Graphic design. A lot of people usually assume graphic design is a job that mostly involves selling something. You sell an event through a poster or a book through its cover, you make something presentable to the right audience because you’re communicating to them in a way they respond to.

My parents have always been supportive of the career path I chose. My other career paths would have been architecture or computer science because back in high school, I had a penchant for both and they showed in my report cards. My parents thought they were lucrative careers too.

Graphic design, not so much. Job security isn’t exactly too good, especially for a highly competitive industry that churns out more graduates than the job market can accomodate. Pay scale’s not too swell, either.

We’re expected to do long hours composing print materials for ad campaigns (yes, composing, designers aren’t drones), meeting deadlines, having ideas shot down, working our brains out until we feel it swelling inside because all out creative juices are being funneled out all because we need to condense this big message into a single line and a few images and we need it to communicate directly. We need people to respond to an image, a vision, a story.

We need you to buy into that idea because it sells and we need your money.

That’s what most graphic design is these days. It’s a business.

We make things that make you want to spend your money. We’re going to tell you you need this, we’re going to compel you by tugging at your primal urges and tell you that that we have what you want and you need to spend, spend, spend.

Listen closely, because here’s where I’m getting at.

Design is about not just about communicating. It’s about creating a response from its audience. Response: an answer. We get you to do what we want you to do because it’s our job, so we better be damn well good at it.

But what if you could use that to make people do some good?

Because design has that potential. If you can make people buy into an idea well enough, you can make them do some good without forcing it down their throats like something they should be begrudgingly obligated to do.

Good design is about problem solving. Like how to construct a more efficient learning environment for government-funded schooling, get kids into the habit of becoming more eco-friendly and carrying that into adulthood, have neighborhoods more active in civilian policing and simplifying the task of contacting their local government to solve pressing issues.

I’m not just throwing these examples around like that’s what design could potentially do. In fact, they have been done. That’s what the graphic design course I’m taking has been all about.

Because if graphic design can be used to make people buy something then it sure as hell can be used to make people do some good.

And I’m not saying that graphic design is the best way to solve problems like local governance or public education. I’m saying that this career path has the potential to, like every career path, be used for good.

Also, there’s one thing about graphic design that I think is vital that every graphic designer should be aware of: there’s a reason why graphic design barely has rockstars, and if they do they’re mostly only known to graphic designers.

It’s because the most effective way to teach people is through creating an experience for them that makes it so that they learn the message on their own. The message is always above the design, and the design is always above the designer.

I’m saying this because a lot of times designers want to be popular that style starts to lord over the design and the message gets muddled somewhere along the way. Getting popularity, selling yourself, that’s cool. But good design goes beyond promoting the person behind it. The person behind the idea stays behind the idea.

And when the design is good enough — brilliant enough — you’ll see yourself turning into a rockstar without ramming that lust for popularity down anyone’s throats.

So there you have it.

If you’re going to be a graphic designer, know that it’s both a privilege and a responsibility, and not just a job. Know that it’s not just about selling, it’s primarily about communicating. Treat your job like you’re using superpowers to get the job done. Terrible superpowers, or some great ones.

Also know that there’s going to be long hours and little pay and people expecting you to meet three-hour deadlines like your superpowers are literal superhuman powers.

Graphic design, everybody. Fuck yeah.