Blog designophile
By Michael DiTullo - January 2, 2012
A student recently asked me how I got my first professional job as a designer. It reminded me of a particularly difficult journey I hadn’t thought of in years. Looking at my resume my path seems almost predestined. It was easy for me to almost forget how difficult it was to transition from student to professional. It almost didn’t happen at all.
My last year in design school, I was doing sponsored projects for both Nike and Nissan. The Nike project was going extremely well and resulted in Nike flying me out to their headquarters outside of Portland, Oregon a couple of times to meet with the team and David Schenone, then the head of footwear design. A few months out from graduation, Dave made me an offer to come out to Nike full-time. Arrogantly, I asked if I could defer my decision until after graduation so I could weigh all of my options. I wanted to finish up my project for Nissan and I was hoping it also might turn into an offer.
Little did I know that many companies were having a difficult year. In fact it was one of the worst sales quarters Nike had ever seen. I wrapped up the program with Nissan and they expressed interest in me coming there, but they wanted me to get a couple years of experience first. Nike informed me that I was at the top of their list, but they had a 6-12 month hiring freeze. Interest from other companies like Seadoo and Bombardier also cooled when they readjusted their budgets.
Blog designophile
By Michael DiTullo - May 11, 2011
We've seen a rapid expansion of the title of designer in recent years. A few of my friends were chatting over on the core77.com discussion forums on what a baseline skill set that goes across our profession might be; including industrial/product, graphic, interior, landscape, fashion designers and even architects. Liking Venn diagrams as I do, I decided to make my answer a visual one.
Check out the full discussion and weigh in with your view point HERE. For those of you with less of a palette for diagrams and more of a taste for nostalgic 80's cartoons, I've formatted a version for you as well below.
