Starting a design career when you come from a lower income background

In 2012 I graduated with a degree in Visual Communication from Grays School of Art. At that time if you wanted real world experience in the design industry, your only options were an unpaid internship, or a really really badly paid internship. Both of these options were non-starters for me, because I actually needed to make money. 

I watched friends whose parents could support them take on these unpaid internships and thereby get a head start on the creative route they desired. I took a job as a graphic designer in an oil and gas services company that actually paid me a decent starting wage, but also slowly ate away my creative spirit. If it sounds like I’m in anyway ungrateful, I’m not – companies that actually choose to their staff should always be respected more than those that don’t.

What I didn’t realise at the time was you get stuck in a sort of “lower-income-job-doom-cycle”. You take the paying job that you don’t love, thinking you’ll get your foot in the door in a more creative one further down the line. But all the while your portfolio of actual paid work is kind of… dire. But I knew how VALVES worked and how to draw them in Adobe Illustrator, so that was something. My Dad respected that too!

Queue the next step… MY FIRST FORAY INTO FREELANCING AT THE AGE OF 22. I realised if I was to impress any sort of actual creative agency, I’d need to do some serious work on my portfolio. I told all my friends and family I was freelancing, did a load of work for free, and actually got some nice looking stuff to show potential employers.

The round up of this story is to highlight how f*cked it is that my university friends took unpaid internships to get a foot in the door, and I ended up doing a ton of unpaid work to eventually get a chance at a cooler creative job. While young designers are slammed for doing unpaid work, maybe think of the privledged position you’re in to be able to tell them off in the first place. 

This post isn’t designed to slam folks who were lucky enough to have extra support and get a head start the creative industry. We should all jump whatever opportunities are presented to us.  

No matter what background you come from though, there are ways and means to make yourself stand out and be seen.

If you had a similar experience to me – I’d love to hear about it!