[Hey students! is a multi-part series. Read the rest.]
For most of us, landing a job in design didn’t just happen. In our field, there is an abundance of applicants and a minimal number of openings. This means that you’re going to have to do everything you can to even get noticed. If you’re getting ready to take the plunge into the frigid waters of the design job market, following these guidelines will help you to get noticed. …
[You're reading part 2 (of 3). Read part 1. Read part 3.]
For part two of this series, I want to show how I extended the default functionality of WordPress custom post types and taxonomies in order to build a user-friendly way to associate posts from one type to another.
To recap, in part one, we set up a couple of custom post types. To start this tutorial we’ll be using a very similar function to set up the taxonomy which we will leverage for post-to-post association. …
[You're reading part 1 (of 3). Read part 2. Read part 3.]
Over the past few years, I’ve written quite a bit of code and I’ve had a lot of fun doing it. I’ve got tons of useful snippets in my back pocket and I’m just itching to share them with the world. I’m going to take this opportunity to start a new series here on the Oxide blog, Fun with code. To get things started, let’s outline a problem and uncover a situation which creative code can solve. …
[Hey students! is a multi-part series. Read the rest.]
Last weekend, intern Kelsey was reading (probably re-reading since she knows this stuff already) through the Hey students! series. During Monday’s traffic meeting (probably inspired by us talking a lot), she suggested that it’d be really helpful for students if we could talk to them directly about the entire series – live, in-person. …
[Hey students! is a multi-part series. Read the rest.]
This is a sequel to the first post in this series: Care about your work — which continues to be the most important lesson we have for you.
But caring is more complicated than that. When you start caring, you lose the ability to evaluate your work independently of your personal investment in it. …
[Hey students! is a multi-part series. Read the rest.]
At Oxide, we have a love/hate relationship with design awards. We have a good number of accolades laying around at this point, but I’m not sure what they’ve ever really gotten us, save for a quickly fleeting ego boost.
In the local (and probably national) design schools, it seems like there’s a great deal of importance placed on the winning of awards. Students are encouraged (and sometimes required) to enter competitions held by local organizations and national publications. But a student winning an award probably does much more to promote their educational institution than it does to bolster the career prospects of the student. Design employers know enough to take student design awards with a grain of salt; prospective design students (and their parents) often don’t have enough experience to avoid being star-struck by a school hallway lined with award plaques. …
[Hey students! is a multi-part series. Read the rest.]
While judging the 2010 Nebraska Student ADDY Awards, I was inspired to address the student readers of our blog. While Joe has been the regular author of our Hey Students! series, he has graciously allowed me to contribute to his already great student reference.
There’s no easy way to say this. If you didn’t already know, there simply aren’t a ton of desirable jobs just waiting to be filled by design students. Knowingly or not, you have signed up for an extremely competitive field where mediocrity will likely mean a career in something other than design. I really hope this didn’t come as a shock to you, but if it did, there’s still hope. …
[Hey students! is a multi-part series. Read the rest.]
Classes are back in session, so after you’ve ranked all of your new professors on the Sparano Scale™, it’s time to get down to some designing.
Today’s bit of advice may be the most important in the Hey students! series so far. It’s so fundamental to your growth as a designer — and so critical to the effectiveness of design in general — it should really be addressed to Hey all designers everywhere!
Before starting your next project, take a step back. Before you double-click anything. Before you start looking for inspiration. Before everything else. Start with the problem. …
[Hey students! is a multi-part series. Read the rest.]
When you’re in the classroom, you imagine that life as a professional is just like life as a student. Or, at least, you prefer to imagine it that way. Even though, buried deep inside your thoughtful designer brain, you know you’re kidding yourself.
Some of your classroom experiences translate into the real world and others don’t. Every moment that you spend designing is worthwhile, but each finished piece isn’t necessarily going to help you outside the classroom. One particular project, although it promises to be especially relevant in the real world, usually isn’t. This generally useless project, dear students, is the leave-behind. …
[Hey students! is a multi-part series. Read the rest.]
Over the last few weeks, I’ve had the opportunity to sit down with several design students. I won’t embarrass any of them (intentionally), but here’s the general consensus: most need to spend more time designing, several show a lot of promise, but very few are ready for the big leagues. …