For many graphic designers, there comes a time when you sit back and wonder if it’s time for a change 🤔

But should you jump ship into a completely new career? Or should you use those highly transferrable skills you’ve gathered along the way to pivot into a new area of the creative world?

This week, the Angry Designers discuss some of the career moves YOU could make if graphic design no longer feels like your jam.

 00:00
It's kind of gets you off. Like it's really on other. 

 00:05
Things. Get me off. I don't know about that, but okay. 

 00:08
Yeah. I like to, I like what I relax. I like to watch graphic designers, hustle. Ooh, that turns me. It's hot. Right? 

 00:16
Graphic designers. You're listening to designer where we cut through the industry to house frustrated, graphic designers, survive and thrive. 

 00:33
Good job. 

 00:38
Thanks for coming out. Thanks for coming. Cheers to you, 

 00:41
Sir. Ooh boy. 

 00:42
There's something good. This is what for reserves? My friend. 

 00:48
Could see how she goes down. 

 00:49
Oh, so, we, it was nice during that whole dry January thing. I mean, rumor has it. It's good for your liver and this, like, I didn't feel it didn't thank me or anything, but I am, I'm glad that I have at least to come. 

 01:08
My wife and I did the same thing and we kind of thought it's and we talked about this. It's like we did it. Yeah. That's we can't do, we can totally cut out alcohol for an entire month. 

 01:22
I think there's a p**s me off last year, because last year I only made it today, 20, which I said before, it was pretty s****y. I just had to prove to myself that I could do that. It's like, it doesn't own me. Yes. I own it. And that's a scary thing. Cause last year was just like, wow, it owned my ass. Back when I was younger, I used to smoke. Right. Smoking was a bugger to challenge, like to try to quit. Right. When. 

 01:47
You do that, when did you quit. 

 01:48
Smoking? Geez, probably like 15 years ago. 20 years ago. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, it's and again, I did it for like 10, 12 years where you lane pack a day guy almost. Yeah, I know. Right. Well, and the funny thing isn't it. It got to a point where I was able to control it to the point where it was like, I only would do it when I drank. Right. And everybody's like, sure. Literally though, it's like, I wouldn't, I would not smoke for months on end. Right. Not a big deal. Then we'd go to Mexico. A whole group of us. I would buy a carton is crazy and disgusting as it sounded take it there. Right. I would smoke the whole car. When I came back, I didn't have it. So I own that s**t. Right. I came back and it was proud that I was like, oh, I have control over something that was just making my life miserable. 

 02:36
Right. It's like that whole, quitting and having control over that. Right. Which I think kind of works into what we're talking to some totally, actually. 

 02:44
Exactly. Yeah. That worked out pretty good. Great. How, how often can you have smoking? Isn't sacred. 

 02:52
Well, before we get any further let's just remind everybody that we got lots of really cool stuff happening. Right. Right. Now the most coolest thing happening is we're trying to get reviews on our podcasts to help us out, help us get higher rankings. I spread the word, spread the good word of graphic design to everybody who needs our help because we're here to help graphic designers survive and thrive. What we're doing is we're offering a promotion contest, whatever you want to call it, February, March and April. For the next three months, individually, every month, whoever puts a review on our podcast on apple podcasts, even Spotify, somebody did earlier on, which was really cool. Drop us a line on Instagram and you'll be entered that month for a chance to win a set of apple AirPods. Yeah, that's right. The good ones, right. Those things that it's just like, you can't see anything. 

 03:41
You decide to quit something, you put those on and you're just determined. Please go leave us a review on apple or on Spotify and then hit us up on our Instagram and let us know you did. That's how you get entered for that month. Oh, okay. All right. That's easy enough. Cool. Yeah. Cool. All right. That's good. While you're on Instagram, say hi, chat it up. I mean, we have a great bunch of people on Instagram, right? The community there is really cool. It's just a lot of jokes, a lot of really cool s**t. Right. A lot of high-fives virtually, so that's awesome. Going back to this whole thing about quitting, right? It is like when you've had enough, right. Obviously for something stupid, like, smoking. Yeah. All right, fine. We all know it's bad for us. You should quit that. Quit that cold Turkey. 

 04:26
There's no benefit to anything. It's not like, well, I can use what I've learned as a smoker to do other things. Yeah. 

 04:33
There's no real extra, there's not much. 

 04:36
No, no. Even the drinking thing, as much as, like if you're going to give it up, I don't think that drinking would have gained you any skills to help you in any other way, 

 04:46
Unless you will enter drinking contests, something like that. The more you drink, the better you are. 

 04:52
Yeah. Let me know what that context exists. Exactly. What I think the whole point of today's conversation that we want to talk about is as graphic designers, were privy to learning so much we've honed skills. Right. We, we understand and think differently than the average person. Right. We've learned these cool software skills. Right. How to talk to people and visual debts. We've learned all these things, but the time does come for some people where they're just, they've had it. Yes. Right. Which is unfortunate. We've had a couple of people ask us, when do it's the right time and this and that. Right. It's unfortunate if they can't be pulled back into it, sometimes just the love is lost. Sometimes it wasn't the right choice from the beginning. Yes. Okay. Yeah. Whatever the reasons are, what we're trying to talk about today is it's, don't actually jump completely into another field altogether, but consider like fields that we're going to talk about today, that you can take what you've learned and actually grow in these new areas. 

 05:49
Yes. Right. Say what you're saying basically is graphic design is your base. You can springboard off to something else because of the skillset that you've honed as the gravity. 

 06:00
Absolutely. Right. This is what people need to understand. Right. Like, I mean, maybe you've had it, slinging, ads creating brochures or even, doing logos wise, but there's so many different things that we can just, and I mean, we're just going to scratch the surface today of just some of the more obvious solutions where people can go. Right. I mean, the list is long and broad because the s**t that we learned, we're like, we're not graphic ninjas. We're like empathetic ninjas. We can go. I mean, we've got so many bags of tricks. We've got stars, of experience here. We've got throwing knives there. We've got nunchuck, who's pulling out all kinds of things and the black outfits and we just disappear. But I mean, it's true. We, we've learned so much that it's a waste to completely give up and go work at home Depot. Exactly. 

