First the good news. At a time when the Chancellor of the Exchequer has highlighted the importance of the creative industries to the UK, learning to become a designer has never been easier. According to the Higher Education Statistics Agency the number of undergraduates studying design and creative arts-related subjects has risen from 87,170 in 1996-97 to 140,195 in 2003-04, a leap of some 53,025 people in only seven years. Add another 16,220 architects (grouped in another statistical category) and it quickly becomes clear that the country is taking its final step in mutating from an industrial nation to a creative one.
The bad news? More designers means more competition, which means that actually carving out a reasonably prosperous design career is becoming distinctly tricky.
Naturally there are exceptions. Central St Martin’s graduate Lucy Nunn, who with Tobie Snowdowne forms the young graphic and product design company twocreate, got a break of the sort most recent graduates can only dream about. Her graduating project, a series of quirky objects to help relieve work-related stress, was publicised in Blueprint magazine. Better still, one product - a printed pad with paper aeroplane construction lines to encourage employees to send their messages by airmail instead of e-mail - was picked up and manufactured by Worldwide Co, selling more than 7,000 units globally. However, even this jet-propelled start didn't lead to immediate riches. ‘We both expected to get full-time jobs with consultancies,’ she explains. ‘There was no plan to work together or do anything self-initiated - we just couldn't afford to stay in London and do free work experience. We got a few small commissions that weren't enough to pay the rent but they kept us interested in the industry.’ In fact they were forced to take part-time jobs to make ends meet. ‘But because we were in magazines everyone thought we were earning lots of money.’
After three years of graft the pair finally went full-time in 2004. Nunn says: ‘We gave up thinking we’d get paid on royalties. We did some work for [lighting manufacturer] Mathmos on a day rate or, for a few other clients like Habitat, we sold designs outright for a flat fee. That gave us cashflow and we’re now just about thinking about doing royalty projects again.’
Nunn’s is a familiar tale. According to design entrepreneur and ex-Kingston student Jimmy McDonald, the most important character trait for a young designer is ‘resilience’. ‘If the opportunities aren’t immediately available to designers when they leave university, it’s very difficult for them to see their way to going it alone. Once they do, the problem is being able to sustain that enthusiasm either by setting themselves goals or having some imposed upon them. If those don’t exist it’s very difficult to carry on.’
For his latest venture, in association with 100% Design, McDonald has created an exhibition called 100% East which took place this September at the Truman Brewery on London’s Brick Lane. It acts almost as a finishing school for design talent, teaching recent graduates about the business side of the industry - something often ignored at the universities.
‘It’s very difficult for graduates,’ confides McDonald. ‘At university they’re taught to be designers. But there’s no attention paid to entrepreneurship and it seems totally impossible at the start. I think most of the designers we know who have succeeded just naively go where no one has gone before and rely on their personality and gusto to battle their way through.’
However, Peter Anderson, who combines his own highly successful graphic design practice with teaching at Camberwell College of Arts, believes students could help themselves. ‘They have quite a sheltered viewpoint. They don’t really want to know about the real world until they have to. It’s not until graduation that they realise they’re actually going to be responsible for themselves, and usually that doesn’t sink in for a year. Then it suddenly becomes real. I’d say 70 per cent of them probably get jobs doing completely different things.’ This is backed up at least partially by Nunns: ‘We had talks from lawyers and business people at college but until you need to know the answer to something you don’t really take it all in.’
At the Royal College of Art Jeremy Myerson, director of InnovateRCA, is all too aware of the problem. His department acts as a bridge between college and business, in part through a website called Fuel that provides graduates with practical information when they finally leave the warm womb of education. ‘It addresses things like confidence, how to negotiate and be in a business meeting, and it has very specific stuff like putting in a tax return, applying for a grant and registering for VAT. It deals with the personal and the psychological but also the practical and the financial.’
The department also has a scheme to support ideas it believes have a commercial future. It pays for intellectual property protection in return for an equal share of the rights, while the student owns 70 per cent of any profit. The RCA, of course, is supposed to cater for the cream of design graduates. But could other universities be doing more to equip their students for the real world? Myerson isn’t so sure. ‘I don’t think they can do absolutely everything. There’s enough to learn about just being a designer.’
That may be true but, interestingly, both McDonald and Anderson agree when asked independently how many of their graduates will manage to forge a successful career in design. The answer? A worryingly small five per cent. It’s something surely worth mentioning to any 18-year-old about to enroll on one of the nation’s burgeoning design courses.