Don't Get a Job... Make a Job.

Don't Get a Job... Make a Job - How to make it as a creative graduate

I have a problem with the nuance of the term get a job - the term get suggests a certain amount of affordance, and there is no room for this in the arts and design industry. You do not get a job – it is not a present. You do not find a job – it is not a prize at the end of a rainbow. No you make a job… you take control of your destiny; you make your own opportunities!

I am a hopeless optimist, brought about by being surrounded by young, talented, incredible students every single day. I am empowered by their innocence and determination and I want to do my part in opening their eyes and supporting them when entering the working world. As an educator I take my role very seriously - our students and graduates are the future and we have to take care of our future.  So I wrote a book to remind them that the employment system is just that, one system, it can be side-stepped, it can be bull-dozed, it can be re-written... and it is being, right now!

The book covers 30+ case studies and advice segments from people who are doing it and people who have done it! All good books in my opinion, fact or fiction, come from a personal place – and this one certainly does – a place of passion and turmoil. After pitching a completely different idea to a publisher, which they rejected (rightly so, it was rubbish) we began discussing more realistic topics and we arrived at quite a simple conclusion, I know a lot about students, having been one myself for 5 years (studying architecture) and having been a lecturer and now course leader for over a decade.

After studying intensely and getting 2 degrees, within 18 months of graduating I had also racked up an impressive 2 redundancies (thanks to the recession) and needless to say my morale as pitifully low. I experienced my first ever panic attack as a result of taking a job I despised, and was also terrible at. After wrestling with the realities of the situation, I realised my unhappiness was making me unwell and a (cliché) switch flipped in my head. I had nothing left to loose, nothing left at stake and in understanding this, all of a sudden everything became a possibility. It became clear that being a qualified architect was no longer at the top of my list, in fact it wasn’t on my list at all. I began to look at the skills that I had amassed in a different way. But it hasn’t all been doom and gloom for me clearly, as I am privileged to now be able to call myself an author and an academic. In the years since my redundancies I have had many jobs; a lecturer, a designer, an installation artist, a publisher and editor, a curator and a writer, I have founded companies (and dissolved them) spoken at industry events, at international conferences, and been flown to far flung places to write about architecture and design… and not one of these jobs was attained by traditional methods!

To find out more about my journey and 30 other mind-blowing stories from art and design industry trail-blazers or indeed to read my advice on how to make the most of your design education then you can pre-order Don't Get a Job... Make a Job here. (Publish date: March 2016, Laurence King Publishing.)

I am giving lectures on the topics discussed in the book at Universities up and down the country in April and May 2016. If you would like a visit - send me an email on hello at gem barton dot com