 06:47
Or, go and start doing shelves and, become a cabinet maker and start over from scratch because there's one thing I've learned is like, okay, so as a business owner, making money right. Is not always easy. Right. I hired a guy to do some shelves in my house. Okay. I didn't pay that much for these, the whole huge shelf unit entertainment unit, the dude, like, came, measured, he then, back at you built it site, right. He sanded painted three coats of paint. He did this, he did that. He came onsite, assembled it, did the wiring get the dude was working on this and what seemed to be for weeks. And it was like three grand. Oh geez. I mean, it's just like, and he was happy with that. I was just like, dude, like I could make that in an afternoon with the right project. Exactly. 

 07:32
I f*****g afternoon. Right. Like we become so good at what we do that, like with the right project, with, like our hours are like nothing anymore. Right? Yes. 

 07:42
It's true. I would point out that sometimes these guys are kind of stretched thin. Right. I believe there's a lot of like, I've had contractors come in and they're like, yeah. Okay, well we can work here for the afternoon. We might be gone for a couple of days, turns into a week or whatever. And it's like flaky. This business is that you get a rush job that comes in, you got to put off some stuff and we've done this with clients before, like, sorry, can we push this deadline back just about a couple of days, right. Something else. 

 08:13
Has come, something else that's come up. Yes, absolutely. 

 08:16
I totally understand that, but you're absolutely right. If the guy was laser focused one thing, right. You did something in a half an hour or in an afternoon and charge somebody three grand for it. 

 08:30
I know. 

 08:30
Right. It's almost your impetuses to get. 

 08:32
Absolutely. And again, this is your expertise. Get it. Right. Cause again, we learn how to do things. Many different ways that, at the same time, it's not about the cost anymore. Some of the value to the customer. Yes. That is an entirely different, podcast altogether. We will talk about that this year, but right now this is about, we have this awesome skillset. It's a shame to completely forget it all and go into a completely different it's a different direction altogether. Right. So, so that's what I wanted. First off though, I think we need to address, the big things before you consider switching. Okay. Right. Yeah. Like if it's just a matter of, you're just sick and tired of dealing with people, there's a bigger issue here. Right. Cause unfortunately, no matter where you're going to work, you're always going to deal with people. Right. We have to make sure we understand that, we have to make it for the right reason. 

 09:17
What does that, what is that Jersey boys saying? Wherever you go, there you are. It's just. A horrible thing. Sean secretly loved that show for the record. Not the Italian guy here. 

 09:33
Oh you mean, oh, are you talking to Jersey shore? 

 09:38
Wherever you go, Sean, there you are. 

 09:41
Gym tan laundry. Right, right. 

 09:44
Gym. 

 09:47
Guilty. Pleasure. I love that show. Oh my God though. 

 09:49
It was so horrible. You put yourself in a unique situation without one Sean. The truth is it's like, you have to make sure that the reason for baling isn't anything that isn't going to carry over into the next space. Right? If in general, you're like, I'm tired of dealing with people. I never want to deal with the person again. Well guess what? You go to home Depot, 

 10:07
You're dealing with. 

 10:07
People. Right. So it's right. You definitely want to analyze, the evaluate, the reasons you want to change before you make that jump. All right. If it's genuinely, because for whatever reason, you've been in graphic design for four or five years, it's just not doing it for you or you don't like the competition or, you don't think that your skillset is growing. Right. You've, you've almost given up in that sense, which sucks. It does happen, that comes like a, a reality for some people that this just isn't the industry for them. Right. The love isn't there. Right. But you've learned all these other things. This is where we want to kind of start reevaluating your options. Right? Like as a designer, even as a s****y designer, you've learned to empathize, right. You've learned to think about the end user. You've learned some software skills, right. That wouldn't be a shame to just bail on all of the sudden. 

 10:58
Yeah. That's a big one. Right? Huge. 

 11:01
I spend a lot of, even if it's five years of your life, jeez. Right. You've spent a lot of the time on Photoshop. 

 11:08
Illustrator. It will be squeezed, you know exactly. Right. The thing is this space evolves so fast that if you think you're just going to take a break from the space and come back in a year or two, well then you got another thing coming, moves too fast. I find often that people jump, and they're gone for 18 months. You ain't coming back. No, you're not. We're saying before you leave and take a break and go travel the world, consider these other options. Right. See what other kind of roles that you can slide into is kind of what we want to do. This is great. I think so. Like, I mean, as a graphic designer, of course, some of the most obvious high level things that we do on a daily basis, we work on social media ads, campaigns, we create banners and ongoing, digital stuff. 

 11:50
Often we're doing logos, we're doing images for websites, blog images. These are some of the high level stuff, but we also touch package design. Right. We can touch slide, decks, print. There's so much that we touch. Right. We learn about business on so many levels. If you ask the right questions and if you're engaged, which we always tell everybody, you have to be engaged if you want to make it in this business. Totally. Right. Totally. I mean the most commonly used software is at the very least is the Adobe suite. Right. Photoshop illustrator in design, maybe, from there you dabbled in, after effects and premier right. Or XD. Again, that Adobe suite is , king for this space. Right. Don't forget, you've probably also touched PowerPoint. Yup. You've touched Excel. Yep. Right. 

 12:44
No, you're right. Yeah. Yeah. There's all kinds of things that, yeah. 

 12:48
And, and the, and let me remind you, and not only that, but you good chance, you've learned how to use Google. Right. I don't mean searching, but I mean the Google docs, the Google suite, right. Gmail, how to operate their calendars, Google sheets, and then all the other little softwares. Like you don't realize it, but you've probably acquired this massive skill set of like 20, 30 different pieces of software that you touch. You seem as big as stupid as Calendly, which for the record still has the worst logo of last year. So, I mean, again, I'm kind of ashamed to like bail on that and completely turn your back and go in a different direction unless it's, unless there's a different calling in life. 

 13:26
Some people are gifted that way, what I mean? They do and they use it up as much as they can. They move on to the next thing. This is all I've ever wanted to do. I know I've never been those people. I just, I always wanted to stay in this space. 

