Finding a (Design) Job in D.C.

Derrick

So, here is my situation. I graduated from college with a BFA in graphic design a year ago. Since then I've done a freelance project and, due to moving around quite a bit (following a girl), I've been working part time at fedex.

That's really not enough for me though. Since I've gotten to D.C. (about 6 months ago), I've been scrounging careerbuilder and craigslist for design work and have gotten a grand total of ONE interview. And that interview was recent, and I don't think I have the job. In any case, I'm pretty much at my wits end here, and so is my lady with my part time working ass.

I really want to work in design. I think I have a talent for it. The two interview peeps I've gone to before (separate places) seemed to like my work. However getting my foot in the door seems damn near impossible here. All the sites don't want you to call or contact directly, yadda yadda. My resume isn't that hot (since I'm a new grad), so going on just experience alone I'm obviously going to have a hard time. However people DO do these jobs so they have to start somewhere. So, where in the H-E-Double hockey sticks do I start?

I really did not expect this to be so crazy difficult. I've sent out well over 100 resumes. In fact, hell here it is:

My info

Education

Bachelor of Fine Arts (Graphic Design Focus), Magna Cum Laude, Western Kentucky University 2007

Experience

Catered By Cathy – 2007, Freelance Company Identity, creation of logo and layout for marketing,
business effects and packaging

Word and Image in the Book of Kells- 2005, Illustrator, Published April 2006, author Heather Pulliam

Gallery Assistant- August 2005- Dec 2006- Western Kentucky University Gallery, primarily used for
visiting artists and special events. Responsible for collaboration with the Director for overall
design of exhibits, preparing work for viewing in the gallery, compiling mailing lists, and organizing and preparing special gallery events such as opening/closing catered exhibitions

Special Event Promotional Designer- 2006-2007 Creation of various posters/fliers/etc for guest lectures at WKU

Logo Mural- 2006 Natcher Elementary (Bowling Green KY), Volunteer work in executing blow up of logo
to large scale painting in school gymnasium (Approx. 15 ft sq.)

Art Dept. Assistant Office Secretary- 2005-2007, General office work as well as pitching in for various projects as they arise (Decorative Fountain Planning, Bronze Casting, etc)

Honors and Activities

Annual Student Juried Art Show- 2007 Winner, Best New Media Award: Animation, also Exhibition of Print Design

Art in Motion- 2006, 2007 Exhibition of Exceptional Art in Motion. Director- Joon Sung

Scholarship Nomination 2006- Merit based nomination for exceptional work by WKU Art Dept professors

US Bank Art Show- 2006, 2007- Exhibition of Art and Design works

Senior Art Exhibition- 2007 Exhibit featuring the culmination of Design work

Program Experience

Adobe Creative Suite, PhotoShop, Illustrator, In-Design, Freehand MX, Flash, Dreamweaver, Lightwave Modeler, Aftereffects

References

Dr. Kim Chalmers- Painting Professor, Former Dept. Head (270) 745-3944, Kim.Chalmers@wku.edu

Cathy Jacobs- (Catered by Cathy) (859) 525-0562

Kristina Arnold- WKU Gallery Director (270) 745-3944, Kristina.Arnold@wku.edu

Dr. Heather Pulliam, University of Edinburgh, 20 Chambers Street, EH1 1JZ, Scotland United Kingdom. Fax: +44 (0) 131 650 8019

Joon Sung- WKU Graphic Design Professor, Art in Motion Director (270) 745-3944




I have also uploaded some examples of my print work for your perusal-

http://s288.photobucket.com/albums/ll176/Pouncingfoxes/?action=view&current=Probonologojaggs.jpg
http://s288.photobucket.com/albums/ll176/Pouncingfoxes/?action=view&current=Bowlshirts.jpg
http://s288.photobucket.com/albums/ll176/Pouncingfoxes/?action=view&current=lectureseries1-c.jpg
http://s288.photobucket.com/albums/ll176/Pouncingfoxes/?action=view&current=lectureseries1-a.jpg
http://s288.photobucket.com/albums/ll176/Pouncingfoxes/?action=view&current=Schatz2.jpg
http://s288.photobucket.com/albums/ll176/Pouncingfoxes/?action=view&current=FullTimeline.jpg




----


Obviously formatted correctly and I've just started putting links to my work in there just so it at the least has a chance to be part of the process.


