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So I'll be going to art school in a few months, but I haven't 100% narrowed down where I'll be going. I'd really like to go to school on the West coast, so some of the schools I'm considering are: University of Washington School of Art in Seattle, WA (looks like they have a pretty good design department) Art Institute of Seattle Art institute of San Francisco Academy of Art University in San Francisco So basically I'd like to live in Seattle or San Francisco. I know location isn't necessarily the most important thing to worry about when choosing a school, but it's important to me. What is the general opinion of the various Art Institutes? I've seen some stuff online that say they suck, and some that say they are decent. I'd like to study Industrial Design. Any comments or suggestions?
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Mar 2, 2010 23:14
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| # ¿ Apr 25, 2024 10:46 |
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I'm not an illustrator by any means, but if your stated goal is to "spend the next 5 years building my portfolio" then I don't see why you need to be in LA or New York to do that. Both of those places are extremely expensive and highly competitive, so they may not be the best places to find your legs as a budding illustrator. Hell, if you have an interest in video game work there are tons of other prospects, such as Seattle, Boston, Austin, or San Francisco. Those places have the added benefit of strong industries not related to entertainment, such as technology, which always have a demand for capable visual designers. As for worries of being "a dime a dozen," that's perfectly natural when you're first starting out. I think the key things are to be confident in yourself, always be improving yourself, and always be networking. You've already mentioned networking, but its importance cannot be overstated, not just for LA and NYC but everywhere and at all times. Actively pursue leads, talk to people, go to industry events, market yourself, etc.
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Jan 2, 2015 07:37
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Adobe Creative Suite and other program are merely tools, try not to focus on them too much. Anyone can learn the basics of Photoshop or Illustrator in a week or two. That is not what you are paying for when you go to art/design school. What you are (hopefully) being taught is how to understand design at a fundamental level. How to critique work and know what does and doesn't work and why. If you are looking to draw and sketch and make pretty pictures, you are probably thinking more along "illustration" lines. "Design" as it is understood in zeitgeist is much more systematic than you might think. It follows certain rules, often called the elements and principles of design. In my opinion good design is 90% composition, which simply requires you to understand where and how things are placed on the page and why. Hierarchy, scale, typography, color, etc. Actually being able to draw well or use Illustrator is far less important than basic sketching, creative intuition, and a grasp of the fundamentals of design. As for formal art and design classes and schools, I would be very wary of programs that focus too heavily on the technical skills of design such as how to use Photoshop, Illustrator, etc. Anyone can become moderately proficient on those quickly. What is much more difficult and valuable it learning the fundamental theory of design and how it works. Once again, digital programs are just tools that anyone can learn; a master can pick up a piece of chalk and turn a sidewalk into perfection, the medium does not matter. In my 100% biased, subjective, and personal opinion, simply do two Google image searches, one for "swiss design" and one for "graphic design." "Swiss design" will return mostly beautiful work with an excellent sense of hierarchy and typography that qualifies as "good design". "Graphic design" will return mostly garbage with no rhyme or reason behind it. Ignore the obvious flaws in my argument and you'll understand a bit of what I'm getting at.
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Feb 28, 2015 12:13
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You should probably be posting in the web design critique thread rather than here but I'll give you some quick dirty feedback. 1) Grey text on a grey background is not a very readable choice. In fact I wouldn't recommend using grey for anything at all, it's almost always ugly and plays tricks with nearby colors. Black text on a white background is fine - if you want to liven it up a bit, pick one or two colors for highlights, links, and other important bits. 2) Your footer is ruining the page by being wider than the browser window and causing some horizontal scrolling. It seems to be because of the footer's border width combined with a lack of zeroed margins. Having a border around an element that's the same color and style as the element itself makes absolutely no sense. Get rid of the border and set "margin: 0;" for your body in CSS. 3) I'm not sure if it counts as "responsive design" if the page content doesn't actually react to the window size. :P Some of your text elements respond to resizing the window, but most others do not (the banner images on your main page, the "interactive maps" tiles, etc.) To be honest you might want to move your portfolio onto Squarespace or something similar until you get a better handle on web design. It will look nicer and be easier than doing it yourself. By building your own website, you are inviting potential employers and clients to judge you based on its quality, and you really don't want that to happen unless you're a professional web designer/developer with a very nice site.
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Mar 6, 2015 04:46
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I'm not in the animation industry specifically, but IMO you should only hand out business cards, resumes, or links to your portfolio if there's a chance of them leading to actual work in the form of internships or job opportunities. As a sophomore you're not really in the position to pursue leads, you're too early in your formative stages for that. Instead, focus on leaving a great impression like you mentioned. The most important thing for now is to get your name into the brains of professionals so that in the future you're not just another face in the crowd to them. You'd be amazed how far a simple "oh yeah I remember that kid from when he visited a year ago" will get you. Links to your half baked sophomore demo reel? Not so important.