 13:41
Absolutely. Right. Frustration is a real thing before bailing completely on it. Right. Consider some options. So, the first thing I've always been a big fan of just telling everybody, move up as opposed to sitting and being a production artist or sitting and being, a graphic designer. Right. So, strive if you're in a bigger place from, to go from graphic designer to senior graphic designer. Yeah. Right. Different skill sets, but still you're responsible for all that same line. The next in a bigger agency setting would be an art director. Right. An art director, basically they're responsible for defining the projects overall look, right. They're managing creative processes along the way. Right. They're definitely managing a team underneath them, more of on a day-to-day basis. Right. Right. There's some managing that goes along there overseeing the budgets and keeping things. So they were actually multifaceted. Right. It's just basically like the graphic designer to the next level learned about the customer. 

 14:34
Now you're learning about all their projects. Right. You're overseeing ideally people underneath you working on those customers' projects. Yes. Right. There's a lot of overseeing a lot of directing. Right. A lot of teaching. Right. Just like, like you were teaching one of our juniors, about like layout and hierarchy. Right. Again, it's, does it come natural? I don't know what for you, I mean, dude, you called it all. 

 14:55
I mean, that's the thing. And, and, and it was just like, I looked at it and it was like, something just seems off, what I mean? Then, gently, these are how you, here's an example of how to fix that and then kind of go with that for the rest. It seemed to work. So, but yeah, you're right. Like, that's a, that's just one of those kinds of crazy things that you've done. 

 15:15
Developed over. You, I mean, you taught them hierarchy, you probably didn't even think you had it in you, but the reality is, managing and leadership is part of that. I mean, again, granted, we may have different styles of leadership, but they will follow you just as far as they'll follow me. Right. So that's cool. Of course, some of the cool things is idea generation, right? Because the art director knows, got more responsibility. You're not the only one who's doing that, but your you're thinking bigger picture. Obviously you get to choose the right design selections based on your team. Right. You're not creating them now you're getting three, four different samples from different and you're matching those to what, you feel that, now what the customer wants and you're presenting, right. 

 15:53
What's going to work best with this client. Right. 

 15:55
Right. All of a sudden there's a whole new level of, management experience. Right. You're doing less hands-on, but you're transitioning you, everything that you took as a graphic designer to the next level, which is kind of cool. The commonly used software, go figure Photoshop illustrator, right. In design. I mean, again, you'll be using, either keynote or PowerPoint to create your presentations. Right. You'll be presenting stuff. It's like your skills that you've learned as a graphic designer has now just evolved you into a better, maybe more managerial type of graphic designer. If you want to think of it that way, 

 16:25
It's kind of a natural progression too. Right. I feel these all, yeah. All this skill set and these hierarchy and design skills that you've worked on, you kind of translate that. The natural progression is to instruct the young ones, how to do that kind of stuff. So, 

 16:41
That would be the natural, the next brick in that creative environment, right. The top tier in that creative environment, right. Is the creative director, right? Depending on how big or small of a company, you decide to go and work there with, or move to, or even grow within, you can get to that creative director position, which in all fairness, creative director is more than the art director in a sense of more responsibilities, more decisions, but they are the creative vision. They are the overall vision leadership, the creative leadership or the organization they're overseeing not only the internal brand, but all the brands of the customers underneath the organization. Right. You can almost think of them as like upper management per se. I mean, management is just a creepy word. I run designers, but I mean like really it's like the ultimate creative decision goes to them, right. 

 17:30
They're the ones who are coming up with the concepts. Yeah. Presenting often the concepts, the big pitches, the exciting things. Right. They're not making all those little minute decisions, which is like a tree me, because let me tell you the details, but I mean, truth of the matter is right. Like they're the stage they've worked their way up to that chain where they have the overall bigger vision in place. Right? Yeah. That's super important. That's crazy. They big time. They're basically, they create, the management team for all the creative, right. They are, they're doing all the strategic decision-making right. They're setting the strategy, they're defining the brand a lot more within these companies. They're overseeing, overall the creative development, but they're not actually doing it. It kind of goes creative director and then our director, or then graphic designers beneath. So that's that hierarchy. Right. 

 18:20
But they're pushing it all out. So that is the ultimate goal. Less, hands-on more thought leadership, more high level kind of decision-making right. I mean, that's always where I used to strive for. Yes. I was like, oh, like before, owning an agency, I was like, oh, I want to be a creative director. I want to be creative director. That opportunity came where I could be a creative director for one of the bigger agencies in town way. Yeah. But were at 18 years in business. Oh. I was approached to say, and they were like, Hey, you've got experience. Do you want to apply with this? The funny thing is, this was one of the big agencies in town when I was a kid. It was that old. Right. I'm finding the opportunity presented to not for me to do it, but to apply, just to apply, which would have meant giving up this dream, jumping on their bandwagon, becoming one of them. 

 19:07
In the end, I didn't even want to. Wow. It was hard. Did you interview? No, I, I did. I was asked to interview. I said, let me think about it. It was an, and it was, and I thought about it and I talked to one of the owners, they were like, this is good opportunity. You know? It was a company of like 180 people at that time. Wow. Right. I was, I think this was a win-win were at that cost where I was like, I think we can do this on our own. I want to pivot. We want to niche. Yep. Right. I mean, so the story goes, I mean, it's the best decision I've made. Right. They've downsized to like 30, 40 people we're growing, but we're growing at our own pace and we're making our own decisions. So yeah. That was the right decision. 

 19:45
Big time, I mean, that is still very tempted. Yeah. That would have been a really cool opportunity, but then you're growing somebody else's culture, somebody else's brand. If you're cool with that, I mean, that was the vision, the dream, this is a whole bunch of other crap that I have to deal with that other people, let me tell you a creative director to be held a lot more fun than being an agency owner. 

 20:04
Exactly. Yeah, exactly. I was just going to say there's a lot less stress in that area than actually owning it. Yeah. Just because there's that little pressure on top just to crush the normal. 

 20:15
Yeah. The bigger picture here, of course, is that everything that you learned from one just transitions to the next. If maybe you're tired of, at that graphic designer stage or senior graphic designer said, you find out what it takes to get to that next level as an art director maybe, and then maybe, if that's not, ambitious enough shoot to see what it would take to get to the creative director role, if not for the company you're in another company, a smaller company, a different type different scale. Right. That's a good route to go if you want to stick with the agency. Right. Yep. Now let's say you don't want the agency route. Let's say you want something a little more different, more holistic, bigger thinking. Oh, right. Ooh. I'm a big fan of brand strategists or being a brand designer and designer. Okay. Again, you think that as a graphic designer, oh, that's what I do all day long. 

