Design and Conquer » teaching

The Internship Epidemic

Alvalyn Lundgren — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 17:10:04 +0000

The April 2, 2011 New York Times op-ed by Ross Perlin describes how schools are encouraging an exploitive trend in unpaid internships offered by businesses and corporations.

Although a somewhat recent type of “job” offering in other professions, unpaid internships are not new to the graphic design field. In fact, they’ve been a regular practice in this profession for years, especially at non-profit organizations. Students and graduates are now presented with internship opportunities more often than they are entry-level jobs. They’re asked to work for nothing or next to it in exchange for “gaining experience”. There are cases where interns work full time for no pay for a year or two in hope of being hired by that company. Businesses seeking low- or no-cost design will contact a school to recommend students or recent grads with no intention of paying them for their work. A casual perusal of design jobs on Craigslist reveals compensations offered in the form of lunch or gas money. One web site states that internships are necessary for finding design jobs: Internships are an essential part of attaining a job in graphic design. Get started on your career as a graphic designer with the internship of your dreams.

The problems with schools and businesses encouraging unpaid internships are glaring. Among them are these:

Internships are offered in place of paid entry-level positions and viewed as a legitimate means of obtaining cheap or no-cost labor.
Internships are being promoted as a necessary stepping stone to a real job.
Many internships are jobs in disguise, requiring skill sets and experience that should be compensated for. Interns are asked to do the job of a regular employee, thereby taking the position that should be held by a regular employee.
Interns are not on the payroll and are not protected like regular employees.
Interns are often assigned clerical or gopher tasks which do not directly relate to their studies.
Interns are not valued by the company or the school in terms of time, money and effort spent.
The practice of unpaid internships contradicts the stated purpose of most colleges and universities.

Unpaid internships can make sense for students if they are supervised and evaluated, and if the student receives real course credit (a grade and credit hours) from the school. Additionally, the student, school and business should determine specific goals and objectives for the intern up front (what will be accomplished by the intern and how it will be measured) and grade the student accordingly, like a regular class, upon completion. The company should provide the student with a letter of recommendation upon leaving the internship. The student should have the opportunity to create bona fide work for their portfolio.

Instead of exploiting students, colleges and universities should encourage paid internships commensurate to at least minimum wage, and, if internships are required, they should be required the same as elective coursework with no additional tuition charged. Also an option: a stipend paid at the end of a short-duration internship (6-8 weeks). Since the intern is not a regular employee, the company should provide a 1099.

According to Perlin, many schools are charging students additional tuition or fees for the privilege of working for free but are not following through with appropriate oversight, evaluation or even credit hours. This is a practice he claims precludes students who are not as well off because they cannot afford to pay the extra fees for the privilege of being placed in an internship.

Whether internships are necessary in order to break in to the design field is highly debatable, since designers usually get work based on the strength of their portfolio. An internship does not guarantee a student will be hired into a regular position. Therefore the practice cannot be described as being necessary for finding a job.

Ideally, internships should opportunities for students to gain practical on-the-job knowledge and should last no longer than a quarter or semester’s duration. Students should expect to gain the promised valuable work experience while shadowing a senior designer, art director or creative director who, along with the school, will evaluate the student at the end of the internship and provide an appropriate grade and credit hours. The internship should been regarded as a “classroom” situation. Graduates should receive the monetary compensation due any entry-level hiree. Additionally, whether student or graduate, the intern should receive appropriate creative credit if the work performed was part of an actual design project.

It is the responsibility of design professionals, teachers and school administrators to value the next generation of designers so that the profession is respected, appreciated and upheld. Unpaid internships won’t accomplish this.

Critique and Criticism

Alvalyn Lundgren — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 16:59:26 +0000

No one likes to be critiqued, but everyone is a critic.

As a design practitioner and teacher of design, I am involved continually in the analysis and evaluation of design. I critique my students’ work in the classroom and I critique my own work in the studio. My clients critique my work. I critique the work of other designers. Judges critique our work when we submit it to design contests. Our clients’ customers critique our clients based on our designs.

Critique is a normal and necessary part of the design process, yet I find that people don’t like to formally critique a work and they don’t like to have their work critiqued. How can we improve upon anything unless we critique? How can we innovate without evaluation and appraisal? How do we establish value in something unless we assess it?

Critique is simply an assessment, appraisal or evaluation of something. When we critique something we are analyzing it. We do this all the time in the normal course of a day: We critique each other’s driving, style, attitude, favorite movie, political position, religion, job performance, home run average and habits. We each have an opinion about what is good, better, best, bad and ugly.

I think that students and practicing designers don’t enjoy being critiqued because they understand criticism to be destructive or mean-spirited. Or they take it personally, as if it’s them, not the work, being evaluated. Or they don’t want to be wrong. Most critique tends toward negativity.

