So here are my last words and after all these "obvious career moves". If you are a designer, someone capable of thinking and doing well with good intentions, stick to that. Just that. If you do that for a long time, you will have to learn enough, just enough, of everything else to make you a good designer. If you are a designer and love to be a designer, focus, cherish that, protect it.
I am 42 years old, been into this messy area of design for quite a while. In fact, I was a late bloomer, I remember deciding to go and take a degree on design because I worked for a design who understood design as being the art of designating what others had to do. I remember saying to myself, if this guy can be a designer, I can also be one! Ok, not your average reason to start with design...
I am one of those that went into design because of a talent for drawing and because I liked things. So, took a degree on industrial design (old right?) and then went on to work in the fastest growing company in Portugal, of course, a branding company - my first "obvious career move". I was hired as their first product designer and left 8 years later after doing the typical pathway "from designer to manager because it's the only way up". I interrupted this period for a couple of years and went on to London to do a masters of art... in design; awkward, right. Meanwhile, the company helped me live the good life while in London (they really liked me, yeahh), when I left in 1997 I was executive director managing a group of 12, part of the board of directors of a company of over 200 people, I was making VERY good money.
Why did I leave? to complete my second "obvious career move", form my own company. Though about a new concept; felt the plastics industry was booming and went to the fast growing area of Marinha Grande - a world renown mold making geospot, where I teamed up with some industrial partners that offered engineering / prototyping / mold making / plastic injection under one roof and decided to complete the circle upwards with product design. I had to build the thing from scratch, identify clients, hire people, design, present and collect - management, so to say. Good idea, right? It would have been if I hadn't chosen the wrong partners; as soon as I was the best small company in town and after they had learned the ropes and I trained the team, they started pushing me out. Would I stay and fight and loose precious time while busting my health?
No, went on to complete the third "obvious career move", went abroad and went to work for a fast growing design consultancy in Barcelona, as their design area manager. Yeahh, I know, what does that mean... it was supposed to mean: form a good design team and make sure the design results are top notch. What in fact meant was: compromise with management and other departments, deal with a shitload of bureaucracy, pay more attention to that and to profitability and design will somehow survive. 3 years later, I was invited to start a new fantastic career, become an international account manager. When you are old enough, speak 4 languages and understand enough about a large number of issues that will make you look smart in front of the majority of people, you get to become a salesman. Manage clients and accounts is, after all, the grand profession of sales.
Why am I ranting about my personal path as if I am not successful or appreciated. I am in fact successful, I work in a good company, get paid VERY good money, get involved with fantastic projects and work with very smart people. As to being appreciated, I believe there is a number of people that believe I am a good professional, though less and less people think I am a good designer. And this leads me to why the ranting.
One could argue I could have made better decisions. I could have started by telling my first boss not to promote me to design manager, let me stay on as a designer and hire other people to that job. I should have fought my partners when they wanted to push me out of the company, and buy their part in order to maintain a small product design company that I started. I could also have told the guys at the place I work now "if you don't give me conditions to be a design manager, then let me go. By the way, I don't want to be a salesman, I am a designer". But, do you really think this is what I should have done? Isn't obvious that I did all the "obvious career moves" first, because I had a chance to and second because they were so bloody obvious?
I have been to more than 50 events on design / design management / innovation / management / ... and whenever the word design pops up everyone seems to have an opinion about it. And, at the end or at the beginning, they will all ask the obvious question: what is design. That's when I usually leave the room. I am tired of people discussing what is design, using the same cliches and obvious misconceptions that lead to the same result - poor design, nobody understands you.
Design is about thinking. And doing. And wanting to improve. If you do this well enough, you might be a designer after all. The sad thing about it and about designers is that, when you can think and do things pretty well, when you are curious and restless, people tend to take you out of design and put you into other categories. This is bad because in the real wild world, you don't get to be a designer when you cross over to other areas, and part-time designers deserve no respect from full-time designers. They take you out of design and give you leadership and management tasks, as if this will complement you being a designer.
So here are my last words and after all these "obvious career moves". If you are a designer, someone capable of thinking and doing well with good intentions, stick to that. Just that. If you do that for a long time, you will have to learn enough, just enough, of everything else to make you a good designer. If you are a designer and love to be a designer, focus, cherish that, protect it. We have become - not now, it started with Peter Gorb understanding the value of the designer - commodities and other areas are learning more from us that the opposite. So let them cross over, make them look as silly as we look when we try to engage in business planning. They will come around, and we will survive, if we stay put and design.
