Design Changes Us

I’ve made it no secret in the past that I’m extremely proud of the Graphic Design education I received at Northeastern. I had great professors like John Kane, Tom Starr, Isabel Meirelles, and Ann McDonald. I feel like the quality of the faculty in the program at NEU could stand up to many of the high-tier “design schools” in the US. Regardless, I recently received an email from a prospective design student asking about the program there. Here are my somewhat candid responses.

Note: Most of these responses are NEU-specific, but many apply to design school in general, so read on.

Classes and professors to absolutely take or avoid
Try to take anything with John Kane, Tom Starr, or Isabel Meirelles. I learned the most from these 3. Ann McDonald is also a great professor, especially if you’re looking to learn something about interactive media.

You’ll most likely hate many of the first year or two because the classes are somewhat rudimentary (Visual Basics, Art History, etc) though they’ve changed the curriculum a bit, so it could be slightly different now.

I’ve also heard there is a new chair for the entire Visual Arts department, so you may wanna read up on him.

Anyways, having a very strong Typography background will help you so much when you get out of school, so try to take any Type class you can – I think there are 3 now.

Are there concentrations within the major, or just general GD?
Graphic Design is a concentration within the Visual Arts program, but you can kind of tailor your classes based on what you enjoy. For instance, I ended up taking Animation Basics, which ended up being a lot of fun (and a lot of work), but it helped me learn a lot about Adobe After Effects and animation in general.

Recommended co-ops?
To be honest, the one I learned the most in was working on campus at the Sign Shop. You would think it wouldn’t be a great co-op to have, but that co-op really taught me a lot about producing clean designs (mainly because we had to construct them by hand ourselves). It also trained me to use an X-Acto knife which turns out to be super helpful later on.

Many of the higher-paying “corporate” co-ops are actually mediocre experiences in being a production artist rather than a designer. The difference is that a production artist tends to copy and paste content and get stuff ready for print, whereas a designer actually has some creative freedom to design.

Any minors you had or ones to consider?
I didn’t minor, but I took some business classes as I plan to run my own business one day. I’m doing freelance design now apart from my regular job and the classes actually did help a bit.

If you ever think you might consider teaching, check with NEU’s MFA program, as a Master’s in Fine Arts is what you’d need to have to teach GD at a college. MFA’s tend to be a huge amount of work, so if you can knock some stuff out before you graduate, you’d be better off.

How good is the program, in your opinion, as a whole. Worth staying at NU or better to look for a possible more prestigious GD school?
If you want it enough, NEU’s program will absolutely prepare you for designing in the real world. By that I mean, you can float by and do the bare minimum and be ok. But if you really have a passion for it, the prof’s in the program will recognize that and push you to become better. In my opinion, the professors in the design department are great. They are all working designers and have a real grip on what working life as a designer is like.

Bonus tip: ask them to show you their work. Some of them won’t admit they like showing it off, but it can be a great learning experience.

Any other input you might have that would help me out
Be prepared to spend some money. Especially in the first 2 years, you’ll spend money on traditional art supplies. Utrecht down by Symphony station has pretty good prices but I always thought Pearl Arts & Crafts in Central Square was a bit cheaper.

If you can afford it, buy as many design books as you can. (and read them!) Barnes & Noble actually has a really good selection (at least they did when I was there). And also, don’t sell back your design books. I’m so glad I’ve kept mine because I constantly refer back to them while working on projects these days. On a related note, try to read as many design blogs as you can. DesignObserveris a good start, but there are a ton out there. (I Love Typography, Ministry of Type, Smashing Magazine, FFFFound)

Also, if you can afford it, get a Mac and the Adobe Creative Suite. There will always be debate on this subject, but it’s a ton easier in my opinion to bring work back and forth from the Mac labs on campus to your home computer, or you can just bring your Mac to class with you. If NEU still does it, buy the Adobe software through them. It’s usually at severely discounted prices from retail. If they don’t have that purchasing option anymore, use a site like Gradware.com or Studica.com. You probably don’t need this the first year, but it definitely helps to familiarize yourself with the software so you can focus on creating cool stuff instead of learning how to use the programs.