge. I remember thinking then that you could not make a living off of art. At that point I thought maybe civil engineering was a way to blend a passion for design and creation with a career path that would always be in demand. As I entered college pursuing that I quickly found no joy in validating designs with math equations and quickly looked to commercial art, advertising design and graphic design. No matter what you call it you are signing up to creatively solve problems. This was really appealing to me as I always view things with the lens that they can be done better. Some people are paralyzed with a problem to solve and a blank slate to work from but I am very comfortable with that and prefer to work that way. I found pretty quickly upon internships and first job at an ad agency that you can have a love of art, make a career from it and leave your mark on a wide variety of brands and products along the way. I began as the most entry level designer and let my passion to constantly do more and improve more lead me down that path to having a creative team I lead and having oversight over 2 very large national brands as the VP of Creative. I approach my job as having no boundaries as loving design means you can lend your expertise in unlimited ways even if sometimes you are only lending an opinion. Simply answered, I love design because I love the challenge of creatively solving problems.
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Rua’s Answer

I had my college degree in Architecture and pursued a career as an architect for a while, despite that I currently work as a graphic designer. I literally came across graphic design by chance back in college, and bit by bit I got immersed into it and found my passion in it. Graphic designing is one of the field where you can showcase your creativity and unique designs everyday, and seeing these designs come to life is one of the things that bring me happiness and contentment. Importantly with the good graphic design skills, you can make a worthy difference around you. Also no dull day passes in the design field, it gives you freedom in the variety of projects that you can undertake, be it magazines, book covers, cards, illustrations, brochures, brand identity, packaging, motion graphics, videos etc. It's a really wonderful fiel where you I can be able to unleash my creativity in!
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Lydia’s Answer

My why is because I love solving problems, which is at the core of all design. I also love understanding how things work and learning new things, and then figuring out how to make it easy for others. I value leaving the world better than I found it and threading creativity throughout my work and life. Design really ties all of these things together nicely.
Thank you comment icon Oh, this! +1 Richard Dalton
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Seni’s Answer

Hello Jersey,
To answer your question “why design”?

I will ask you why do you want to do Design? what motivate you to become a design engineer?

Being a design engineer, I like to think outside the box. I like to draw, I’m creative, and I like to solve problems.
Good luck!
Seni

Seni recommends the following next steps:

Visit a design engineer firms/ organizations to see what design engineers do.
Go to Youtube.com and type what design engineer do
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