A Little Background

I’ve quite often pondered the idea of doing further study, but not been too specific on what I’d add to my qualifications.  The price of such study was another factor that had always delayed additional study.  Growing up, I had to choose between the two things I was good at in school: science or art.  Thinking I’d stand more chance of making an impact in science, I chose that path  As it turned out, I never got into my planned research, having not developed a passion for it, and instead wound up as a team leader of a very quiet microbiology lab.  The pay’s good, but I’m fairly disinterested in the whole shebang as things are quite.  It’s not as fast paced as the “good old days” of sterile manufacturing and ever since we were sold off/taken over, opportunities for training and staff development have dried up. I sort of miss the days spent in production taking samples and then in the lab processing them.  I also used to love running investigations and writing reports which there is little demand for in my current lab role.

An internal job advert for a graphic designer resulted in me looking such a position up on an online job search engine.  A banner advert for a vocational training college saw me look into related courses.  I’d recently gotten back into drawing as a recent graphics tablet rekindled my interest in such past times.

Looking further into study options, the course I decided on was funded by the Government (well, at least assisted as I have to pay them back), was available part-time, and seemed to have close links with the design community.  So, perceptually, this works out as cheap, the 12 hours a week (total study time) not unreasonable and being in bed with the industry, there is a good chance if I’m any good, then I’ll be pretty marketable at the end of things.

I’ve found that recently, my current career is not particular interesting or demanding:  I’ve developed my staff into great scientists; my succession plan’s complete; we appear to be in an audit ready state.  What really decided things for me was a definition of graphic design I came across that said that graphic designers solve problems and are analytical and creative.  This is similar to what I do for work presently, with a creative aspect chucked in.

So, if I became a graphic artist or graphic designer, it would involve drawing and computers, two of my loves.