#any designers have first job growing

1 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

minor remnant
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what do you mean a little bumpy? What is wrong? :c

Also yeah, when I got my first official design job as a ux designer... it sucked and was really confusing and I didn't have the best experience tbch. I learned a lot about myself though and my limits as a designer. I also learned about my strengths and it was a big slap in the face being fresh out of college. Not everything is flowers and sunshine when you first get out of college and a lot of young designers think that because they are promised a job at the end of their journey; but it really doesn't work like that. I know it is common sense, but when I was younger - fresh newbie into the design industry/tech industry, I really thought it was like that.

stark shell
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I would defer to your manager as it is their responsibility to ensure you’re equipped with what you need to do your best job

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Taking the time to spectate more senior designers and their day-to-day operations, presentations, etc. was most effective for me. Learn by watching and doing.

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Some companies (usually bigger ones) are more hand holdy with newer designers because they have resources for those in place. Smaller companies perhaps not, so to some extent, there’s a lot of just figuring it out as you go

tough zephyr
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My first job was as a web designer for a print shop and I got tasked with a huge backlog of compositing logos onto various swag type products you get at conventions. Think like a bank logo on a chapstick or whatever. I got bored after 45 minutes and spent the next hour building a script that could run through an excel sheet and combine the images automatically. It finished everything by lunch and I was sent home because that's all they had in the queue for me for the next 2 weeks. No I did not get paid for the 2 weeks.

minor remnant
slow lagoon
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@halcyon sequoia I think it's only natural that you're feeling this way since you're learning! What specifically do you feel like is bumpy?
There are a ton of things that could affect your experience, like your manager/mentor, team, how leadership values design at your company, etc

deep falcon
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worked as a ui / ux designer + front end dev for a year.. that was the most brutal experience ive ever had bc the prev designer had alr left, at that point of time i had to take over their things as the only designer.. they made me just go through some typical user flow and told me to give some recommendations. when i did so, my recommendations were chastized as “being too minute”

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before that, i had also interned as a ui ux designer for a couple of months. but that was within a team of 3 other full-time designers and 1 intern……. for a team of like 20 pax…

woven panther
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(I actually told this story before on this exact channel while the experience was still fresh in my mind, but I guess it's worth repeating so here we go)

Had a case of culture shock at my first real graphic design industry job. Late last year, I was hired as a contract-based designer at this small branding firm with well-known clients after I was introduced to their MD and CD by my sister's boyfriend, who did a branding project with them once and is friends with them.

After I finished a successful web design project with them, they assigned me to work on retainer tasks where I would revise packaging designs based on notes given by their client. These required the use of Monday.com, which felt foreign to me since my past design experiences involved either family business work or direct-to-client/direct-to-manager communications, none of which used project management software. Because I experienced sudden brain fog while the project manager was explaining the entire process to me, I ended up repeatedly submitting revisions directly to the client without client approval and, one point, I even accidentally caused a request overload, so I ended up being rebriefed on the entire Monday process. However, despite my best efforts to course-correct moving forward, I was eventually let go last February.

If I could go back and change one thing about the experience though, I would've really taken notes while being initially briefed by the project manager and structured the instructions in a way that I'd be able to more easily understand.

brittle basin
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First of all, congratulations on getting your first job! 😁🎉

Second, it’s completely ok to feel that learning curve. Adapting to working in your field is harder than it seems. My advice would be to lean on your manager to set you up with what you need to succeed, ask lots of questions whenever there’s something you want to understand better and take time to get to know your colleagues well. 1-1 coffee walks are one of my favourite ways to do this when I’m in person with people.

Also, I agree with the point about taking notes. Not only will it help you remember things, but it might also help other new hires in the future!

deep falcon
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sometimes 1-1 time is so hard to come by though (ie. its always a bunch of colleagues surrounding the person u wanna 1-1 w unless u set up a semiformal time aside thingy)