 21:01
The reality is there's a lot more strategic plays as being a brand designer, a brand strategist. There is a graphic designer because unfortunately often as a graphic designer, people are bringing you their brand and you can poke, you can help. Right. They're not taking you seriously just because unfortunately, they're bringing their brand to you. Yes. Right. It's a longer road to try to convince them that. Right. For us, Zen factor is brand strategy and creative design and creative. And that did come over time. Right. And we started doing enough creative work. And then we started embracing branding. We started realizing what the bigger picture is. We, we niche down and it just made sense. As a brand strategist or designer, right, you have to define what a company stands for. You have to define their promises and then as a designer towards that, their visual language. 

 21:49
Right. So it's a bigger picture. Think of course. You got to think, long-term, you've got to think, more broad how it actually shows up. If you really want to get deep with the strategist, then you have to kind of help them figure out what their promise is, and the brand promise, I'm a big fan of this is the promise that you will deliver to everybody. Always, no matter if it's somebody who picks up the phone or the retailer that your products sold at. Right. So there's a lot to this. Everything from, the, obviously the normal graphic design things like the typography choices, the illustrations, but also the messaging. Yes. Right. The people that you're after the demographics, right. The website. You're making all the calls and you're helping to actually give the bigger picture of the bigger brand so that when people hear that company's name, they've got a vision in mind. 

 22:33
Right. The goal that vision is something that you're going to help form and create and keep aligned that's key. Right. Your graphic design skills help with that. Yeah. Right. They, they hone that. I mean, this is ideally as a graphic designer, you should always be thinking and embracing and obsessing over your customer's brand. Yeah. For sure. Actually our customers thank us when we actually point out where labels are bad. Yeah. We're like, Hey, I'm sorry to do this, but an employee or he asked for this is still on with the brand, and kind of acting as a brand guardian. They're like, you know what, thank you. Yeah. Let me find out what the deal is. Sometimes it's like, what, it's okay. It's an internal project, not a big deal. Or sometimes it's like, you know what? I had to set them straight politely in a different path. 

 23:15
It's all good. Thank you for pointing that out to me. Right. They appreciate that because a brand really is just so important, so long to build. Yes. And it takes moments to just cripple. Yep. Totally. Again, from the design point of view, you can help the brands, logos, their sub logos, their brands internally, the style guide, some of the high level stuff, their website messaging. It's such their product packaging as the strategist, help develop a bigger vision, bigger longterm, and all the different points of contact. Yes. Right. That people are in touch with commonly used software. If you get in this role. Yeah. Surprise, surprise, Photoshop, illustrator, and design. You need to have an idea for typography and design. You need to have that skillset. Plus, you need to understand how people work. You need to understand, bigger picture, how to actually do focus groups, how to understand personas. 

 24:06
Right. Right. This is all s**t that we learn as a graphic designer, but people don't realize, good money and being a brand strategist for sure. There is. Right. Absolutely. You kind of can be a brain strategist and still deliver a graphic design flare to everything that you do. Totally. Yeah, 

 24:22
Exactly. Yeah. Because the brand strategists or strategies in the design work hand in hand, like you said, we brands all the time, but you're just more of the higher end of, 

 24:33
Of the strategy you can do, just take care of the visual part of it. Right. Which we seen some horrible executions and some other executions again, that Hey, look at all that grading, the bells and whistles yeah, I hate to bring it back. What Calvin Lee pitch looked really cool. If it was a different type of product, it was cool. It was just, the execution was pretty weird. Again, at the same time you've got the strategy and the designer. Both of those can stem from being a graphic designer. Right. Because again, it's just a natural progression for graphic designer. I know many graphic designers that have gone to a brand strategy role. And again, it's just the natural evolution. Right. So you need to change a pace. Consider that. Yeah. 

 25:13
Yeah. Right. That's good. Yeah. Keeps one leg in the design, in area you're off in a different. 

 25:20
Absolutely. The best brain strategists come from a design background with design back a hundred percent. Yeah. Totally makes sense. Yep. Absolutely. Nice. Now how about you want something a little more trendy, hip right now that's paying good, that you're seeing everywhere. Well, if you are a graphic designer turning yourself into a motion designer or a motion graphic designer, totally hot and totally easy right now. Yep. Motion designers are, a kind of a mix between a graphic designer and animator. You're seeing a lot of these animated logos popping up. You're seeing a lot of these little animated clips and videos showing up backgrounds that are cool, and these things can be used anywhere, right. From videos to PowerPoint presentations. Right. And it's like a motion designer, right. This is totally hot right now. It's just going crazy through the roof because all of a sudden, everything has turned into animations, everything. 

 26:09
This is just going to keep growing. I hate to say it, you're going to see this, interact, this, an interaction design. You're going to see this, when people are interacting with apps and with websites, but also like on like desktop or set top TV platforms, right. Or what is it? OTT platforms and such like you're seeing it everywhere. Right? Let alone just presenting a logo. This is something that's hot right now. Again, this falls in line with being graphic designer, because being a graphic designer, you have to understand hierarchy. You have to understand flow, right. White space, how people view something and how, and the motion you can visualize it. Right. This falls inland, all you have to do now is learn those extr of apps and practice. Yeah. Right. 

 26:50
A lot of these things too, I see their design elements, like little illustrations and things like that. Very colorful and hip, like obviously there's some design thought that has gone into it. Solutely, there's just, there's a different execution. 

 27:03
Yep, absolutely. Right. It's very cool. They're doing things like they're animating social media graphics, right. They're, they're animating digital ads, infographics, like literally the it's limitless because right now the whole world, our whole industries is digital and there's a need for this and it's going across the board. Right. So, and surprise. Yep. What's the software that you need for this first and foremost, the Adobe suite. Right. I mean, again, you can use all the Adobe products that we use on a regular basis. Photoshop lasts because it's more raster based. Yeah. We're illustrators that give us. 

