We have had an a young intern working with
us for the last couple of months and as the want of enquiring young minds he
has asked some interesting questions that have caused both some thought to
answer and a subject for a blog article.
Most of his questions have been not about
the actual process of design, but more about the business side of what we do. I
list a few for you to see my point.
- How do you make sure you have a successful business?
- How do you know how much to charge?
- How do you make your calculations for profit?
- How did you learn to make a business from design?
Now this sort of commercial knowledge is
not what your normal design student is asking but it was definitely in our
young guys mind. How to be a successful
and make money in the world of design?
When I think back I have learnt any useful
information about this from previous employers, asking questions, some reading,
some teaching courses and a load of mistakes to learn from.
It was not something I thought about at
university but it would have been useful to have some guidance in things like
proposal writing, profit and loss, following budgets, project management. At
the end of the day you may be the best designer in the world but if you don’t
know how to turn that skill in to a paid profession it will be useless.
It would definitely help students be more
employable to have some basic commercial understanding.
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