[Serious] Worrying about my future career and need advice

[daniel_b_0506]

I'm 22 y/o and now working as graphic designer position with small company, currently salary RM2.4k, and graduated with diploma level. Also having debts to clear. ( Loan and PTPTN )
And I have confession to share and need your serious advice to courage me because I'm not happy with my current career.

Tbh I feel that I am not satisfying with my career because I have a lot of design skills that I wasn't fully mastered and the others that have been long time I'm interested to learn such as anime illustration and Japanese language. I did learning alone but very slow progress due to work with full-time job. (3 +/- hours per week).

I'm worrying that I did not continue to Degree level is a wrong choice, because now I'm working with a small company which is just only doing e-commerce thing. Not a good company and not worth with my growth career because bad management, and the designer jobscope is just take photo product from online, if not then take photo manually ( but less happening ) and design with template then reuse it, and upload product on e-commerce platform to sell. I feel this is NOT what graphic designer should do with this company because it makes me feel that fresh graduated secondary students with simply designing skills can do it too tbh. Also my company told me the notice period would be 3 months.

I decided to change job earlier and applied on big companies but when I interviewed with them and got rejected. Some said 3 months notice period is too long, some might feel my design and portfolio wasn't enough, and some thinks my doing with my current company is not worth their job.

I wasn't happy for myself, I feel my decision is wrong because I thought Diploma Of Graphic Design is enough for my career so I not continue to degree. When I seeing my friend who studying things the interested, I feel envy, a lot. Because the skills I wanted that I haven't achieve yet but friends are doing for archiving their skills. I want to study further too, I want to study Multimedia design instead of Graphic design this time (For having higher chance to get hired) but I have debts to pay... looking for college but tuition fee pretty high, makes me stress. And if having part-time Study makes me feel waste because take a very long time like 5-6 years to achieve degree level. I really hope I could have enough money to study alot to improve my skills.

I'd tried online course like Udemy Website but lack of time and independent because of working and hope that someone from virtual or physical class, could force me to study.

I really need someone give advices for guiding me. Go college for degree or self-learning? My thoughts above maybe wrong, and you can correct me with your opinion. I don't want to lead myself into wrong career.

Thank you for the time to read and sorry for error grammar.

 

[eliza188]

@daniel_b_0506 OP when you are in this kind of design Space, you may want to consider building your portfolio in your space time, and create designs for existing companies just to show your ability.

Like you can re-do logo or billboard designs for Milo/Coca cola, you don't have to claim you worked for three companies, it will just be examples of your skills.

Alternatively if you want real life examples go to small businesses and offer your services for free or very cheaply, and work with the owners to help improve their branding.

 

[smitty1038]

@daniel_b_0506 Continue at your current company, build a portfolio, save some money. When you’re ready, quit the company and lower the notice period. I don’t think a degree is going to do much help in a portfolio centric industry no?

 

[hippyhappo]

@daniel_b_0506 Hey kid, no university can certify your design skills, the degree or diploma for design is almost useless. Unless you going into management.

 

[frustrated27]

@daniel_b_0506 Hi, try to pivot into ui/ux. Essentially, app and web interface design. It will leverage on your design skills but also give you insight into customer journey planning and customer experience

Its very very in demand, it pays well, big companies have money to throw at experimental peojects and are always short on staff

 

[j77077]

@daniel_b_0506 Just like what others commented, building a good portfolio matters a lot. I studied graphic design in University before and now most of my friends who are still in design industry started their own freelance through online after few years of experience.

 

[marwa]

@daniel_b_0506 Well, what kind of design work you want to do then? Getting paid RM2.4k for simple “budak sekolah pun boleh buat” tasks is a lot more than some animation companies paid to degree holders.

If you want to do anime illustrations as a career, then curate your portfolio to that path. A lot of local artists (specialising in anime style) started out their career either by publishing their own webcomic as amateur artists, or score on a job with book publishers. They are/were pretty active on their socmed and consistent in pushing out content- so most of the time they are pretty visible to potential employers.

Your style doesn’t have to be perfect tbh, but you should be able to draw fast enough to keep up with schedule. You can’t afford spending too much on downtime due to artblock or whatever; some companies would force you to churn out multiple illustrations within a month, excluding the multiple corrections and scraped work.

So honestly if you’re planning to dedicate yourself into this kind of career, getting a degree is not worth it. That’s another RM30k at least worth of student loan; might as well continue working on current job to pay your debt, save up and buy yourself a better setup for a side gig as an illustrator. It sucks for now, but it’ll probably be worthwhile in the long run.

.

Source: former 2D artist (with degree) who worked at a local animation company with much lower starting salary. Moved to management job for the better salary and working conditions.

 

[busola48]

@daniel_b_0506 my wife had a degree in GD from LWK, work few years in advertising firm with low paid, then give up. Now full time housewife. My friend diploma from cosmopoint je. Start from below now dah somebody with company that product Didi and friend. so I think in creative industry, your portfolio work the best. You need to show case your work. Take short courses, improve skill, build portfolio showcase your work thats the way.

 

[daniel_b_0506]

Sorry I was misworded, I meant high schooler /secondary students, not middle schooler.
The reason I think those secondary students can do is because I met a lot of students who know about Adobe software, some from their school provided, some from family who owned Adobe software too.
But I may be wrong again because not all young people know Adobe software too since everyone's background is not the same.

 

[pmmg]

@daniel_b_0506 Dude you are 22. Chill the fook out yo. lol

 

[derekh]

@daniel_b_0506 You can look into UI/UX design, not sure about job market now as the big tech companies are cutting costs.

Or pickup digital marketing skills. Combination of marketing plus design and videography seems like it allows you to start your own ecom business or small agency. Just my observation on this digital marketing route.

 

[derekh]

For designer I feel it is important to have a portfolio site. There are at least 2 which are free, i cant recall the name, something with a lot of b’s in the domain name.

 

[tkchapin]

@daniel_b_0506 What other skill set do you have beside graphic design ?. What is your priority ? Earning more or focussing on Graphic Design ?

I would recommend you go and shift to larger MNC to take up position in CX , Client Loyalty , Marketing and UI UX .

Why ? Larger company have bigger pay , stable overtime. , opportunity to explore new fields , some even offer interest free loan or scholarship for study . Consider FI as an option . You can start as contract and show your worth to be considered permanent.

There is a lot of alternative beside degree for example : Project Management Professional doesn’t require degree . But it’s a different field

 

[tam85]

@daniel_b_0506 If you have time, learn more software and build your portfolio. Skill matters more than a degree in Creative work.

 

[theologybuff]

@daniel_b_0506 > Not a good company and not worth with my growth career because bad management

Oh boy do I have bad news for you. This is literally 95% of the industry out there with regards to graphics design. The "good" employers are few and far in between, and in most cases the graphics design roles are taken by extremely capable individuals who have been in the industry for a long time, and can work hand in glove with the bosses, which in graphics design job can be almost impossible fulfill due to last minute or post completion changes decisions by bosses and clients. And by extremely capable, I mostly am referring to extremely patient individuals who has an extremely high bull shit tolerance as well as good communication skills so they keep the trial and error to a minimum. In some cases, "good employers" dosent necessarily have to be referring to the company, but the head of the team you're working under. A lot of managers are pretty terrible in the way how they handle their tasks. More than a dozen I know will sit on a task until one week to deadline before throwing it on their team and expecting them to complete the work which should have taken a few months.