 27:37
Absolutely. You shops minor league. It's not really animation or motion design per se, 

 27:44
I mean, Adobe after effects, huge frigging player in this space. Right. Again, and once you're in there, it feels like the rest of the Adobe suite that you're used to use. So that's the benefit. I mean, although we all have our issues with Adobe, but they have really owned that space for such a long time that, it's easy to jump from one platform to another. After effects you touch on maybe as a graphic designer, but to take that to the next level, it's not that hard, but additionally premiere is another one. Right. And it's an Adobe product. That takes the motion graphics to another level altogether. Right. Again, once one, the other fields the same. Exactly. Right. Even more so cinema 4d, final cut pro. Right. You start getting into 3d modeling and it's like, dude, all these things come in line. Again, they all fit under a graphic designers, original belt, our bag of tricks. 

 28:36
Right. So again, people don't understand that, right. It's not like you have to just go to school to be a motion designer. Yes you can. Again, you can also morph into that if you really want to. Right. 

 28:46
Yeah. You've got the base. You just need the gumption to get up there and learn these programs. 

 28:52
Absolutely. Yeah. Another designer animation designer. Oh, right. Again, taking that motion graphics in to yet another level, right. This is more ambitious of course, because this is like animation is different in the sense of, there's a lot more on 3d elements nowadays, right? There's a lot more sequencing with motion that you have to take care of. Again, this still about telling a story and using images in motion to tell a story and guess what a good graphic designer knows about telling a f*****g story, right? Like, again, most animals, they specialize in like either hand drawing stuff or designing 2d or 3d characters. Right. But you're seeing this stuff everywhere, online. Right? Like you're seeing it in videos. You're seeing it in commercials. You're even seeing like video games. High-end stuff is in video games really. You see low end or even basic stuff and video games, right? 

 29:42
Like again, animation is just taking that motion, the motion designer to another loved one, not together. Right. Exactly. Again, a lot of the most common things, of course, you're still using Photoshop and illustrator and after effects, Photoshop and illustrator for like creating your figures, creating your textures and all that. Of course, cinema for 40, 44 to take it to that next level and animate the thing. Right. So again, I can't stress enough. Art base allows us to do all this s**t. Right. Which is insane. It's like. 

 30:12
A big f*****g tree. Right? 

 30:14
Holy s**t. Yeah, dude. 

 30:17
Yeah. No, that's really cool. And, and I haven't gotten much into this kind of field, is it extremely difficult to learn? 

 30:27
Nothing is difficult to learn in my opinion. Right. It's all based on you. Look, we're not talking about going from graphic design to coding. 

 30:35
Yeah. That's a D that's a different name. I noticed it's not on this list. 

 30:39
He is not on this list. Right. I'm like, this is all still within the same realm of what we have. Again, we're learning on a daily basis how to design, how to take what's around us and put it into the work that we're doing. Moving up to these, this is all natural to me, in my opinion, right. Over the past 20 years, I've touched way too much of this. Maybe I'm oversimplifying it. The thing is, I've seen you touch this stuff I have yet. Like, I mean, dude, how far, how long did it take you to pickup? Ciro's. 

 31:06
I don't know. No, but seriously, I know it's two weeks I had help from our team. So. 

 31:13
Literally it was okay, but we're talking about weeks not year. Exactly. And that's the thing to remember. Ciro's suffer, you guys know Cirrus is this awesome online platform that kind of allows you to animate presentations and animate websites within this platform. Right. Again, it's all motion based on emotionally, everything's on a timeline, right? Yep. Moving sequence from a to B it's a completely foreign thing. It had nothing to do with Adobe. It's not an Adobe. 

 31:38
Product, so you're not different in that regard, 

 31:40
Yeah, it took you like literally dude, it took you two weeks to go from, I don't know what the f**k this is to now, like what you created in the end of that was f*****g incredible. We sold it for big dollars, right? Granted, that was the execution of it. There were still planning and strategy to get the content in place. I mean the final output, it's like, nobody cares about the content and that's what you did. Literally it's, it sounds like holy s**t, it took me two weeks, dude. It took you two weeks because of everything you've done up until here, and you were able to figure out, Nope, Photoshop. I need to use this kind of transparency. I need this kind of file. It needs to be a vector to do this. Again, it's two weeks may have felt like a long time, but in all fairness, what you learned is a completely new platform and you delivered something that the value to the customer was in the tens of thousands of. 

 32:33
Right. Exactly. Which is yeah. Which is awesome. I mean, again, that's kind of one of what we do, like this job has come in, we need to do it and this is how you do it. Absolutely. Right. It's kind of it's awesome. And it's frightening. 

 32:49
I guess I like a challenge all the time. 

 32:52
I think just because of our very nature of a graphic designer, you were curious and you're you like this kind of frenetic pace, right? Absolutely. It kind of gets you off. Like it's really on other things. Get. 

 33:07
Me off. I don't know about that, but okay. 

 33:10
Yeah. I like to, I like what I relax. I like to watch graphic designers, hustle. Ooh, that turns me. It's hot. 

 33:17
Right? Hustling graphic designers. 

 33:19
No, but I mean, we're a curious lot. So yeah. These are kind of things that this is not a, it's not out of the realm of pops. 

 33:28
Again, if it was somebody who didn't have any of our skillset, somebody who just fresh out of school, didn't learn everything that we've learned so far, whether it's in three years, five years, 20 years, that learning curve would have been far longer and the final product would have been horrible. Yes. Okay. You cranked out something in a short amount of time and it literally, it was like, you could put that beside anything you see in the store shelf. Right. Right. You're not, you're being too humble in this. 

 33:52
Well, I see all the warts on it. Wish I changed that it's a natural progression to critique yourself. 

 34:03
All right. Well, let's say animation is not your thing. Motion's is not your thing. You're seeing like this new world, well, let me give you a couple other things that are hot right now for money. Okay. I don't know that anybody's heard about this little thing, but it's called UX design. Oh, 

 34:18
Right, right. 

