Why I HATED Being a Graphic Designer (UX career change)

Let’s do a bit of time travel today, okay guys? I want to take you back to when I used to design… (drumroll please)... logos. And signs.

“But Eric, I thought you were a UX designer!”

Well, every hero has to have an origin story, and every UX designer has to start somewhere. Me? I started in graphic design.

Fresh Out of the Gate

Like so many college kids, I didn’t know what the heck I wanted to do. So what do they tell you? Think about things you’re passionate about.

I knew I liked drawing, especially back when I lived in Germany as a kid. I used to watch a lot of Disney movies, because I’m a big fan (and former employee - more on that in a minute.) So maybe I should be an animator? Nah, I quickly ditched that idea when I realized how much repetition animation required. That would drive me nuts, drawing the same thing over and over.

But I couldn’t deny I loved art. Actually, my friends and I used to see who could draw the best Dragonball Z characters, and we had compiled some fire drawings, my best work for sure. The book my drawings was in was stolen though. It was so frustrating, and I knew I could never redraw everything that was in there.

Trying Other Skills

I gave up drawing for a time after that, because it felt like my motivation had been stolen along with that book. But as I was thinking about what I wanted to do with my life, and realizing it wasn’t animation, I switched to a very different topic: architecture.

But it turns out I didn’t enjoy the math part of architecture, so that was quickly the end of that. 

What next? I took a class called visual communication, and finally this was something I could do, something I didn’t find boring. Something pretty similar to graphic design! So I started learning old, clunky Photoshop (think CS or CS2), and I was having a blast.

In college I started learning Adobe Illustrator, Dreamweaver, InDesign. I would stay up late at night designing banners, flyers, logos, all the things that are connected to graphic design. So it all started to point that way, and I ended up following my girlfriend over to Jacksonville State University to finish my degree there. Degree in what? Graphic design.

Making the Grade vs. Being Creative

I had a slight problem right from the start, though. I just didn’t care if my projects looked the way they were “supposed” to look. I couldn’t relate to doing the assignments exactly like the teacher said, or trying to match the original for a good grade. I wasn’t there just for grades, I was there to create!

I did manage to win a few awards at local art shows, though, and that felt very validating. It made me remember that I wasn’t just imagining things: I was actually pretty good at this. Confidence can be hard to come by as a creative, so those little validations were a huge help.

My Internships

In our junior or senior year, we were told that it was nice to have an internship or two on our resumes.

On a whim, I did a Google search for “graphic design internship disney,” and, bam! There was a post about an internship. I was scared to even apply. Did I really think a kid from Jasper, Alabama would get picked by Disney as an intern?

When I did apply, I didn’t tell anyone in case I didn’t get in (and because I didn’t want other students to apply and get in instead of me, to be honest). But I got a call, and an interview, and finally I was accepted as an intern!

I packed my beat-up oldsmobile with just about everything I owned, everything except my TV and microwave. Then it was an eight hour drive to Orlando, and my first time experiencing Disney.

First Days in Disney

Even though I was there as an employee, that Disney spark was definitely there. You could feel the magic, even just as a graphic design intern. Maybe that’s because on your first day they have all these presentations that are meant to brainwash you into being a super, uber Disney fan. So much Disney kool-aid was being passed around, and I was ready. I took an extra cupful, by choice. (I’m kidding… or am I?)

Anyway, I had some great roommates in Disney housing. I was making friends with other interns. And they explained all the benefits of working there, which included free passes to get into the parks. It was so much fun (aside from the part when they took out your housing expenses from your check, right at the start - not so fun).

My Disney Projects

The first project Disney had me work on was designing flyers for the costuming department. Later, I got to do signage for certain staff areas, which was pretty cool.

The biggest opportunity I got while at Disney? My manager picked me as lead on a project on a very important project for custom signage that they used in the corporate conference rooms. It was such a cool feeling to see our work shipped off to those offices, to know that my designs are actually still in use now.

Same thing goes for work I did for Disney Vault. Being an intern at Disney meant working on real projects, real experiences that could go in my portfolio, which was great. And that’s where I cut my teeth on graphic design, three internships in a row (more on my experiences at Disney here).

Then life kind of slapped me in the face.

Expectations vs. Reality 

I thought it would be easy to find work as a graphic designer fresh out of Disney. I thought everything would work out quickly.I’m still a very lucky guy, but that time after my internship was a good chance to learn some humility.

I worked several crappy jobs, from washing cars to selling insurance, before I finally landed a real graphic design job. It paid $32,000 a year, which isn’t much now. But I was just super excited to have a real job!

At first I got to create cool things, and I got to help this company improve their approvals process. Then I started realizing just how undervalued my role was at this company, to the point where my services were being thrown in for free on top of package deals for our clients. Not a good sign, right?

Worse, this company couldn’t even give me a reasonable cost-of-living increase in my salary. It was like pulling teeth every single time a review came up. There was no room to grow.

Do You Want Cheese With That?

My love of graphic design began fading away. It was like being a McDonald’s employee forced to fill impossible orders. Imagine if someone ordered fries with extra sauce and extra cheese. If you tell them that fries can’t have sauce and cheese, now you’re the bad guy. So you have to go along with these strange requests, even if the outcome is bad.

I started challenging some of this, but as a graphic designer that wasn’t really welcome. I was basically supposed to just shut up and fill the order. Even if the outcome made me look bad as a graphic designer! It’s a tough position to be in, especially as someone who cares about making things pretty.

Call the Plumber!

If you’re a plumber, there really aren’t a lot of people telling you to completely throw out all your knowledge of plumbing and make up a new plumbing technique to fit their mood. Right?

Most people don't think they can do the plumbing, but for some reason a lot of people with no design experience seem to think they can easily do the work of a graphic designer.

The only thing worse? The people who say “I don’t like that” but can’t give a single reason why. I have never met a graphic designer who’s a mind reader, and I’m not one!

People who don’t know what they dislike or why usually turn out to be people who just aren’t ready to work with a designer. Unfortunately, in a lot of these situations it’s the graphic designer who bears the blame. If your client is unhappy, even if they can’t tell you why, too bad. You’re the one whose name is associated with that product they’re unhappy with.

Perceived vs. Real Value

Something which I didn’t realize until I had real life experience? The value of your work just isn’t always apparent. For example, if you design a sign for a business, you can’t easily put a numeric value on what that sign will do for their bottom line. Can they measure whether profit goes up by a certain percent after they use your sign? Will they realize that’s the reason for the increase?

How about logo design? Everyone seems to know that it’s important to have a good logo, but the hard part is getting them to see the actual value of that logo, and why it’s worth paying their designer for a great one.

These conversations are pretty tough to have as a graphic designer, because you’re not dealing with obvious metrics and because a lot of the design elements seem subjective.

Switching to UX Design

All this is why I am so glad I left graphic design. It’s much easier for me to present the value of UX design, and asking questions is part of the job! There’s a much better balance between the creative side and the measurable, data-driven side.

As a UX designer, I don’t just have to make things look pretty, I have to make things work for the business. If it doesn’t work, it doesn’t matter how good it looks! That means you have to have a seat at the decision-making table, not just follow orders blindly after the important decisions have already been made.

Simply put: I love what I do. How about you?