the first decision you should make

isn't which company is the most impressive

or who has the best website,

it's what kind of situation you want to end up working in.

No matter what type of design you do,

there are three main job types for a designer;

agency, in house or freelance.

In this video we're gonna discuss

the differences between them and try to help you

figure out which one might suit you best.

(upbeat music)

When I was studying design at university,

most of the talk around our future careers

was centered around working in the agency or a studio.

Those types of design jobs

were seen as the way to be successful.

Once I was out in the real world of design though,

I realized that they were many different options for me

to have a successful design career.

So that's why I wanted to make this video,

to let you know about your different options

and try and help you figure out what would be best for you.

This video is the start of a series

that I'm making about design careers,

so we will be digging deeper into each one of these options

in future videos, but for now,

I just wanna give you an overview

and some of the pros and cons.

(gentle music)

Agencies, or studios, are companies

that create design work for clients.

Generally speaking, an agency will be a larger company

and a studio will be smaller,

but essentially the job concept is the same.

You'll be working with a team to answer client briefs.

An agency might not necessarily be

a design agency, specifically.

It could be advertising, social media,

branding, marketing, but all those things

need design and all those agencies will need

designers to help provide the service

that their client needs.

Working at an agency, you can expect

to be working with multiple clients on multiple projects,

so you definitely need to enjoy taking on new challenges.

The cool thing about working for a larger agency,

in particular, is that you might get to

work on some pretty big budget projects,

which will be pretty fun, but remember

you won't be working on them by yourself,

you will be part of the team

and you will likely have to work your way up

and sometimes that can be quite a climb.

That likely won't be the case with smaller agencies

or studios, but like with everything,

it depends on what you want out of your career.

So if you choose the agency route

you also need to decide if you want to

go for the big famous corporate

or something smaller and more boutique.

(gentle music)

If you're in house, you're a designer based at a company,

working on their brand and projects.

Over the years, as the tech industry has boomed

and more of an importance has been placed on design,

in house roles have definitely exploded in popularity.

Designers who work at Facebook,

Twitter, Google they're all in house designers.

Just like with agency though, there are in house roles

at smaller companies, like mine for example.

I'm the marketing designer at ConvertKit

and we're a team made up of only 28 people.

I should note that it's not just tech companies

where you can be an in house designer.

Other companies like, for example;

colleges, magazines, retailers,

they all hire in house designers too,

in many different design specializations.

When you're in house designing,

you get to know the brand and the audience

you design for really deeply and you also

have the opportunity to learn from things like user research

and improve on your designs over time.

Of course there will be new challenges coming your way,

with new types of projects you work on,

because you won't just be redesigning the same thing

over and over again.

But there definitely needs to be a lot of consistency

and so if you're someone who enjoys

working with new styles a lot of the time,

perhaps you might get bored working for the same brand.

(upbeat music)

Freelance designers kind of operate

as their own little studios.

They take on clients and they create design work for them.

Generally speaking, these clients and projects

will be smaller than an agency would take on

and also, unlike an agency,

you won't be working in a team to answer the briefs.

Instead, you will be in charge of answering them yourself.

To be a freelancer, you need to

learn to be good at business, because essentially

you're running your own small business,

whether you think of it that way or not.

You'll also need to be really self motivated,

because you'll be your own boss

and you'll need to find the clients yourself too.

So while you get a lot of freedom and flexibility

being a freelancer, you also have

all of the pressures of running your own business.

From listening to the descriptions

of those different job types,

is there one that appeals to you most?

Let me know about it down below, in the comments.

As I mentioned, I will be making specific,

in depth videos on each of these topics

and I'll be bringing on an expert

who works in each different type of situation,

to tell us more about what it's like

and also share advice on how to be successful in each.

So stay tuned for those videos later on in the series.

Give this video here a thumbs up if you enjoyed it

or found it useful and if you'd like to be notified

when new videos, in this design career series,

goes live then you can sign up to my email list.

It's at charlimarie.com/designjobs.

And I've also left a link in the description,

if you'd rather click it, rather than type it in.

All right.

Thanks for watching and I'll see you in the next one.

Bye.

(upbeat music)