 34:21
Whether or not AI is going to replace it or not. Yes. That's a different conversation altogether. The reality is UX is still very needed and it's very f*****g hot. The best UX designers that I know personally have come from a graphic design background. Yes. Reason being is graphic designers are UX designers. Right. I mean, again, if you look at the bigger picture, so 20 years is a long time for us. Okay. Yep. In the past 20 years, I mean, design was just designed. Yes. That's it, there was no UX. There was none, there was no graphic design embodied everything. We did wire frames. We did all the interaction design. We understood what the patterns are. What they've done is design on a whole, has now like started to segment itself, graphic design, UX, design, UI design, right. They'd try to jam pack those areas into all these things that were doing anyway, which is why a lot of the successful UX designers that I'm seeing right now have graphic design as a background because they understand that, right. 

 35:20
Some have other jobs, other things, some will have programming and web then front end development. And I get that. Again, it's a natural progression for a graphic designer is to go into UX. Because again, we're so busy building the front ends. Anyway, we're starting to think through the patterns, the flow, the thoughts we're using tools like Google analytics, heat mapping software to actually see how people are traveling sites. We're tweaking that we're doing everything a UX designer is right. Just without all the legwork. All right. Unfortunately, you extended the title, right? They'll do journey maps and they'll do a lot more persona like in-depth persona and they'll do more interviews, whether that's b******t or not, it can be argued. Right. The reality is that just goes naturally to what a graphic designer does. Right. And I mean, it's everywhere, right? Google offers a six month course. 

 36:07
You don't have to take it. They will qualify you as a, as a Google designer. You can get a job within that organization for doing everybody recognizes the importance of this. Now, personally, I think it'd be f*****g boring as hell to work on just, user maps, flow journey, wireframing things I respected, and we do it. Yeah. I couldn't imagine doing that on a daily basis. It would drive me nuts. Yeah. I think I would miss the other, the other parts right. Aspects of, and again, I'm sure we can dive down to how deep this actually gets, but ultimately, user designer's job is to help conceptualize and optimize a user's experience right. Within product, a website, a company, right. This is a big argument I used to have with people that, user experience, argument, people, me, she kind of snickered. I saw that. I would love to see that Dan, tell you something, this is where the angry designers, because I used to get so p****d off. 

 37:08
Right. Because I mean, I remember when UX started and it's user experience. Right. Okay. Use your f*****g experience. Not just use experience on a website, not just user experience when you click on a button, but it's all encompassing user experiences. Every single f*****g touch point they have with a company, but their website, like you can inter intertwined UX with virtually everything. Again, it's all about user experience and user experience in a f*****g car. Makes sense. I know somebody who used to do the UX and actually he was the interaction designer, UX designer for an infotainment system ford. Oh really f*****g cool. Right. Again, that's a thing he, didn't nothing to do with a f*****g website. Right. Don't tell me you X it's just with a f*****g website. So narrow minded. It's like, hello, this is what we're doing. Right. This picture here, get your head out of your ass, there's prototyping involved. 

 38:03
Right. But again, it's not just wire frames. It's not just on websites. Right. There's, persona involvement of course, right. Use your flows, whether or not you're using data or not. And again, there's testing, there's a lot of wire. I mean, there's a lot to this, being a UX designer, but the reality is it's about studying people. Yeah. It's about, finding out what the patterns and flow and how to get people from basically point a to point B. You want them to go to that button to hit, commit or buy whatever will you design that flow pattern. You want them to be able to turn that button on the car. Right. Good. I mean, you hear this all the time. Yeah. Software commonly used in this space, surprise. Adobe is one. Right, right. If you're old school, Adobe still works in. A lot of people still use it. 

 38:48
Some will still use Photoshop. There's some new players out there sketch. Sketch is one. That's often used a lot. A big one is Figma, big Ms. Huge. For prototyping, InVision is a software. That's fantastic. We use envision all the time because before we build a website, we literally build the flat version of every page and connect it, make sure a customer's happy with the way they interact with the pages linked to one another. We basically show them their flow before we actually code that damn thing. Right. Once it's coded, it's good to go. Right. So, I mean, again, these are all really good platforms, but again, everything you learn in Adobe as a graphic designer, transitions to this space. 

 39:26
Oh wait, is Figma in XD. Pretty much the same thing. 

 39:29
Pretty much what it is. Yeah. Yeah. Of course they have their nuances and their differences. But obviously right. Because internally, I mean, our guy, our front end developer likes both. Yes. He uses XD because it's handy. It's easy and it's just familiar. Yes. And that's, and that's key. Again, if some people get into this space without being an Adobe, cause you can get into UX without being a graphic designer. Absolutely. You can. Again, then you'd probably want to try the tools. There's no commitment to the Adobe suite. Right, right. Yeah. 

 39:59
Is Figma free. 

 40:01
Or is, I don't think it is. I don't know. Actually I don't know, to be honest, I can't say a hundred percent, one way or another, because if it's free, how could the state business good point. Yeah. There's gotta be some payment somewhere. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Let's say you use a UX might not be your thing, when you still want to be more graphical. Right. Well, pull it back, buddy. Pull it back. You have, you can be a UI designer, user interface designer. Let's say you're like, you know what? I'm done creating ads and brochures and logos, f**k that. I want to go digital and be as, as non-human as possible while you still can use your aesthetic design skills and actually create user interfaces, right. You are user interface designer, right? This is somebody, who conceptualize and optimizes visual elements that, somebody would interact with, right. 

 40:51
Buttons, icons, banners, like the flow on a website or on an app or something. Right. You're basically, working on the front end of what people are seeing. You're not doing the backend coding. That's a whole different thing that we're not even talking about here. You're doing all the front end s**t here. Right. You're designing the front end and let the coders integrate the backend. Right. To me, this is like the best product, 

 41:13
Right. That sounds like a good game. I've. 

 41:15
Tried coding and my brain isn't working. Right. 

 41:19
I know because you get stuck one thing and it's just like, you can't figure it out, whether it, because it's math. Right, 

 41:25
Right. 

 41:28
Sucked at math. I didn't get into this. Cause I wanted to do bath. 