As it is I stand to lose just about everything if I can't find a job soon. I'd like to have a clue here.

Penguin_Otaku

Apply within universities in the area. George Mason? Georgetown? I think those are DC-area places. Their athletic departments, hell even their marketing department, I'm sure could use someone with your talents.

So its sports related, sure, but I think its a pretty sweet gig.

supabeast

A few things
• If that’s your resume it sucks. All you’ve done is fill a page with factoids, and those factoids are DANGER! DANGER! NO RELEVANT EXPERIENCE OR SKILLS. You need to get your technical skills way up on the list because the only job you’re going to find will be pretty demanding in that department.
• Right now the job market for print designers in DC sucks. A big chunk of the DC design market is nonprofit organizations who can’t afford good print work when the economy isn’t booming. Get rocking with Flash and XHTML/CSS or move.
• Unless you have a mindblowing portfolio you can’t get hired in DC without a good website. Honestly, the work you’ve show here is very weak and dated compared to what the graduates of the local art shools have in their portfolios, and that you don’t even have it hosted on your own site is very bad for you.

Your best bet is to start doing temp work to build up your portfolio and make connections. Contact The Creative Group and The Boss Group and take any work they can get you. Also consider landing an internship and work elsewhere on nights and weekends to pay rent. Once fall rolls around start volunteering at every AIGA and ADC meeting. Show your portfolio to anyone who will talk to you and ask them what you should do with it.

Derrick

Alright, well, how do you think a design resume should look? Any examples?

LondonBridge

An ex-gf of mine does this work in the DC area. Apparently it shouldn't be too hard to find a job.

supabeast

Your resume needs to focus on stuff that will make you look like a great potential junior designer. First, get your skills way up on the resume, because entry-level work is largely production work. Rewrite it listing your capabilities (page layout, logo design, illustration, print production, research) first and then place software skills under a second category. That lets people know that you actually think about design and you don’t just like to mess around with software.

Second, rewrite your work experience to sound more interesting, right now it’s just a bulleted list of jobs you’ve done. These should all be complete sentences!

Last, I would cut the scholarship nomination out of the awards list because it feels out of place in a list of exhibitions, and the exhibitions are more interesting than the scholarships anyway. Again, make these complete sentences. Don’t waste space on references—anyone who wants them will ask, and most firms won’t ask because your getting hired will really depend on your portfolio. If you leave references in a resume people will think you’re just filling the page.

Make sure that you’re using dashes consistently, and that you use en dashes instead of hyphens. People really do look for that. And when you format it come up with a clean, conservative look that’s typeset immaculately. And be sure that your resume lists the URL of your online portfolio. If you have a PDF portfolio that you send out, make sure they are in the same format; you might even want to put the resume into the portfolio as a final page.

Derrick

Thanks Supa. That was the kind of direction I was thinking from your last post. On my portfolio, what kind of things should I put in there that wouldn't make it look dated?

supabeast

I would drop:
• Don’t let bad habits…
• Bowl for kids sake
• Brody (just bringing him up will make people associate all three posters with postmodernism, without it they can be viewed as digital collage)
• Amy Santo Ferraro
• Pushing Clay…

What really goes over well in DC is high-concept/big idea work. People want to see how creative you can be without just trying to push Photoshop to the limits. Your Catered By Cathy logo is a good example of a strong idea.

Derrick

So how does this look in terms of a resume update?

Also, I'm working on my new website now. Really, thanks for the advice and if anyone has anymore, PLEASE help a brother out.

Heartlash

supabeast wrote: »

Right now the job market for print designers in DC sucks. A big chunk of the DC design market is nonprofit organizations who can’t afford good print work when the economy isn’t booming. Get rocking with Flash and XHTML/CSS or move.

This is the case in Boston too, and I'm willing to bet in pretty much every major East Coast city. So be prepared to move a LONG way.

