How to be a graphic designer without losing your soul?

Evening lecture                                                                                                        12/01/2011

Lecture by Adrian Shaughnessy

Context : Graphic Design

Topic : How to be a graphic Designer without losing your soul?

Adrian Shaughnessy has shared with us his experience about the shifts in design, and talked about his work. He is the author of the book “how to be a Graphic Designer without losing your soul”, and author of “Graphic Design, a User’s Manual”.

He gave us a lists of advice he called paradoxes, and I think they worth thinking about:

Paradox 1

There’s no such thing as bad clients, only bad designers

Paradox 2

The best way to become a better graphic designer is to become a client.

Paradox 3

If we want to educate our clients about design, we must first educate ourselves about our clients.

Paradox 4

If we want to make money as a graphic designer, we must concentrate on the work, not the money.

Paradox 5

For graphic designers, possessing verbal skills is as important as possessing good visual skills.

Paradox 6

Clients will only listen to us if we bother to listen to them.

Paradox 7

Most ideas fail not because they are bad ideas, but because they are badly presented.

Paradox 8

Designers who use the argument “I know best because I’m a professional” are usually unprofessional designers.

Paradox 9

We often imagine that all the good projects go to other people.

Paradox 10
Designers never like being wrong: but to admit to being wrong is the best way to gain resoect and trust.

(…)

Paradox 15

A designer’s brain is capable of much more than making things look pretty.

Chloe Belloin