 41:33
Dude. I have to agree with you on that one. Right. That's the nice thing about being the UI designer. Right. In my opinion, being a good UI designer. If you actually push it further and like also learn of CSS, right. Which is a little designer, that's a really powerful skillset. Yes. Right. Because then you're basically integrating between the customer and the programmer. Right. And let's face it. The programmer speaks a different language. Totally. Engineers speak. They're brilliant. They're smart. They're at another level, but they don't speak human. Right. And, and human things don't necessarily turn them on. They're driven by code. They're driven by technology. Know I have a rule of the respect for them. One thing's for sure is they do speak a different language. Right? They're all. 

 42:18
Like bender from future. Right. 

 42:20
They're just too smart for their own good. And they don't even realize it. Right. Mad respect for these guys. But the thing is true. Yes. The reality is, and hate any programmer wants to disagree with me, drop me a line. They do not want to deal with the end customer. Exactly. They don't want to field these questions in the customer. Right. This is why the UI designer is so f*****g valuable because they have the empathetic nature of the graphic designer. They can talk to the customer, they can figure out, they can look at those pastels. They can actually study all this a UX designer. Right. They're building the front end that the programmer connects everything to that's gold. That's money. That's a, 

 43:00
That's a key. 

 43:02
Position to me. That's like the most powerful position in the whole web world is that front end person who can actually make that work. If you can be a front end designer and a UI designer that actually is able to connect those two worlds together, dude, you're writing your own check. Yeah, totally. 

 43:17
Yeah. That's great. It's like a bass player in between a guitar player. You know what I mean? It's so true. Weird. And they're awesome at the same time. 

 43:26
Sorry. Right. I remember seeing the, one of those, those guitars that on the top of the regular guitar and the bottom was a bass guitar. How does that, like somebody halfway through a guitar riff decides to go back down and play some bass. 

 43:38
Yeah. That's a graphic designer and a UI. 

 43:42
Nice. That's pretty messed up. Needless to say, a UI designer does do customer analysis. They do research. They they're obviously involved in the branding side of things. They're involved in the graphic side of things. They do the UI prototyping of things. Right. There's so much, that they can even do interactivity and animation. She's like a UI designer again, gold right now. Okay. That's something that people and it's just, it's always been around. Yeah. Man, it's gonna, it's just gonna explode really soon because people need this. Right. Technology's moving faster graphic designers. They're not that middle ground. Right. Graphic designers, granted can design it all, but they're not integrated. They're not creating all the different CSS of course is one language. There's a few other languages that fall in line with that whole front end side. That if you own that space, you can write your own ticket to whatever you want in that. 

 44:33
And again, commonly use software. Yeah. Adobe XD sketch Figma, but also illustrator and Photoshop again, illustrator and Photoshop. I mean, it gives gold. 

 44:44
God, that's the one-two punch, 

 44:46
Right. It really is. Dude. It really is. So, and if you really want to commit and go even further, there's one more here on in this path, right. You actually can go all out and become a website designer. Okay. Now I would never, ever in a million years recommend anybody to go and pick up something like f*****g WordPress. WordPress is so horrible of a platform to work for, but it is easy for designers to pick up a WordPress site or pick up something else on that's cloud-based, unlike WordPress and actually they're coming out with like software that like web flow is an incredible online software. It's like Wix on steroids. Really. Everybody has heard of Wix. Right. It's like, the reality is so I know somebody that can make a WIC site look like a million dollars really, dude, that dude's gold. Wow. Okay. Again, he used to be a graphic designer because again, graphic designers pick up on nuances that normal people don't right. 

 45:43
Yeah. You can amp up wicks even more. Like, there's so many other platforms that you can now build on top of online and not have to know a single line of code really. Right. And this is gold. Like Webflow is one and it's beautiful. Like what you can create on that. It's it's incredible. You don't have to know any code. Really none. None at a learning curve is minimal, but you can basically they'll host it. They'll do it on like we're not being sponsored or we're not being paid for all of this. The reality is it's like, and it goes back to programmers. Don't want to deal with people. They also don't want to deal with designers. Designers are a pain in the ass. So they build software for designers. They never have to bother getting programmer again, just do your thing. Don't bother me anymore. 

 46:28
There you go. Go play. The reality is they've created this great software that you can literally launch a website, an awesome website, the way you want. It looks like a million bucks. It's hosted in the cloud customer doesn't even know the difference and they can still go in and edit it. Like they would a WordPress site differences were press socks, right? There's so many vulnerabilities with WordPress. You have, if you're just regular maintenance with WordPress, you're constantly worried about, security flaws and this and that. And let's face it. The backend of the UX for WordPress is just brutal is awful. Yeah. WordPress is not a good platform, but these new platforms that are coming up are fantastic. This is a natural progression for a web designer to kind of go into the space. Right. We know what we're doing. We know the entire process from beginning to end from design messaging, hierarchy, which is key. 

 47:15
Right. You can integrate, some UX features, getting into some where for me, but the reality is you could go into web design with this skillset without even having to worry about coding. Wow. Interesting. 

 47:25
Yeah. Would you have respect of web designers all around. 

 47:28
The world kind of thing if you were working in no. Are you okay? Well, and what I'm saying is who's a web designer nowadays. 20 years ago, a web designer is somebody who knew Dreamweaver. Dreamweaver is still included in Adobe, but nobody ever admitted knowing it. Nobody will ever say, I know Dreamweaver because you're like, oh yeah, you're scratched up. So Dreamweaver is not taken seriously. Yeah, you can code something from scratch, right. Again, now that there, but there's such a riff between designers and the front end developers and the back end developers that aren't going to make anybody happy. Right. You just have to worry about making the customer happy and if you can deliver them, right, it's true. You just have to worry about making the customer happy. If you can deliver a website at a fraction of the cost without having to worry about regular maintenance, cause it's already taken care of in the cloud with your graphic design. 

 48:18
Absolutely. You can do something great. And this is key. Like we have so many venues that we can continue on. You don't have to bail and go work at home Depot or, decide to become an accountant or work at a bank or, take up farming. I don't know. We have so many options to stay here with us, I think. Right. Again, what other options that we're not really talking about too much butter, very exciting, right? You can be a package designer and literally you can be like, what? I'm tired of dealing with regular customers. I don't want to do brochures and logos and this, I want to design packaging. I f*****g love package design approach. We got some awesome package designers on our platform, dude. And it's just it's ridiculous. The s**t that they're doing and the jealous there's an agency in New York that just recently started following us. 

