Career Advice - The DESK Magazine (Page 15)

The Art of Being a Hypocrite Designer

//EDIT: I've updated this article after the 2016 US presidential election. I believe now more than ever we should talk about ethics as designers. Please share this with your fellow designers and have active conversations around this topic. This article isn't about what's right

by Tobias van Schneider

Is the Ringelmann effect holding you back?

In 1913, a guy named Max Ringelmann noticed something strange about humans. Ringelmann, a French agricultural engineer, took a rope and asked individual people to pull on it.

by Tobias van Schneider

Dream big, but stay small

Let’s get one thing straight. If you’re in communication design to make big money, you might as well cash out and jump ship now. The service design industry at its core isn't scalable. Most design agencies run on the billable hour, and while you can hire

by Tobias van Schneider

Love your haters

I’ve always struggled with haters. I grew up trying to be friends with everyone, trying to appeal to everyone with who I am and the work I do. The older I get, the more I understood that these things are impossible. There will be always someone who is against

by Tobias van Schneider

The power of saying “I don’t know”

It feels good to say that. I used to speak at a lot of conferences, and at most of them there would be a Q&A session at the end. The questions were usually not a problem, but here and there I would get a question I just didn’t know the answer to, at least not at the time. I always struggled with

by Tobias van Schneider

Sarah Cooper Illustrates Comics, Even Though She Can’t Draw

I'm excited to announce Episode 15 of the NTMY show! (my own little podcast, for those who don't know yet). On this episode, I have Sarah Cooper on the show. I've been following Sarahs work for quite a while now and I'm

by Lizzy Spano

Simone Makes a Living Building Things That Don’t Work

Simone Giertz sits at the breakfast table, intently reading a book. A robot sits next to her.

by Tobias van Schneider

Lessons from a self-taught creative director

In the 11 years since she co-founded Refinery29, Piera Gelardi has helped grow the company from four employees to 400, and she picked up some invaluable wisdom about life and work along the way. In Piera’s episode on the NTMY Show [https://www.vanschneider.com/show/], she shared a

by Tobias van Schneider

Why do you work?

I recently wrote a piece called “Work/Life Balance is Bullshit,” [https://medium.com/desk-of-van-schneider/work-life-balance-is-bullshit-f51bf8b3767#.ih5vs5qnj] which turned out to be more controversial than I anticipated. To sum it up, I believe that work isn’t the negative thing our “live for the weekend” culture makes it out to

by Tobias van Schneider

Secrets about freelancing, I lied about my career

Now, my advice might shock you a bit. When I started out as a designer, I lied about my career. I lied about my abilities and my experience. I kept it subtle. I didn't lie to elevate myself or to harm anyone else, but I did it because