I don't have a good feeling for where I am going in my career. How can I keep better track?
Eric Madsen of The Office of Eric Madsen offers this advice: "Very early in my career, I had a mentor who said that once every six months you should sit down and without spending too much time thinking about it list five to ten things you would really like to be doing. His advice was that if you find yourself doing things that are not on your list after several of these reviews, then maybe you need to reconsider your plan.
"I thought that was great advice but it wasn't until I began to keep [my sketchbooks] that I started to take it to heart. And even then I was often guilty of not following my own advice, written to myself in the form of my own lists. I'm trying to change that now.
"These books keep me coming back to my premise. They have offered good course
correction when I have needed it—when I've heeded it. Now, I am actually using them for inspiration for what I want to do next."
How can I establish a relationship with a professional mentor?
The key thing with mentors is to ask for their help, says designer Molly Zakrajsek, they won't come to you. Ask peers for recommendations as well, since they will have unexpected connections and ideas. People are anxious to help and are flattered to be asked for their advice. Who makes an ideal mentor? It could be anyone and is often someone outside of design. "But this is the question you want to ask when considering a mentor: Do I want to live the life he or she is living?," Zakrajsek says.
It's also important to demonstrate a real interest in the mentor's life and not just demand help. After all, she is trying to learn from the life experience of others. "It's more about them, and not so much about me. When we get together, they are excited to share what they have," she says.
Being respectful of the mentor's time is also crucial. It's not reasonable to expect a mentor to be on duty 24 hours a day. Set up meetings so they are workable for the other person—offer to meet for lunch once a month and make it your treat, for example. Or ask if you can shadow that person in their normal work for a few weeks or even work for free. You may have to make a sacrifice so it doesn't cost the other person, the artist points out.
Zakrajsek says that one of the toughest things about having a mentor initially is allowing you to be teachable.
What can I do to establish better relationships with my clients?
A good relationship with a client is productive and reciprocal, says Pentagram principal Michael Bierut. When there is trust and respect, there is a team. And a team allows each member to do what he or she does best. It's a client's business to know his business, says Bierut. It's the designer's job to learn as much about the client's business as possible and to design with that knowledge in mind but also to be empathetic when it comes to understanding the client's appreciation of design or lack thereof.
Adversarial situations between client and designer are very often the fault of the designer, he adds, because the designer forgets what it is like not to be a designer. "They forget that it takes years and skill to master the tools of design. It also takes a lot of time to master the discerning eye, the choices between colors, type and other design elements. In school and in a design office, all of these things are tacitly self-evident to everyone."
How can I make my office less of an "all work and no play" place?
Sandstrom Design has a Fun Committee, which plans events and outings that are usually outside of everyone's normal activities—the office has gone white water rafting, driven bumper cars, held baking competitions and blind taste tests, participated in downtown scavenger hunts and conducted a beach cleanup. Anything that binds the group together through shared experience builds the team.
"Designers are sponges," president Rick Braithwaite says, "who are more effective and interesting when they have a desire and ability to be life-long learners."
It's hard to be lazy, he adds, when you are always seeing and doing things that are unexpected. If you are not interacting, you're just existing, he insists.
How can I achieve better balance between my work and personal lives?
"We work from 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. At 5:30, I want people to leave. We are not here on the weekends. We work hard while we are here, then we go out and get a life," says Michael Osborne, owner of Michael Osborne Design. That puts the first ball in the juggling act in place. "Having a life outside of work makes you a stronger, richer, more valuable designer. Workaholics who never leave their computers have poisoned thinking and don't bring anything to the table."
Support from others is the next ball. Surround yourself with enthusiastic, brilliant people. "It's like Milton Glaser said, 'Some people are toxic: avoid them.' Listen to your instincts when you are hiring people or selecting friends," Osborne says. "The core competences of the people I work with are much better than anything I could do. In every slot is a person who excels at what they do."
The third and most important ball is family. That is who will still be standing there when the work and accolades are gone, the designer says: they deserve the best time and treatment.
All of the balls in the juggling act should be roughly the same size. At times, one will get bigger or heavier than the others, and you must adjust your performance accordingly. But don't let the situation get so out of whack that you are juggling two ping-pong balls and a building, he says.
"You have to constantly adjust. To borrow a saying, 'Expert juggling comes from experience. Experience comes from bad juggling.'"
I have tried to establish various business plans, but nothing ever goes as I planned. Am I wasting my time?
Robin Perkins of Selbert Perkins tries to establish systems that provide her employees and herself with a map on getting work done within an amount of time that allows everyone to have a fulfilling life outside of work. Perkins has learned that rested and happy designers produce the best work.
 As a business owner, Perkins knows she must also use past history to guide her decisions. "You have to plan for bad economic times, for a terrorist attack, for a stock market crash. All of these things have happened and could happen again. I've learned it is not good to grow too fast. We did that at one point and it became very difficult for us to manage everything. Things can't move so fast that you can't evaluate your progress along the way," she says.
All this being said, the designer acknowledges that not everything can be planned. Because change is the only constant, she knows it is crucial to be flexible. A plan should be a guide or an outline. It is a grid that you can refer to and use as a basic infrastructure. But the details of the plan will change constantly.
"You can't plan everything," Perkins says. "You have to leave yourself open to new and unexpected experiences. Sometimes they just hit you and you can't absorb their significance until later. But you have to achieve a good understanding of what you have been through. That is where the energy comes from."
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Adapted by permission from How to Grow as a Graphic Designer by Catherine Fishel. This book is published by Allworth Press. For further
information or to purchase this book at a 20 percent discount, visit
Allworth Press.
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