 49:06
I was just like, wow, like the s**t you guys are doing is so cool. Wow. I love package design. Right. You can do that full time. I mean, there's so many more, it's not a matter of just designing the package, but you're embracing all these other things. Right? How, how your eye travels through it. Right. How it actually looks like on the shelf. Right. So again, totally different thing. Right. Coming up with something custom. So package design is something environmental designer. Oh, this isn't like, you know, Mr. Eco-friendly, like when a hippie decided to become a graphic designer, that's not what this is, but this is like environmental spaces, ? Like whether it's like a trade show, whether it's a retail location. Right. It's actually taking your design, your hierarchy, your white balance, like everything that you've learned creatively, and now embracing it in like a 3d environment, right. 

 49:48
Where you're actually out and designing, like people's experiences in the real world. This is a real thing. Right. Very cool. Product designer or industrial designer, industrial. This is f*****g the best. In my opinion, this simple furniture design. I wish if I had to do anything else, it'd be in this realm. Right. Because again, this is, you're creating real s**t that people interact with. How cool is that? That's pretty awesome. I know one, and I'm jealous at everything he does. I just want to punch him in the nose because the s**t is good. He gets to deal with real cool stuff. Like he's not only designing this stuff, but he's also dealing with CNC machines and lays and like all these printers and stuff. It's got the cool hardware. I know. 

 50:29
Awesome. It's almost like a factory guy, but with the designer mindset. Totally, totally. Right. 

 50:37
Cool. You've got trade show and exhibit design. You can actually take a break, worry about large output. This is a combination of some environmental design, but then in a trade show environment, that's a whole other industry that you can, and again, then you're not dealing with the same type of level of creativity, right. Or the level of design. And, and as like, as you would on a brochure, this is 3d environments. We're coming through, what's the messaging you're providing. Right? Again, this is huge and everything that you've learned translates to this, right? Again, there's so many options that being a graphic designer can like take you on so many down so many different roles that you would be insane to con completely bail on this industry altogether. Right? You have learned superpowers that are transferable and you are a fool. If you don't consider, moving laterally instead of bailing completely. 

 51:28
That's my opinion. Anyway. 

 51:29
Yeah. I absolutely agree with you on that. It's it's very cool. This is, this is a s**t ton of options for people with, if Photoshop and illustrator. 

 51:37
InDesign. Why wouldn't you write your. 

 51:39
F*****g 60% of the way there, 

 51:41
Dude? I mean, and again, there's so many, I mean, again, you can do t-shirts and be CSO screening. You can just go into illustration, dude. You could even decide to be a photographer, right? Because your graphic design skills have allowed you to, I have a good eye for layout design, white space, so many off, 

 51:59
You go into Photoshop and you color correct. 

 52:02
There. You Google, if you want something more low pays and you want to do this, you can do photography on the weekends or family portraits. Again, I've seen photographers who have no designed backgrounds and their family portraits are boring as f**k are terrible. I've seen graphic designers become photographers and their photos are beautiful. Not only that, they know how to sell the packages, they know how to present the packages. They're charging five times as much for a family portrait or a wedding than these other people are. Right. Exactly. Much awesome in what we do that, honestly, even if you just spend a couple of years in this space, right? You need to transfer that knowledge into something horizontally. Yes. Don't bail. I wouldn't say so. And in my opinion, I'm selfish. I got into this space, 20, 25 years ago, because I wanted to do not one thing on this list, but everything on this list and that's, you want to be the selfish designer. 

 52:57
You can be every single thing I do. You, I design, I do. You X. Okay. We do web design. I don't do enemy nation. I don't do animation. 

 53:07
How much would you like to get into that? If you had. 

 53:11
The time, 

 53:13
It would be so cool. 

 53:13
We'll be able to do that. Again, we got into brand is, as of lately brand is my passion, right? I'm enjoying dissecting companies and building them back up. So I touch everything. As a graphic designer can write, this is our super power. This is why you guys need to embrace this. Yeah. I get it. You need a break. I get, if you're frustrated with the space and it's time for something new, but consider something new within our realm. Right? Like use our universe instead of jumping to another universe. Yeah, exactly. 

 53:42
Yeah. Graphic design is just one branch of this giant tree. Yeah. So, wow. That was really good. 

 53:50
I think so. Hope people got some cool s**t out of this, right? I don't know. Like, I mean, I'm sure we can go on about this forever, but I mean, enough's enough and we're probably on here for, oh, I don't. 

 54:00
Know an hour. 

 54:02
I do thank you guys for listening if that's the case, but please by all means, I want to remind everybody, we've got an awesome contest going on right now. We're giving away a set of apple ear pods every month for the next three months, just leave us a review. Tag us, hit us up on Instagram. We know that you're there and we will be revealing during the podcast who wins this the bad boy. Woo. Yay. Number one. That was our shameless plug, but last but not least, if you are considering unbalancing from this space, consider these options, seriously, do yourself a favor. Don't don't throw away what you've learned. Yes, you can't. Yeah. Right. I mean this the mean is the best industry in the world, period. Do you, who wants to do anything else? This, but I mean, heaven forbid if you do decide, go laterally, try something else, take your superpowers that you've learned and take them into another aspect of this space. 

 54:53
Because honestly, just man, that learning curve, you spent all this time, don't waste it. 

 54:56
And these are all really good options. I agree, dude, with a foot in graphic design, absolute rope and doing all kinds of other different things, but you got your base. Yeah. Jeez. So awesome. So yes. 

 55:13
All right, dude. I think that's it. Okay. I'm going to go for a mistake. I'm going to have something kind of beefy. 

 55:21
Oh, you're like that beefy. 

 55:28
All right, dudes, please. By all means, guys hit us up. Sheriff's with anybody that and, and you love, and you want to help by all means or an apple podcast we're on Spotify hit us up on our website and honestly, our Instagram is hot. It's running. We've got a lot of great conversations. Please come say hi. Hi. 

 55:46
White. 

 55:47
Yeah. All right. Well Shonda. 

 55:49
Yay. I can't believe he just did that. He just put the microphone. I am rabid. So you know, 

 55:59
That being said, thank you for joining. My name is Masimo. My name is.