HI,
I get your conflicted feelings about schools. What worked for me was that I organized my mind into what I want to learn and accomplish within a program. Keep in mind, that if you’re going to NYC to school, you have tons of different opportunities and environments to learn outside of your class curriculum. I will go in depth into this topic.
I’ll give you my point of view, just so you get the gist of my process and so you can apply it to yours.
- First off, I recommend you define what you want to learn with regards to graphic design and what do you NEED to learn. Is it that you enjoy graphic design but are just beginning to develop your skills, or is it that your skills are strong but you lack the foundational experience for producing work that resolves the problems you're aiming to tackle?
Most schools will help you with the later part, but skill acquisition related to technique are relegated outside of the curriculum in many schools. Many of them expect you to have that skill set before you apply, more so in competitive programs. So, look into this, because it’s important.
- Can you acquire such skills on your own? If you spend a couple of summer months following a consistent training regime you can get pretty decent. It's all about time investment. Example: I wake up early, jog, come back and by 7:40 I'm at my desk watching courses on skillshare or lynda.com. Then, I spend a couple of hours practicing my drawing technique or work in my digital media skills like Photoshop, Illustrator and Indesign.
My approach is light in the sense that I go at it slow, but consistent, every day. Study or practice for a 50 minute block, then take a break for 20 min, and repeat (The pomodoro method). You will be surprized how much you can advance your skills by being constant. I don’t focus on just one thing, I mix it up through the day. Maybe today I try pencil drawing and later I move to scanning my sketches into illustrator to practice tracing, and maybe later photoshop for color and effects. Maybe next day I can read a book (Like Tim Samara’s “Design elements”, great intro book and fun).
Tons of resources online, just google them. Skillshare, lynda.com, colourlovers.com. Documentaries like Helvetica and Objectified will get your creative juices running too. The objective is to build a constant and immersive environment for your mind to get into gear. Another amazing book, although a bit dense to start, would be Donis A Dondis’s primer on visual literacy, amazing stuff.
Look for a community: Once you have acquired basic skills, I would show up at design agencies and offer my services in trade of learning. Make sure they integrate you into the design process, don’t be a pixel monkey. This will give you insight, lots, and you will be the tits when you finally get to school, and the experience under your belt can land you internships or well paid part time jobs. EXPERIENCE is worth gold.
- What is the major focus for the programs you're looking into? Is it art or design? Both disciplines are not exclusive, but they do approach the craft in different ways. In art you focus on expression and concept. In design you focus on resolving a problem through the use of aesthetics and relationships as expressed through visual, physical or interactive mediums.
Which one is your hearts desire?
- NYC has an incredible array of resources for you to gain skills and knowledge. Summer courses, weekend courses and seminars run the gamut thanks to the abundance of schools like Cooper Union, NYU, Parsons, SVA and Pratt. That is the beauty of NYC, that you can be promiscuous and poke your nose at every school through these courses or events.
- I recommend you learn to use a content management system like Wordpress. Simply being able to set up and manage a website in a couple of hours will provide you with valuable skills and experience for your future, not to mention that you can earn a decent amount of cash by freelancing. It also helps you to build a brand for yourself and to provide you with a decent portfolio that's online 24/7.
- Learn how to code. It will open so many doors for you both creatively and professionally. Basic skills like HTML, CSS 3, Javascript and Processing will augment the way you grow and mature into a designer. Try this course on for size. https://www.kadenze.com/courses/introduction-to-programming-for-the-visual-arts-with-p5-js/info
- Do you know basic photographic skills? If not, invest in it. Totally worth it when you can charge for custom content for a couple of hundred bucks.
- All of the above will help you to create a rocking portfolio.
- Now, after thinking through all that information, what school do you think fits best? Have you consumed their websites? Have you visited? What is the culture and how does it relate to you? Do your research ahead of time. If you can, dedicate a weekend to it and make lots of post-its that describe your thoughts.
Then, if you can, GO visit. Every school I mentioned in NYC is worth it and remember that you can jump around during the summers or weekends.
Hope this helps.