Rather than a lecture about the module, this week’s lecture was from a guest who talked about the industry and figuring out what kind of designer you want to be.
It was a really interesting lecture and helped me understand a lot of how the industry worked. Notably, I thought the industry view of the difference between UI and UX to be really interesting. Where UI designers in the industry are concerned with the building and layout of the interface, the UX designer is concerned with how the brand applies to the UI and the connection between design and user. At this stage, I could see myself leaning toward the UX side of design judging by the bits of this year's projects I’ve enjoyed the most. I am definitely someone who really enjoys the creative and experimental side of design so could see myself going down that path.
Another interesting point of the lecture was about the differences between agency and in-house work. It’s something I’ve definitely thought about due to how much the differences between the two have changed over the past few years. At the moment, I’d definitely lean more towards working in an agency, as I enjoy varied work rather than working on one thing. Through this module, I’ve seen how incredible agency work can be particularly in branding and would want the freedom to work on various dynamic projects instead of one focussed thing. I also think that if I was going to work for an in-house team I’d want to work for an in-house team that actually has prestige and creative freedom. I do think at the end of the day deciding what sort of company I want to work for will come from experience, so I’m going to try and not limit myself by my own ideas until I get experience.
After the lecture, I decided to put together an email to send out to local design agencies to look for any summer placements or work experience. I’m not expecting much as it was a point in the lecture that it’s hard to find this sort of opportunity but it’s worth a try, and if nothing else I might get my name in the company system.
Overall this weeks lecture was really useful at helping me start to think about were I want to take my career and the options available to me.