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			<h1 class="article-title">				
				<strong class="article-title-main">How to Get the Work You&nbsp;Want</strong>
				<span class="article-title-sub">Advice for <del>Students</del> <ins>Anyone</ins></span>
			</h1>

			<p>One of the most common questions I&rsquo;m asked about design is how to get the work you really want to do. Students often bring up the fact that they feel so far away from their dream projects. Even experienced agencies make excuses like &ldquo;gotta make payroll&rdquo; and &ldquo;we&rsquo;re too busy right now.&rdquo;</p>

			<p>Here are two tips that helped me do the work I wanted to do.</p>
			
			<h2>1. Make your own work.</h2>
			
			<p>Especially for students, don&rsquo;t be afraid to make your own commissions. If you&rsquo;re a fan of the <abbr title="National Football League">NFL</abbr>, make up your own project as if the <abbr>NFL</abbr> hired you. Create a fake redesign of <a href="http://<abbr>NFL</abbr>.com/"><abbr>NFL</abbr>.com</a> and put it in your portfolio as an uninvited redesign (just make sure you&rsquo;re clear about stating that you created the brief yourself). As a bonus, if the <abbr>NFL</abbr> ever <em>does</em> come knocking, you&rsquo;ll have a ton of things to talk about with them that you&rsquo;ve already been thinking about.</p>
			<p>And for those that think you can&rsquo;t put unsolicited work in your portfolio, that&rsquo;s utter nonsense. I once interviewed a designer for a very high design position (he essentially would have been my boss). He had some of the most original work in his portfolio that I&rsquo;d seen. When we talked about the projects, I learned that about half of them were projects he made up for brands he had good ideas for. They showcased both his critical thinking and his design chops. While there&rsquo;s something to be said for how designers react to the constraints of their customers, clients, or bosses, unsolicited projects can help round out the narrative of your portfolio when you don&rsquo;t have client projects to fill in certain chapters.</p>
			<p>Designer <NAME> created <a href="http://www.minimallyminimal.com/2012/7/3/the-next-microsoft.html">an unsolicited rebranding of Microsoft</a> and <a href="http://www.minimallyminimal.com/blog/msft">subsequently got a job there</a>. It&rsquo;s not a guarantee, but it&rsquo;s far from an isolated incident.</p>
			<p>My dream client is <a href="http://nike.com/">Nike</a>. I love the brand&mdash;I once had close to 50 pairs of Nike sneakers&hellip; now I&rsquo;m down to 17&mdash;and I love all the digital work they&rsquo;re putting out. I wanted to work for them since I was in school, so lots of my school projects were centered around Nike products. I bet my teachers were tired of seeing my &ldquo;what sneaker are you?&rdquo; Flash sites. I haven&rsquo;t landed any Nike work yet, but it&rsquo;s just a matter of time. If you&rsquo;re listening, Nike, I&rsquo;ve got a boatload of ideas. More on this in a bit.</p>
			<p>If you&rsquo;re in design or just starting out teaching yourself, there&rsquo;s a pretty high chance that you&rsquo;ve got some free time. Use that time to fill your portfolio with projects you&rsquo;d love to be hired to do.</p>
			<p>If you&rsquo;re a small agency that doesn&rsquo;t have as much of the luxury of time, rest your thinking to see it as an investment. How much money would you put down to get the project you want? $5<abbr title="thousand">K</abbr>? $25<abbr>K</abbr>? Carve out however much time this&rsquo;ll buy and devote it to creating some fictitious work. Does $5<abbr>K</abbr> buy a month of your time at your rate? Then you&rsquo;ve got a month to make some killer for your dream client. It doesn&rsquo;t even have to be a redesign; you could make an app that might help the business, a gallery site devoted to a particular subject, even just writing a few blog posts to show your passion about a brand or topic.</p>
			<p>And, if you have the time and can&rsquo;t figure out what to make, <a href="/contact/">send me a two sentence email</a> that says something to the effect of, &ldquo;I love [brand name] because [reason for liking them]. What should I make?&rdquo; I&rsquo;ll reply with a brief for you to tackle. Some examples that make for good commissions:</p>
			<ul>
			<li>I love Burton because I&rsquo;ve been snowboarding since I was 4.</li>
			<li>My favorite movie is Titanic.</li>
			<li>I want to spread the word about the benefits of being vegan.</li><commit_msg>Broken NFL.com link and missing meta info<commit_after><?php require($_SERVER["DOCUMENT_ROOT"]."/-/_inc/functions.php"); echo "\n"; ?>
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			<h1 class="article-title">				
				<strong class="article-title-main">How to Get the Work You&nbsp;Want</strong>
				<span class="article-title-sub">Advice for <del>Students</del> <ins>Anyone</ins></span>
			</h1>

