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Investing in Arts Education

If You’ve Never Thought About a Career in Design, Think Again

Julie Anixter

Executive Director, AIGA

David Kelley, founder of IDEO once said, “Everything that isn’t nature is designed.”  For example, I think careers can and must be designed. If you are thinking about a job or career that will challenge and inspire you every day, never become irrelevant and give you agency in the world, why not consider design?  Designers have incredible power in the world — the power to make ideas, and experiences real. Make no mistake, that is a form of very real power.

The path for you

You may say, “But what kind of design?” Here are some of the design and creative roles that our 25,000 members perform in the world: communications design, graphic design, design thinking, design education, industrial design, environmental design, human centered design, package design, design for inclusion, design research, coding, copywriting, illustration, photography, web design, UX design, UI design, digital product design, game design, motion design, urban design, fashion design, landscape design, videography, filmmaking, sound design, automotive design, type design, machine learning AR/VR design, painting, sculpture, data visualization, creative direction and, last but not least, leadership. And that’s just for starters. 

Start to explore

Many designers and creatives wear several of these hats at the same time. They combine thinking and making with high-impact problem-solving.  Others go deep and stay in a specific design discipline for decades. So what should you do to explore the abundance of design and creative careers?  Start looking for people, examples and experiences that inspire, move, confound and challenge you.  Get up and go Google design and your city or neighborhood. Start to explore.

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