By the way, as you might have guessed, I am tired of this fancy job they have given me and am thinking about going back, back to where I started and...design.
I am 42 years old, been into this messy area of design for quite a while. In fact, I was a late bloomer, I remember deciding to go and take a degree on design because I worked for a design who understood design as being the art of designating what others had to do. I remember saying to myself, if this guy can be a designer, I can also be one! Ok, not your average reason to start with design...
I am one of those that went into design because of a talent for drawing and because I liked things. So, took a degree on industrial design (old right?) and then went on to work in the fastest growing company in Portugal, of course, a branding company - my first "obvious career move". I was hired as their first product designer and left 8 years later after doing the typical pathway "from designer to manager because it's the only way up". I interrupted this period for a couple of years and went on to London to do a masters of art... in design; awkward, right. Meanwhile, the company helped me live the good life while in London (they really liked me, yeahh), when I left in 1997 I was executive director managing a group of 12, part of the board of directors of a company of over 200 people, I was making VERY good money.
Why did I leave? to complete my second "obvious career move", form my own company. Though about a new concept; felt the plastics industry was booming and went to the fast growing area of Marinha Grande - a world renown mold making geospot, where I teamed up with some industrial partners that offered engineering / prototyping / mold making / plastic injection under one roof and decided to complete the circle upwards with product design. I had to build the thing from scratch, identify clients, hire people, design, present and collect - management, so to say. Good idea, right? It would have been if I hadn't chosen the wrong partners; as soon as I was the best small company in town and after they had learned the ropes and I trained the team, they started pushing me out. Would I stay and fight and loose precious time while busting my health?
No, went on to complete the third "obvious career move", went abroad and went to work for a fast growing design consultancy in Barcelona, as their design area manager. Yeahh, I know, what does that mean... it was supposed to mean: form a good design team and make sure the design results are top notch. What in fact meant was: compromise with management and other departments, deal with a shitload of bureaucracy, pay more attention to that and to profitability and design will somehow survive. 3 years later, I was invited to start a new fantastic career, become an international account manager. When you are old enough, speak 4 languages and understand enough about a large number of issues that will make you look smart in front of the majority of people, you get to become a salesman. Manage clients and accounts is, after all, the grand profession of sales.
Why am I ranting about my personal path as if I am not successful or appreciated. I am in fact successful, I work in a good company, get paid VERY good money, get involved with fantastic projects and work with very smart people. As to being appreciated, I believe there is a number of people that believe I am a good professional, though less and less people think I am a good designer. And this leads me to why the ranting.
One could argue I could have made better decisions. I could have started by telling my first boss not to promote me to design manager, let me stay on as a designer and hire other people to that job. I should have fought my partners when they wanted to push me out of the company, and buy their part in order to maintain a small product design company that I started. I could also have told the guys at the place I work now "if you don't give me conditions to be a design manager, then let me go. By the way, I don't want to be a salesman, I am a designer". But, do you really think this is what I should have done? Isn't obvious that I did all the "obvious career moves" first, because I had a chance to and second because they were so bloody obvious?
I have been to more than 50 events on design / design management / innovation / management / ... and whenever the word design pops up everyone seems to have an opinion about it. And, at the end or at the beginning, they will all ask the obvious question: what is design. That's when I usually leave the room. I am tired of people discussing what is design, using the same cliches and obvious misconceptions that lead to the same result - poor design, nobody understands you.
Design is about thinking. And doing. And wanting to improve. If you do this well enough, you might be a designer after all. The sad thing about it and about designers is that, when you can think and do things pretty well, when you are curious and restless, people tend to take you out of design and put you into other categories. This is bad because in the real wild world, you don't get to be a designer when you cross over to other areas, and part-time designers deserve no respect from full-time designers. They take you out of design and give you leadership and management tasks, as if this will complement you being a designer.
So here are my last words and after all these "obvious career moves". If you are a designer, someone capable of thinking and doing well with good intentions, stick to that. Just that. If you do that for a long time, you will have to learn enough, just enough, of everything else to make you a good designer. If you are a designer and love to be a designer, focus, cherish that, protect it. We have become - not now, it started with Peter Gorb understanding the value of the designer - commodities and other areas are learning more from us that the opposite. So let them cross over, make them look as silly as we look when we try to engage in business planning. They will come around, and we will survive, if we stay put and design.
By the way, as you might have guessed, I am tired of this fancy job they have given me and am thinking about going back, back to where I started and...design.
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