Adrian Shaughnessy

12th January / Professional practice

I was looking forward to attend to Adrian Shaughnessy’s lecture, because I had already read his main book “How to be a graphic designer without losing your soul”. It was interesting and useful, very easy to read and, in my opinion, a good approach for a “advice/manual” book for recently graduated designers. As I imagined, the lecture was coherent with the book. Interesting and useful, easy to follow. Although I knew that Adrian Shaughnessy have done some important work related to music, it was nice to get to know more of his work, and mainly the way his career naturally developed and changed.

The “second part” remembered the book, but in a more interesting way, once he talk about a general scenario of being a designer nowadays and gave some advices based on his experience. Today is very different to work as a graphic designer. In some ways it’s easier and more exciting. We can create our own studio just with a laptop and an Internet connexion. He stressed about the importance of being entrepreneurial and proactive. We shouldn’t just wait for the next client, because we are capable of doing more than we think we do. He focused the relationship between client and designer. Usually the problem is not in the client but in ourselves. He also mentioned the importance of having verbal skills and being capable of talking about our work. Being humble and listen to the people we work with it’s also valuable.

Finally he concluded that although we are in the middle of a difficult financial crisis, it’s a great time to designers because there’s a need for visual culture, as well as for design thinking as a potential tool to be applied to social concerns and not just reducing it to nice visuals.