Dear Anna,

My name is Rory and I am a graphic design student in my final year at Loughborough University. I am in the last stages of my degree, working on my final projects and preparing for the next steps of my design career. However, as you can imagine in the current climate of the world of work, there is a lot of uncertainty facing not only people in work, but graduates hoping to take their first progression into a creative career. With the potential cancellation of my degree show and other networking events such as D&AD New Blood Festival, as well as the slow decline of the job market, I feel at a loss as to what to do. Is there any advice you could lend upcoming graduates?

Thank you very much for your consideration and I look forward to hearing from you.

Rory

Dear Rory,

What a time to be alive, eh? I could list all the sayings about adversity making us stronger, but leaving education for the creative industries can be challenging at the best of times, so I feel for you and all new entrants to the world of work right now.

That said, I’m a big fan of reframing things where we can to find creative advantage. That’s not a simple case of finding a silver lining, because there’s still a whacking great cloud taking up most of the space in that analogy. What I mean is thinking around a challenge in a way that gives us scope to be more innovative.

If, as Orson Welles apparently once quipped, “the enemy of art is the absence of limitations”, then surely we can try to be more creative in this context. And, frankly, if the usual avenues of exposure, like your grad show, are cancelled and networking events are off, you’ll have to be.

That said, I’m a big fan of reframing things where we can to find creative advantage. That’s not a simple case of finding a silver lining

I’d suggest we approach this in the way I like to work with teams to problem-solve. First we take the foundational things you have in your favour, then think of interesting ways to surmount the hurdles this situation has thrown in the way. Add those together and we should get to some perhaps interesting ideas that can help you formulate a strategy to move forward.

As my teams hear me say probably a bit too often, I think that innovation is a treasure map, not a road atlas, so while this won’t give you a super prescriptive A-Z set of directions, it will give you the permission and space to mix your expertise with experimentation. That in turn should give you the freedom and confidence to try things, and test and learn what works best for you.

So what have you got on your side before we even start? Without knowing the ins and outs of the kinds of graphic design you specialise in, I’d say your discipline has a decent advantage in these times as compared with, say, a massively collaborative art form like filmmaking. You can do it fairly well on your own, working remotely is already fairly standard, and attention-grabbing, clear visual communication has perhaps never been more important. Just look at the variously brilliant and terrible examples of data visualisation that governments and organisations are putting out there right now to help us understand hugely complex situations. List all the things on this side of the equation for yourself as a first step.

As my teams hear me say probably a bit too often, I think that innovation is a treasure map, not a road atlas

Then look at how you respond to the limitations. You can’t get a load of people in a room to see your work in person, and you can’t go to an achingly hip bar to drink hangover-inducing free wine in the name of networking. You also maybe can’t cast your net out to as wide a set of companies as you’d like to have worked for if they’ve furloughed a lot of their staff or have announced a hiring freeze.

But what do you still need to do? At the very least, showcase your talent and leverage that to connect with people. The reframe I’d suggest is that, despite my sarcasm in the opening to this answer, there has never been a better time to be alive as a creative in this context. We’re forced to connect with people remotely, but that’s more possible than ever because we’re in such an incredibly digital age.

So brainstorm how you could embrace that. For the showcasing side of things, does turning your bedroom into a gallery and making a video or virtual tour suit what you have to share? Could you make that really playful and invite people to leave Trip Advisor style reviews for your exhibition? Would appropriating a public space (abiding by all the laws and relevant social distancing, of course) work better?

We’re forced to connect with people remotely, but that’s more possible than ever because we’re in such an incredibly digital age

What you choose needs to fit what you want to say about yourself. I really loved artist Jeremy Deller’s move into flyposting a few years ago, with his simple Strong and Stable posters; his more recent Thank God For Immigrants edition follows up from this as his way of reacting to the Covid-19 pandemic. They had impact and an artfulness to them that was really effective, and when he revealed it was him behind them, they made even more sense.

Or is digital innovation the order of the day to suit your work? Take a look at open tools like SparkAR and think about how you could translate work into new forms. In the case of SparkAR, that’s filters for platforms such as Instagram and Snapchat. I’d say a graduate’s show coming with in-built audience engagement and proof that their work connects with people is a double win to any prospective client or employer.

This piece of the puzzle is very much down to what you think fits you as a creative, and what you want to communicate – you are your own brief for this one. But for the next step, the networking and outreach, I’d say don’t feel you have to do this alone.

Given the number of limitations, you have the opportunity to come up with a whole lot of artful solutions to our current limits

Connect with your fellow graduates and see what they’re thinking. Could you come together and devise cool showcases on video conference apps for design companies? Are there networking organisations or design titles that would be up for a collaboration, where you all take it in turns to take over their channels and showcase your work? In this environment, a lot of those channels are struggling to make work in their usual ways, so may well be hungry for new work from new blood.

So while the environment is indeed challenging, the tools at your disposal are myriad. Given the number of limitations, you have the opportunity to come up with a whole lot of artful solutions to our current limits. And in going through this process, by trying different things, learning and adapting all the time, you’re likely to be generating your very best work, along with some kick-ass stories for even the toughest video conference interview I could imagine.

Anna

Anna Higgs is head of entertainment at Facebook. If you have a question for her, send it via CR’s social channels, or email [email protected]