Criticism is often disguised as critique. They are not they same thing. Criticism involves disapproval of a work based on perceived or obvious faults and shortcomings. There’s a thin line between the two ideas that’s easily crossed. Critique should be objective, honest and useful. Criticism is most often subjective and destructive. Its intent is to tear something down. On the other hand, critique tests for weaknesses for the purpose of improvement and excellence. Criticism accuses; critique edifies.

In reality, critique should be neutral. It should not be feared as much as it is. It should be performed in order to asses what is right with a work and where it can be strengthened.

For critique to be neutral it should be based on established objective guidelines. For a design work, this is fairly simple. We look at the work and its outcome on the basis of the intended goals for the work, since all design has a purpose to it. Are the aesthetic principles supporting the function of the design? Are color, balance, rhythm, harmony, spatial relationships and value all working together to enable the design to accomplish its intended outcome?

If design is not whimsical but purposeful, critique of design should also be purposeful and not based on personal opinion. The kind of response that is, “I think it’s a good design because it reminds me of…” is not an objective criteria. Values, purpose, specifications, etc. are a much more just basis for evaluation. If critique is based on objective criteria it cannot be dismissed with the excuse that it’s just one person’s opinion and therefore invalid.

When all is said and done, honest feedback is better than warm fuzzy feedback. Critique should be honest, just, and balanced between strengths and weaknesses. It should serve to build up the designer (or student) and empower them forward into creative maturity and greater success.

A Quick Sketch

Alvalyn Lundgren — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 03:04:17 +0000

I had the opportunity to sketch some of my students while they took the midterm in my color theory class. This was a quick sketch, drawn in about 8 minutes.

First Response for VNY Student Journal Design

Alvalyn Lundgren — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 06:36:09 +0000

Initial reaction to my design for the 2007 edition of the New Journal of Student Research Abstracts: “Spectacular!.” This came from Dr. Steven B. Oppenheimer, CSUN biology professor, who originally conceived of the Journal in the mid-1990s.

The Journal is published by Van Nuys Airport (City of Los Angeles Department of Airports) and is sponsored jointly with California State University, Northridge. It is distributed to middle and high schools throughout Southern California. This year’s edition was twice a big a last year’s which I also designed, and which, by the way, received an Excellence in Marketing & Communications award from the Airports Council International – North America.

10 Tips for Design Students (Especially Mine)

Alvalyn Lundgren — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 01:33:04 +0000

Having mentored so many students over the past 20 years (wow, has it been that long?), I’ve learned that their success as students and ultimately as designers depends as much on them as it does on me. Here are some tips gleaned from both observation and experience for making the grade:

The teacher is there because you are there. It may appear that you are there to jump at the teacher’s beck and call, but you should consider that training for when you will jump at your client’s beck and call. It’s you who paid the tuition and takes the time to show up and do the assignments. Remember, every teacher was once a student. It’s hard to put anything over on them.

Listen to what your fellow students are saying in class. Students talk a lot outside of the classroom. But what they say during class, the questions they ask, the reponses they give and what they say about their work and yours during crits can be invaluable to you. Don’t miss it.

Invest in a camera. Make it a good one – with f-stops. If you can, get a digital SLR, and a tripod. And then document, document, document. One thing I learned as a student at Art Center was to take lots of shots of my work. If you’re spending all that time, and all that money on tuition, supplies and materials, document the work that results with a good quality, high-megapixel camera. Sorry, camera phone are not worth it. You’re your photos backed up on CDs, and also print them out and glue them into your design journal (sketchbook). While you’re at it, document your design and fabrication processes, not just the results. If you work in 3-D, take pictures of a project from several different view points.

Keep a design journal. This would look like a sketchbook. Put your ideas, doodles, sketches and comments in it. Document your projects in it. Record notes and ideas. Do you concept work in it. It is a great substitute for the paper napkin, and everything you’re thinking and seeing is all contained in one easy-to-carry place. Draw. Draw. Draw some more.

The computer is a tool. Use a pencil instead and you’re still a designer. Having a computer, even if it’s a Macintosh, does not make you a designer.

Don’t work for the grade. The reason you have chosen to be in school is because you want to succeed as a designer of some sort. If your first question for any teacher is “What does it take to get an A in this class?” you’re missing the point entirely. That would be like asking aclient, “How much will you pay me?” before their job is even defined. Pay attention, do the work, put in the extra effort, and the grade will follow.

Plan your time. Build in margin for the unexpected. Studio classes require an amount of time spent outside the classroom in research, preparation and execution. Time is required. Identify your time-wasters and get rid of them.

Use inspiration. Then make sure it remains inspiration. In other words, don’t copy. It’s unethical.

Be creative but solve the problem. Design is not for the purpose of self-expression. If your goal is to express yourself, go be a fine artist or a tagger. Designers create for reasons not their own, mostly.

Get everything on the course aupply list and learn how to use it. You can’t substitute a Leatherman™ for an x-acto™. Use the right tool for the job. It’s safer that way.