Briefbox's Matt Campbell on the Things They Don't Teach You at Art School
We were delighted to get the opportunity to pick the knowledgeable brain of Matt Campbell. A member of the Brief Box team with a wealth of design experience behind him, we delved into what art students can do to have the best start when moving into the industry.
Hi Matt, thanks for agreeing to answer our questions. Firstly could you give us a bit of background on your arts education and experience as a designer?
No problem at all! So like most people I knew from back home, I decided to go to University to basically kill three years of my life before I was forced to "become an adult" and "get a real job".
I settled on studying Graphic Design at the University of Worcester as the surrounding area itself was beautiful and I always enjoyed making really embarrassing album cover and film poster designs on Photoshop back when Tumblr used to be a thing. I was probably the worst 'artist' you'd ever have met, but I always had an interest in digital design so I thought I'd try my hand at it and see where I ended up.
After graduating, I was really lucky to land a role as the very first hire at a brand new design agency just outside of Bristol. I was thrown into the deep end almost immediately and ended up learning a wide variety of new skills such as WordPress website development, SEO strategy and even some business skills too. Looking back, I don't think I'd know anywhere near as much about the day-to-day workings of managing a design agency if I had been offered a job at somewhere far more established.
Five years and one 'Head of Design' job title later, I eventually left the agency life behind as I grew a very fatigued with the mental stress of working with clients day-in day-out. I was desperate to get back to being more involved with the design community, so joined Briefbox in an effort to pass on what I'd learned to struggling creatives and spend every day feeling inspired by our student's work.
“You really have to sell your work to the client, and be able to tell them exactly why your proposed design is exactly the solution they need. ”
We know Briefbox is made to fill the gaps often missed by design education. What do you find is the most common issue students face when moving into the job world, and how would you suggest we tackle this?
Without a doubt, I think the biggest issue new students face is a lack of awareness of the differences between work completed for your studies and work completed for a real client.
For real-world projects, the final presentation of your work is everything. You really have to sell your work to the client, and be able to tell them exactly why your proposed design is exactly the solution they need. It's not enough to simply open up a JPEG and expect them to fall in love with the visuals alone. Graphic design is the art of problem solving through visual communication, and you almost need to become a salesperson as much as you do an artist to really succeed in the industry.
Something I also think that most students fail to realise is that the role of an educational institution is to get as many students through the system with as high a grade as possible, and anything that happens after you've graduated isn't really their main concern.
I know from my own experience that there are teachers out there that really do care and will go the extra mile to help you develop these skills, but teachers and lecturers are often a victim to the same system and unless a college or university offers a specific module on presentation and portfolio development, then it's really not feasible for a teacher to help 30+ students at a time develop these skills.
What would be your biggest and best piece of advice for recent grads who may be feeling a bit overwhelmed trying to find a job/work in industry?
Don't give up. It sounds pretty obvious and cliché, but the day you stop applying and putting yourself out there is the day the dream dies. I was quite literally putting my shoes on and about to walk out the door to hand in a CV to my local supermarket as I got the phone call that landed me my first paid role in the industry.
There's no shame in working a job to pay the bills, but you have to make sure that you continue to find the time and energy to working towards the dream. As soon as you settle for less, you run the risk of settling for good.
In a more practical sense, I would suggest making sure that each application you send off really matters to you, and putting real time and effort into landing the perfect role instead of trying to find any old "graphic design" job out there.
When I first moved to Bristol, I was applying for every single job with "designer" in the title that I could find, and ended up spending far too much time, money and energy applying for jobs that both myself and my interviewer knew I didn't really want. (We're talking 'the only designer at a plumbing company' type of roles here).
It's very easy to burn out doing this time after time again, and if I had just focused instead on working on really fun, creative projects in my spare time to build on my portfolio and develop my skills, I'm confident I would have found truly meaningful work far quicker than I did.
Following on from our previous question, what would be the 5 very doable small tasks a recent grad could do to help them get their foot in the door within industry?
Dedicate a fixed amount of time every single week, no matter what, to completing one piece of work for your portfolio. This doesn't need to be for a real client, but if you can design around a topic you have a genuine interest in, you'll far less likely to get bored and will be prepared to put more time into making it look perfect.
Regularly take a look at other work from other agencies you love and try and break your favourite projects down. Take note of colour combinations, layout decisions, typefaces etc. It's impossible to learn in a vacuum, so keep feeding your brain with visual inspiration and the next time you start working on your own portfolio pieces you'll have a much better library to start pulling cool techniques from.
Reach out to other creatives, particularly if you've just graduated with a class of people in the same position as you. Try and set up a WhatsApp group or similar, and share tips and experiences between each other. Using your collective learning as a resource can really benefit the group as a whole and help you find work and learn more about things like invoicing and contracts later down the line.
Once you've found an agency you'd die to work for, really spend a good amount of time researching both the agency as a whole and their senior team as individuals. My process in the past has been to hand-write letters to creative directors, individually listing off projects they've completed, what it is you like about those projects, and exactly why you want to work for them in particular. I really can't overstate the personal effect of a handwritten letter, and it immediately tells an employer that you were willing to put real time and effort into your application instead of sending off a blanket email with just the company name changed.
When you feel your portfolio is ready, consider reaching out to agencies and offering to do one test piece of unpaid work for them. It's rare that any agency will hire when a position isn't being advertised, so give them an opportunity to see how you react to real client briefs, how you work with them in particular, and they may be inclined to keep you around. It's very easy for agencies to take advantage of their position of power here, so before contacting anyone, know where your limits are and be prepared to walk away if they're not showing any signs of being ready to hire you after you've completed one sample project.
“Dedicate a fixed amount of time every single week, no matter what, to completing one piece of work for your portfolio.”
We always check out your Good Finds features (have got many good procreate brushes so thanks!) What are some of your favourite resources you've shared through this feature?
Personally, I'm a sucker for anything colour related, and good sources of colour inspiration can save a ton of time down the line that would otherwise be spent staring at an RGB colour wheel trying to find effective combinations. Khroma, Color Hunt and Color Leap are some of our most recent finds here and have been such a useful tool over the past few months for me.
Other than this, type foundries are a great place to start when kicking off a new project, and sometimes just the unique shapes of characters in a typeface can inspire all sorts of creative work. My favourite resource for typography at the moment is Future Fonts, which is basically a library of typefaces that are still in-development and haven't officially been released yet. Their platform is a great way of getting ahead of the competition and giving your work a unique flavour before other creatives get there first.
You create brief sets for designers wanting to fill their portfolio, could you tell us more about these for anyone who might be interested in having a go?
Absolutely! So Briefbox's core focus is our brief sets and courses, designed by leading creatives in the industry and tailored around the idea of giving people a selection of seriously cool projects to add to their portfolio. Each brief set typically has 5 or 6 unique projects in them, each centred around a specific discipline and containing a project overview, visual direction, Briefbox's own response and bespoke feedback available to anyone who purchases a Briefbox Premium subscription.
Moving forward, our goal is to release more brief sets that are a bit less broad and more tailored towards a specific type of client. Our Branding for the Music Industry has been one of our most successful courses to-date, and it's clear that our students are desperate for brief sets that scratch a really specific itch they might have.
We know you have exciting projects brewing, what can people expect from Briefbox in the upcoming months?
Lots! We're currently going through a massive course refresh and rebrand at the moment which we're aiming to launch by the end of this year. On top of this, we're dedicating more time to interviewing more wonderful creatives like yourselves, putting together far more detailed industry insight articles to help our students prepare for work as designers and illustrators, and adding more and more resources to our growing library of good finds in the industry.