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Apr 20, 2015 08:45
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JumboJetDreams posted:Took a while off from school after high school but I recently started back at community college for graphic design. The program here is less than stellar and I"m considering moving to Seattle in a year to go to a better school (and I'd rather live there than Florida). If you come into UW as a transfer student, there are two ways to get into the design program - you either ace the Design 166 class with a 3.7 grade or above, or you submit an application and go through a day-long "workshop" intended to gauge your talent and passion for design. Admission rates are something like 25% so it's very competitive, but you do not need to be some kind of design wunderkind to get in. Really they just weed out the lazy and unmotivated so that only people truly interested in design make it. Aside from UW I have heard some good things about Cornish and Western Washington University, but I don't know much about them. They're both private universities, which means they're expensive and probably not worth the extra expense. Whatever you do, absolutely steer clear of poo poo like the "Art Institute" or other such shady for-profit schools. You will pay a lot of money, learn virtually nothing, and come out of it with a worthless degree. Finally, there are a ton of great community colleges in and around Seattle, such that you could easily attend one no matter where you settle down. They're all virtually identical as far as I know, in fact they all have transfer agreements with each other and UW so that almost every single class transfers into every other school and vice versa. I went to Seattle Central Community College for a few quarters and the classes were just fine and UW accepted the credits without hesitation. Last bit of advice: if you end up deciding to move to Seattle for school, do so sooner rather than later. Out-of-state tuition rates are crazy high compared to in-state rates, and it takes a full year living in Washington without going to school to establish bona-fide residency. What I ended up doing was moving to Seattle, chilled for a year working an easy job to pay the bills, and then got into UW as a Washington state resident. Tuition was way less, and I got such generous financial aid that you wouldn't even believe. PM me if you want more info!
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Oct 19, 2015 07:36
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Depending on how much emphasis they put on raw talent and style (which might be more important for illustration than something like graphic design or visual communication design) your personality and culture fit might edge out your portfolio just slightly. Regardless, how you present your work is as important as the work itself. Be confident but not arrogant, practice walking through your work and explaining why you made your design decisions, and have at least two backup plans (I bring mine on a laptop, uploaded to my website, and USB.) Pick 2 or 3 projects to talk about more in depth that you think are representative of your skills and process. Don't show them anything you feel the need to apologize for ("sorry this isn't very fleshed out but..."), if it's not your best work it shouldn't be in your portfolio.
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May 30, 2016 11:25
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If they're not communicative now it's not going to improve over the course of the project. Imagine waiting days for feedback that you need to have in order to move forward. When they finally do give you feedback, it will be awful because they don't care and make your job ridiculously more difficult. I'd drop them and find someone more enthusiastic about engaging with you.
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Jan 19, 2017 04:14
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Nessa posted:The lady finally got back to me later that day saying it wouldn't work out, as they absolutely NEED to have the site built with Homestead. I recommended a different website builder and wished them luck. Dealing with clients is a careful balance of standing up for your ideas, listening to feedback, not letting them walk all over you because they're writing your checks (which they are doing for your design skills - YOU'RE the expert here) and leaving your ego at the door. Communication his huge. If you differ in opinions on direction, find out why. Make it about more than what looks "prettiest" - what designs best serve the goals of the project and why? What ARE the goals of the project? How does each decision support those goals? Make them justify their decisions beyond "I like the way it looks", because you should be doing the same. As for a "tagline", feel free to drop it and keep it simple. IMO your name, contact info, and professional title are all you really need. When you give it out you will ideally be in a face-to-face situation where you can give a stronger first impression than your card ever will. Toeing the line of trying to be cute can backfire.
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Jan 28, 2017 09:04
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First impressions, totally raw because I'm drunkposting: The intro and outro are goofy as gently caress. I mean, text flying in and out of place screams After Effects preset. Everything else looked competent if not exactly inspired. I've seen worse in local metropolitan TV commercials. Starting at ~00:42 I couldn't tell exactly what you were responsible for. Did you animate the character models from 00:44 to 00:54? If not, then it's a bit pointless to have in your reel because that's not your work. If you did, then maybe there's a way to make that more explicit although I can't tell you exactly what that might be. Nothing else in the reel is animated like that so it stood out. gently caress I sound like an rear end in a top hat don't I. Hmm. Well I guess the impression I get is that you've been doing YouTube channel intros. I think maybe you don't need to show the full footage for every piece you've done, except for the particularly good ones, like maybe Virtus.pro and Nerd St Gamers. Everything else can be cut down to show only the sexiest parts, like 00:54 to 00:59. The whole thing would actually be improved by being 30 seconds shorter. I hope any of that helps, if not feel free to punch me. If nothing else ditch/rethink the intro/outro.
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Apr 12, 2017 08:55
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IMO you can totally put student work in your portfolio. Especially if it's your best work. Employers want to see an accurate representation of your work, they won't care whether it was done in school or not.
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Jun 14, 2017 06:30
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| # ¿ Apr 25, 2024 10:46 |
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What does "art" mean to you? What would your ideal creative outlet look like if money were no object? Honestly, making a career out of art for art's sake is nigh impossible. The typical answer to your question is probably "go into design" - visual or graphic design if you're 2D oriented, maybe product or industrial or exhibition design if you're more of a "maker". Applying creative skills to solve real world problems can certainly make you a living. But traditional art skills like painting or sculpting are just not widely marketable. Even more "useful" fields like drawing and illustration are brutally competitive.
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Nov 27, 2017 08:12
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