It’s always nice to hear from someone who works in your chosen career, as a student. His or her experience, advise, and knowledge isn’t something that can be taught in a classroom; theirs is a data mine of trial and error, of career paths, first hand knowledge of dealing with clients, and of producing exciting creative work-that ultimately is about addresses a problem, while at the same time communicating the appropriate message, in a dynamic way, that generates value.
This is the modus operandi of Shawn McCraw, of McCraw Designs, who came to speak to a couple of classes of graphic and web design students, last Tuesday, 2/16/10, at my school, The Art Institute of Austin.
McCraw Design is a full service design shop based in Austin, TX. Their list of clients is as long as it is diverse, including Dell, Inc., Austin Advertising Federation, Little Caesars, and Texas Agricultural Land Trust. They also specializes in brand identity and trade shows. Their client base also includes a mixture of paying and pro bono work.
One thing that I took away from Shawn’s visit with us is that he has a passion for what he does, that this passion is express throughout his body of work,
and that his passion can best be described by a simple 3 word statement, that he shared with us, “Solving Problems Creatively.”
In addition to sharing with us what excites him, Shawn shared his process, best illustrated by this graphic from the McCraw Design website:
Other topics that he covered were on the value of networking and doing pro bono work. Shawn stated that he does not advertise for clients, and that most of his clients come to him via networking, and often the networking opportunity came to him via his pro bono work. It should also be noted that McCraw Design treats all of his clients the same, although some jobs require more of his attention than other just by the nature of the job’s profile. As a former freelance, in music and lifestyles street marketing, that was definitely something I could relate to, and was a nice reminder. He also stressed the importance of having a diverse portfolio that contains examples of real world work as well as academic, with a stress on real world.
I thoroughly enjoyed Shawn’s visit with my class. Apparently he did too, because he was only supposed to be with us for an hour, but stayed to answer our questions for the full 4 hour duration. How cool was that?!
