You should have taken the blue pill insted. Or not.

Design Discussions general design discussion
1

Im just wondering, if you Industrial designers out there, after being in the industry for some times. And say you got to choose all over again, to be young again…
would you still pick ID as a profession. Or you would do it differently? would you take a different course in school?

And say you have a children, would you want them to pick ID as their profession in the future? or would you advice against it.
For the record, yes I would choose a different pill instead. And I would not recommend my children to take ID, unless he/she insisted.

2

Care to elaborate on why you regretted the decision?

3

well, my issue might not be the same as everyone. But I would pick something more profitable instead. But still within the design scope. Just not ID.

4

In our very first lecture on the course we were told:

“You will not be rich by doing ID”

and tbh i think if your doing it for the money then yes you have made a mistake.

Also i think personally if you have a love for it, you have a greater chance of succeeding and progressing higher up the ladder as you gain expereince, in terms of creative director etc…

And from my own personal point of view, my dad looked down on anything i chose to do in school, college which didnt have any forseable large monetary earnings, consequently (despite being pretty good) i didnt pursue art based classes. Something i now wished i had done as i’ve had to work doubly hard on things like illustration etc…

My point being i wouldn’t steer my child away from anything, at the age when they are making decisions (17-21) they are resonably aware of what’s going on and can make their own mistakes. There is no possible way to pre judge who or what your child might do. If all anyone is concerned about is money, any proffession (pretty much) there is the opportunity to have a large income, so discouraging based on your experience i think is personally quite naive, your childs experience could be completly different.

5

If I had the chance to do it all over again, I’d want to be a male giglo/escort, but fortunately/unfortunately I’m better with a pencil, than, well…

I agree entirely with Sketch me, yes you want to pass on the benefit of your experience to your children so hopefully they can avoid making the same mistakes as you. But you also have to be cautious that your experience wasn’t very specific and that steering them clear of design will be the right thing for them.

Happiness is much more important than money. Most of us have to work a minimum of 40 hours a week 48 weeks of the year so it would be far better for your children to be doing something they enjoy, than something that although very profitable leaves them feeling souless. I’ve found that if you’re born creative, then you just have to create, its inherent, you just can’t help it. Trying to push them down another path could lead to resentment and a failure in your relationship. You can only guide based on your knowledge, but they have to make their own decisions and if they fail, then they learn and move on, it’s sometimes hard to watch and you often have to pick up the pieces, but I think that’s part of parenting. As I said at the start of this post, there are much worse (but more profitable) things they could be.

6

Its about the love not the money. I would do it all over again, mostly the same… maybe try to not piss so many people off in the process, but that is about it.

For anyone with the passion and abilities, I would recommend ID. If you are not ready to give it 100%, I’d say to do something else. It is not that kind of field.

7

I would def. do it again. However, I would do it at a younger age, at a better school, and not have a part time job during the school year.

8

14 years into it, and I’d do it all again! I’ve loved every single job, and every single assignment.

As noted in another thread, ID was just rated the 9th best profession in the US!

But it’s definitely not for everyone, and accredited ID schools need to be the filter. I’m going to take a wild guess and suppose that’s where your resentment originates: were you never able to get the job you wanted?

9

I would still go down the ID road as I think it’s a great path to get your hands dirty in many different areas.

However, if I could do it all over again and I would know what I know now, I would definitely have picked a school that would have had focused training in Entertainment Design. Ever since I was a kid I wanted to be a concept artist at ILM and although I certainly had the potential to make it if I had been in the right place - that’s not the choice I made and I accept that.

10

ID, yes Invention/innovation no. The former is pretty easy and you generaly get paid, the latter is very very hard with a pay rate that makes the lotto look like a sure thing.

11

I would do it again. I would go to a different school, and tell some people to suck it, I waited too long the first time, so it was less effective.

I only carry a few regrets, almost all of them are women.

12

I would do it again but I would make a lot of school and career decisions differently… too many to count. I didn’t have a professional designer as a friend/mentor to get properly prepared for the real world back when I was starting out, so I struggled and wasted energy on things that didn’t get me ahead. Even when you have a great job, there’s a lot of political navigating to do and focused skills to gain to get the most out of the experiences. With better guidance when I was younger, I would have gotten ahead faster

luckily forums like this exist so you can be exposed to talented designers from all kinds of backgrounds and in different types of jobs - it’s like a collective mentoring at all levels of your career

13

My spontaneous thought 2 days ago was: “No, I´d rather do engineering or marketing.”

But I honestly would not:

You know different things when you are 14 and when you are 34. In an ideal world I would design new fancy Fords rightnow…

Clearly, this dream job wasn´t there. But little did I know when I was 14 how this world would change. And my priorities would. Rather lucky decision to drop out of the race for a car designer position early enough…

But a good university trained me rather well for the development of industrial appliances that I am doing right now. If a kid wanted to study industrial design at a renown school I wouldn´t advice against it. But I would make sure that some practical training is involved early and I pray that none of my children of the future will ever want to study Architecture…

End of rant.

P.S. I actualy enjoy the benefits of a “proper” job like a company car. Guess I am just a little weaker than some of you. (; )

14

I’m with you there. I wish I had a clearer idea of the path earlier on. There was no core when I was a 17 year old freshman. I’m still on my path but some things have definitely just taken longer than they should have since there wasn’t much guidance earlier on and I’ve been reinventing the wheel as I go along.