Derrick, you may want to consider changing the first person paragraph format of your job descriptions. Bullets = better and it's always a safe bet to assume they want to read as little as humanly possible to get the point. Also, consider moving "Program Experience" up.

supabeast

This is not going to get you job interviews. You still aren’t listing your design skills, just software that you know how to use (any idiot can learn to use Photoshop). Almost every sentence starts with the word “I”. You don’t list any details about your degree or that you graduated with honors.

Try applying what you learned about typography to your resume—this thing looks like it was done in Word! You aren’t spacing your caps, the margins are tiny, the type is set in a generic serif, the lines are WAY too long, you aren’t using old style figures, and date ranges should be specified using an en dash with spaces around it, NOT a hyphen with no space! Book titles do not go in quotations, they should be italicized.

If you want to get a job as a designer, you have to design a better resume than the generic templates that office drones use. Get this book for more on the subject.

Derrick

Hmm, yeah I pretty much got the advice to be very conservative with it from various websites about design resumes. Bleh. I suppose I should just have fun with it and design something engaging.

supabeast

When they say to be conservative that usually means “don’t go apeshit”. Design resumes got really over-the-top in the 1990s and 2000s, and people were doing crazy stuff life deconstructing their life stories as resumes. But you still need to make it look cool.

The Black Hunter

Also it says Grapthic

I dunno if this was mentioned

Graphic is how it's spelt

It could be your secret problem

wallabeeX

I have to be the odd guy out and say I'm not incredibly crazy about your examples outside of the sports team logo. It seems like a lot of what you've done is Photoshop work, and it's lacking in technical skill and informed design sense.

Take some classes. While I think all of the above advice is very solid regarding your resume, this is a visual industry and your work speaks ten times more than your resume ever will.

MagicToaster

You're expecting to get a design job, but your resume looks like it could well be for a position in an accounting department. There is very little design going on. It is always better to show than to say. You can say "I'm creative, I think outside the box!", but if you don't show it how are people gonna know?

I love print. I designed my portfolio to highlight my strenghts as a print designer. It's a 6" x 6" booklet printed on 60lb cover paper. It mails inside an envelope which has also been created by me and is personalized for each recipient. In the book (which is only a couple of pages long) I created every spread with a design and some information about my self.

Without writing it this booklet says:
I know about mail protocol and design standards
I know about paper stock
I know about glues and adhesives
I have technical skills necesary to create something that does not come from a template
I know about binding
I know about print procedures

I didn't write any of these things, though it is what I want to highlight and I've done it not by writing about it, but by showing them actual tangible evidence of my skills.

In all, my advice is Don't tell me about your creativity, show me. Get rid of that horrible Word template and make something that is easy to look through and will stay in their minds.

Darkewolfe

You've sent out 100 resumes in six months. That's less than one resume per workday. You are not actually qualifying as "actively seeking work" by the meaning of the phrase that most people seriously hunting for jobs are using.

That said, if you are overlooking usajobs.opm.gov while living in DC, you are ignoring the largest local employer.

Edit: I just realized that this is a necro thread from literal years ago. My bad.

NotYou

I wasn't amazed by your work. What type of design work do you want to do? Logos, print, websites? I want to see a lot more examples of finished work. I'd also suggest you make an online portfolio if you haven't already done so.

Zeon

Do you have a printed portfolio, or just a website and a paper resume?

Because if you dont, you should have a printed portfolio, even if its just filled with stuff you did in school and no actual products or projects that youve worked on.

You will not get hired as a graphic designer without a printed portfolio. A website isnt going to cut it (unless the company is hiring for completely web-only design. Even then i would be bringing my printed portfolio).

mully

Yeah, I came in here to say "you need a website and a well-printed portfolio".

With a website, you'll have an easier time getting online freelance work in the meantime, as well. Using photobucket pretty much says "I don't care about my work enough to frame it nicely somewhere".

admanb

This thread is two fucking years old.

ceres

If you know it's two fucking years old, don't post in it to say it's two fucking years old. Just report it.