			<p>One of the most common questions I&rsquo;m asked about design is how to get the work you really want to do. Students often bring up the fact that they feel so far away from their dream projects. Even experienced agencies make excuses like &ldquo;gotta make payroll&rdquo; and &ldquo;we&rsquo;re too busy right now.&rdquo;</p>

			<p>Here are two tips that helped me do the work I wanted to do.</p>
			
			<h2>1. Make your own work.</h2>
			
			<p>Especially for students, don&rsquo;t be afraid to make your own commissions. If you&rsquo;re a fan of the <abbr title="National Football League">NFL</abbr>, make up your own project as if the <abbr>NFL</abbr> hired you. Create a fake redesign of <a href="http://nfl.com/"><abbr>NFL</abbr>.com</a> and put it in your portfolio as an uninvited redesign (just make sure you&rsquo;re clear about stating that you created the brief yourself). As a bonus, if the <abbr>NFL</abbr> ever <em>does</em> come knocking, you&rsquo;ll have a ton of things to talk about with them that you&rsquo;ve already been thinking about.</p>
			<p>And for those that think you can&rsquo;t put unsolicited work in your portfolio, that&rsquo;s utter nonsense. I once interviewed a designer for a very high design position (he essentially would have been my boss). He had some of the most original work in his portfolio that I&rsquo;d seen. When we talked about the projects, I learned that about half of them were projects he made up for brands he had good ideas for. They showcased both his critical thinking and his design chops. While there&rsquo;s something to be said for how designers react to the constraints of their customers, clients, or bosses, unsolicited projects can help round out the narrative of your portfolio when you don&rsquo;t have client projects to fill in certain chapters.</p>
			<p>Designer <NAME> created <a href="http://www.minimallyminimal.com/2012/7/3/the-next-microsoft.html">an unsolicited rebranding of Microsoft</a> and <a href="http://www.minimallyminimal.com/blog/msft">subsequently got a job there</a>. It&rsquo;s not a guarantee, but it&rsquo;s far from an isolated incident.</p>
			<p>My dream client is <a href="http://nike.com/">Nike</a>. I love the brand&mdash;I once had close to 50 pairs of Nike sneakers&hellip; now I&rsquo;m down to 17&mdash;and I love all the digital work they&rsquo;re putting out. I wanted to work for them since I was in school, so lots of my school projects were centered around Nike products. I bet my teachers were tired of seeing my &ldquo;what sneaker are you?&rdquo; Flash sites. I haven&rsquo;t landed any Nike work yet, but it&rsquo;s just a matter of time. If you&rsquo;re listening, Nike, I&rsquo;ve got a boatload of ideas. More on this in a bit.</p>
			<p>If you&rsquo;re in design or just starting out teaching yourself, there&rsquo;s a pretty high chance that you&rsquo;ve got some free time. Use that time to fill your portfolio with projects you&rsquo;d love to be hired to do.</p>
			<p>If you&rsquo;re a small agency that doesn&rsquo;t have as much of the luxury of time, rest your thinking to see it as an investment. How much money would you put down to get the project you want? $5<abbr title="thousand">K</abbr>? $25<abbr>K</abbr>? Carve out however much time this&rsquo;ll buy and devote it to creating some fictitious work. Does $5<abbr>K</abbr> buy a month of your time at your rate? Then you&rsquo;ve got a month to make some killer for your dream client. It doesn&rsquo;t even have to be a redesign; you could make an app that might help the business, a gallery site devoted to a particular subject, even just writing a few blog posts to show your passion about a brand or topic.</p>
			<p>And, if you have the time and can&rsquo;t figure out what to make, <a href="/contact/">send me a two sentence email</a> that says something to the effect of, &ldquo;I love [brand name] because [reason for liking them]. What should I make?&rdquo; I&rsquo;ll reply with a brief for you to tackle. Some examples that make for good commissions:</p>
			<ul>
			<li>I love Burton because I&rsquo;ve been snowboarding since I was 4.</li>
			<li>My favorite movie is Titanic.</li>
			<li>I want to spread the word about the benefits of being vegan.</li>
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