[Talk] Studying art-based/creative courses?

[floating_lettuce]

Normal question for a lot of people considering, is should you study art/design/ any creative course or degree at a higher level? Or is it better to just do it on the side of something else?

I was wondering how many PC members out there actually have gone to university, college or a specilised school after high school to pursue a career in a creative course. How did you decide? Did the course match your expectations? Do you think it's necessary/ worth it?

 

[Nina]

I went to college for illustration, and got a bachelor of fine arts!

I would recommend...
Probably not doing that!! Especially if you are in a place (america) where it costs a lot of money!

Taking courses can help so much, but actually investing full-time in an expensive school, is too costly and sometimes restricting. I'd say about 50% of my growth was just constantly doing art over time, and 50% came from the classes. While super useful and so valuable to help me shape how I move forward, I might very soon have to take non-art related jobs to cover m school loans.

So I went to school to pursue art, and I might not be able to pursue art for the next 10 years because...I wanted to pursue art. (or continue as I am currently, scraping by living with my parents, not sure if I'll have enough for next month, but doing art.)

Especially in that for art related jobs, a degree can always be replaced by experience, which can be done outside of college. The hardest part would be to motivate yourself to work at it everyday, but if you're able to work at it everyday and feel confident in that you know how to move forward, I wouldn't take a full degree at college or any other high education. You should still take classes somewhere, be it online or at a local art center, but no, an art degree from a non-state funded college in America isn't really worth it.

For art, unlike other careers, it maters not where or how you learned it, as long as you have a good portfolio to show.

 

[Prairie]

This may be a good read.

As Nina mentioned, plenty of art schools put you in a whole lot of debt through their programmes, and it really doesn't matter which school you go to, so long as you have a good portfolio when you're looking for a job. Employers generally don't care about paper qualifications, either.

Teaching yourself to be a good artist is certainly possible, but it requires lots of dedication and planning, because it's way too easy to get overwhelmed looking at all the art tutorials and references online. Procrastination is probably your biggest enemy here too, though. It's way too easy to just slack off when you're not being hammered with deadlines.

I've been fortunate enough to get a formal art education at a fraction of those costs. Personally, I don't think it's necessary, but if you can get one without putting yourself in a huge debt, I think it's worth it, especially if you find yourself lacking direction when it comes to art.

In my opinion, an art course provides you with the guidance needed to learn the basic fundamentals and then later on the more specialised skills needed to survive in the industry. Of course, you'd still have to learn a lot on your own, because there probably won't be enough time to cover everything in the course, but it gives you enough knowledge that you won't be completely lost when looking for improvement.

Oh, and there's also lecturers (and peers) around to offer you professional critique. It's not always you can find constructive criticism online, so it's nice to have someone you can talk to for advice and help. One-to-one chats are the best!

An art course also lets you build connections and get contacts for future job endeavours in the industry, too. It's not to say that you can't do this on your own through forums or attending seminars or anything, but it's a lot easier to get contacts when your entire class is (probably) going to be in the same industry as you are. That way, when a classmate leaves for the industry, there's a chance they could recommend you for a job if you're good enough.

And of course, an art course is definitely going to showcase your work if you're good enough, which gives you the exposure every artist looking for a job needs.

Anyway, those are just some of the perks of going to an art course. Everything an art course has to offer you can find elsewhere, but it's just there in one convenient location in an art programme. It's not all doom and gloom, I guess, but it's definitely not a bed of roses either. You'd have to be committed to staying in the course, and that means being prepared to lose hours of sleep because of deadlines and other assignments.

Ultimately, it's best to decide whether you want to take art as a job, or whether you want to pursue it as a hobby. The life of an artist isn't the most financially stable, so you could try taking art on the side if you want a more lucrative career. I mean, it's possible to get into art later on. There are freelance artists who did art on the side before moving onto doing it full-time once they were able to sustain their lives with it alone.

Regardless, I'd consider looking up some online courses as an alternative. There are many online schools floating around, some of which are mentioned in the link above, like Watt's Atelier and CGMA. Schoolism is a fairly new online school, too. If you're like me, though, and you like getting things for free, there's sites like Ctrl+Paint and channels on Youtube like Proko's, and Sycra's, too.

Hope this helps. :)
(I'm having lots of fun in my course.)

 

[Skip Class]

A lot of the stuff I will mention was already covered a lot above so I probably will reiterate on that. Now answering thing I will be answering this from a designer's perspective since I come from design school and I consider myself more of a designer than an artist.

Is it necessary to go to art/design school to be an artists or a designer?

Short answer, no you don't have to.

However, the more accurate answer would be that there is no solid answer that works for everyone for this question.

Being naturally born with art skills and talent is one thing, but with design you do have to do some learning: Design Principles, Composition, Design Theory, Design Thinking and more importantly how to talk about your work, how to present work to your clients.
Like I always say, you've got to learn the rules of design before you go breaking them. It's not something you can just be born with.

How you learn these types of things though depends on the type of person you are. Design is one of those things that you can learn without having to go to university, specific design school, polytechnic or any other type of formal education since these days there are a lot of online classes/tutorials, book and talking to people in the industry by going to local meetups.

I personally am really glad I went to design school and for me it was definitely worth it. Sure going to university in New Zealand is a lot cheaper than going to school in America so it isn't as expensive.
My whole 4 years here is probably worth 1 year (or even cheaper than 1 year at a school in america).

Like Fiddlesticks said, it takes a lot of dedication, being super disciplined and passionate to go out on your own and teach yourself design.
Back when I was 18 at starting university, I wouldn't have had the first clue of what to do to do the things I started at university on my own. The structure was one of the things I loved about studying design at a formal education.

I wouldn't have been able to challenge myself as much like doing assignments even though I absolutely hated them at the time - I am actually thankful I did do them and those skills did come in handy.
Feedback is also one thing that is really necessary with design. Sure it's one thing to post work and get mixed feedback from different people who see your work, but being able to get it from people who are studying the same thing as you as well as the useful lecturers and tutors - You're literally surrounded by creative people all the time.
Those feedback session at university as well helped me to talk about my work, how to present it and also for yourself to give feedback and to give constructive criticism.
I think watching other people's design process and design thinking as well, you can learn a lot than just seeing the final product and trying to recreate/emulate it.

Also gonna add in working in groups is also something you can't really get on your own. Being able to team up with people you've just met or didn't know prior is a good experience especially if you do want to do creative work and collaborate with other people.

Connections like Fiddlesticks also mentioned is also something really good to come out of going to a formal education - however that really depends on where you go to school to.
I am lucky to go to the university I go to where a lot of my friends have been hired to really amazing places such as Weta Digital (where they did Lord of The Rings and Avatar and such), Pik Pok which is NZ's biggest gaming studio among other big companies. They also give us a lot of opportunities in terms of summer scholarship (which also lets us work with big companies over the summer) and a lot of internship placement programs.

Man I ramble too much, but to sum things up:
If you are thinking of taking a formal creative education in arts or design, you should really think of your learning style and how you learn best.
Whether you go or not, well one isn't better than the other, it's just different ways on going about it.

One thing I do have to mention is that I do study a conjoint degree which means I'm also studying Information Systems (commerce) at the same time. I do find design nicely complimenting my InfoSys major as well and it does serve as a good backup if you're struggling to find a job with just design/ creative subject.