10 biggest regrets from art school and lessons learned!
I went to Ringling College of Art + Design and graduated with a BFA in Illustration in 2017. It was such an eye-opening experience as a brown girl who grew up in rural (very white and very Conservative) Florida. I grew up and got used to being one of a few people of color in any given room at any given time.
But I also came out with some regrets… It’s been 5 years and I would love to chat about these regrets with y’all. Let’s get into it.
🎨My 10 biggest regrets from art school and the lessons learned
I stayed holed up in my room most of the time.
Lesson learned: Don't hole up in your room all the time. It hurts you more than it helps. This will be a recurring theme in this article. I did this because I had mad social anxiety. I was terrified to meet people and be immediately ridiculed, mocked, or bullied. I was afraid that I wouldn't fit in, so I isolated myself outside of a small group of friends. Ironically, that group of friends introduced me to others who were equally welcoming.
I avoided making friends beyond a small circle of them because I was terrified of not being a good enough artist to fit in.
Lesson learned: Be willing to meet with or make at least casual friends with a lot of your classmates. Your fellow classmates might also be competition, but they'll also be your future coworkers. They’ll be:
your creative support system, your future boss, your future contact in that company you want to work for, the other designer who also got laid off, the one who has advice when you want to pivot, and your fellow soldier in the Creative Industry Trenches.
Yeah, be competitive, but don't totally subscribe to the "every person next to you in class is your direct competitor. Defeat them in battle or DIE!" Even after you graduate, aim to learn from business competitors or your fellow creative coworkers - become a better communicator, get better at selling and pitching your ideas or your services, beef up your drawing or painting skills, admire the things your classmates do, and try to learn from them. This leads me to my next point...
This creative career life is weird, hard, and complex. Dealing with clients can be exhausting but fulfilling. Choosing the next steps in your career is like a 4D puzzle. That’s a quote from Alexa Shoen. Having friends who understand that journey is invaluable.
I created only the art that you think the industry/teachers want, and completely ignored the art style that I knew I wanted to explore deep down.
Lesson learned: Explore the art style you know you want to explore. Sometimes your teachers are teaching you based on their experience from 20 or 30 years ago. The world changes quickly and the industry is different from their experience. The other side of this coin? Sometimes, you need to listen to your teachers. I know, it's contradictory. But so is life: finding the balance takes practice and you're gonna mess up. Keep trying to find the balance between listening to external advice and your internal instincts. For me, it's a balance between those two things and a third: God's voice and guidance.
“Keep trying to find the balance between listening to external advice and your internal instincts. ”
I didn’t spend much time learning anything besides what I thought my job/niche would be. I thought that any time spent outside of that would be money and opportunities lost.
Lesson learned: Learn from people outside of your major, friend-circle, and industry. Other industries do way better at marketing and self-promotion in my opinion. This is not an original thought, I actually took that from Brian Hood's 6 Figure Creative podcast. He's a music producer who learned from people outside of the creative industry and dispenses that wisdom in his podcast. I highly recommend it.
Learning things outside of what you think you’re gonna do in your career is helpful because life is gonna life. It’s full of twists and turns. I thought I was gonna be a full-time freelance editorial illustrator. Now, I’m an illustrator and graphic designer, plus a fine artist. I took a design internship because I had barely any freelance prospects. One of my best decisions. Now, I do both illustration and design for clients. I ended up some editorial illustration and an editorial cover illustration anyway. Embrace the twists and turns and turn them into an advantage.
I have to make things that I think will sell and completely disregard the style you want to make art in.
Lesson learned: Learn skills within your industry if your school is offering them. I was so afraid of not getting a job or getting any work if I focused on anything beyond editorial illustration. To the point that I didn't follow what I enjoyed doing (3D Illustration, sculpture, clay, linocuts, character design and development) because of that anxiety. Now as a biz owner, I am making time for those things. Only doing client work is not fulfilling me, and I'm going back to it anyway. Even if those extracurriculars didn't end up getting me client work, imagine where my creative practice would have been if I had kept up these hobbies. Who knows? Maybe it would have led to a different career path? A more fulfilling one?
I didn’t experiment enough to find my art style. I was scared that the style I wanted to explore (cartoon-ish) it would be rejected by my peers, classmates, teachers, and future clients.
Lesson learned: If you know deep down that there’s an art style that you want to try, try it. Explore it. Study what made you enjoy it in the first place. Someone is always better than you at something- study what makes their art successful and learn from it. Don’t copy, adapt it to your art.
Ironically, this style wasn’t gonna be rejected (probably.) There were plenty of illustrators at the time and now who find success with a cartoony style. This was me listening to my fear of rejection.
I beat myself up for taking out tons of money and my family putting me through college.
Lesson learned: Don’t beat yourself up for buying into a messed up system. Don’t waste time beating yourself up for taking out a bunch of student loans at 18. Turn that focus onto growing your network, building your skills, and getting your foot in the door on what you want to do as a creative. Or at least taking a step toward learning to work with clients. Also, employers have a bad habit of trying to get the most experienced worker for an entry-level salary. It’s messed up, so don’t feel bad for not having 3-5 years of experience for an entry level job.
I regret not networking more because I was afraid that I wasn't a good enough artist.
Lesson learned: Most artists and creatives want to meet other creatives. To the ones that don't - say nice to meet you and move on. You don’t even have to say that if you really don’t want to.
Networking is also valuable because it could lead to your future mentor, which is literally invaluable. More on that later. Reaching out helped me meet amazing creatives, found my creative community, and created opportunities. More importantly, it's vital to have creative friends to lend support, advice, and insight in this crazy career.
I took life so seriously that I didn't enjoy college as much as I could have.
Lesson learned: Don't take this life TOO seriously. I took life way too damn seriously as if I didn't have friends and family support. As if I didn't have creative skills and tons of potential. It was serious, but not THAT serious.
I acted like I was fine when I was really battling loneliness, depression, and anxiety.
Lesson learned: Don't front that you have it all together. No one does. Showing that vulnerability allows those cool creative friends or non-creative friends to support you in the ways that you need. Whether or not you have a support system of friends and family, try your best to access mental healthcare if you can. Again, we have no choice but to live and operate in a capitalistic society that makes accessing mental healthcare difficult. But I found some cheap alternatives with my insurance and it helped me feel a lot better.
🙏🏽RESOURCES FROM THIS POST
Check out Brian Hood's podcast about turning from a creative freelancer into a successful creative entrepreneur with consistent income. Helpful if you want to go from starving freelancer to consistent income.
📣LET ME KNOW WHAT YOU THINK!
My favorite part of putting this content out is hearing from y'all: Do you agree with my lessons learned? Did you feel the same way during college? Do you deal with these regrets and struggles?
🩷THANK YOU AND SIGN OFF
Thank you for your time and for coming to my corner of the internet.
Thank you to the Lord for guidance and creativity, thank you to my Mom and my family and friends for their support and advice. Thank you to my mentors, past and present! Thank you to every artist and designer who saw my random email or dm and hopped on a call to give me advice 5 years ago.
Until next time,
Gabi
Comment below to chat about this post. Or you can email me and we can chat!