Change of career

ajs

New Member
Many moons ago I dreamt of being a graphic designer. I took A levels in design and art and spent my gap year working as an office junior in a graphic design office before being made redundant. I went on to university and qualified as a chartered accountant!. At the grand old age of 43 I have decided to return to my original love and would like to set up my own home business designing and producing personal stationery (invites, party supplies etc etc) on a small scale. I have looked into local courses and have found a 2 year foundation degree in Graphic Design. Could anyone advise whether such a course would be necessary or there are alternatives for this specific type of business?

Many thanks in advance.
 
A decent foundation degree should give you the basic knowledge you need, or you may find you're better suited to an online course or even self-tutoring. Not everyone can 'get' design so it's always hard to say whether or not a specific course will suit an individual.

Graphic design is a service to business. I don't know what the market is like but what you're proposing sounds more like a B2C venture. Consumers absolutely will not pay anything near the rates (plus printing costs) a professional designer would charge a business and my worry is you'd struggle to find enough demand to pay the bills. They see 'products' not 'design service' so you'd need to find a middle ground between a reasonable price for your 'products' and a decent profit.

You may find you're better off mass-producing designs for use on cards, invites etc, and maybe have small runs printed up and sell them online (Etsy, Society6, your own online store, etc), at print and craft fairs, or try to sell them to independent gift/art stores who stock unique things such as these. This is something you can tackle in your spare time will relatively low risk. If you're not already, you should be doing the work you want to do full-time at weekends to build up a client base. If there's no demand or it's not feasible then it's better to know before you've sunk a huge portion of your life into the venture.
 
Thanks for your reply. Yes you are right it is B2C. I am envisaging designing a range of items, possibly for personalisation, and trading on Etsy to begin with, moving onto my own website and other outlets if successful. The printing I am not yet sure on - whether to do myself with investment in equipment, or outsource but as you say with small personalised runs that would probably not possible. I am in a very fortunate position that I can probably start up and see how it goes financially wise. I do feel I have a flair for the design side as I have done small jobs for family and friends but I would like some formal training, in order to confirm whether I do, particularly in typography and use of various software packages and Mac work as I would just use Publisher at the moment. Thanks again
 
I have prepared a UCAS application (late applications considered) for the college in question but am mindful that the course would be based largely around commercial work i.e. meeting clients and preparing presentations of work to their brief, and this is just not what I would want to do. But I am not sure where else I could access the training I would like, as I say in typography mainly, perhaps hand lettering. I would also like to incorporate photography as this is a keen interest where I do have a small amount of formal training. Thanks again
 
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