Graphic Design for Film — tips on getting your start in the industry

I recently wrote about how I first got my butter-slick hands into the film industry as a graphic designer, thanks largely to an inexplicable fascination with old and personally alluring bric a brac, and a workshop hosted by Annie Atkins that opened my eyes to a world in which a love for bric a brac was not only absolutely fine and not in the least condemned by wider society, but also was useful in keeping a Proper Adult Job Role. I was, needless to say, all in on the idea of full-time bric a bracateering.

However, it wasn’t long before I learned that the film industry can be a tough one to break into, particularly in graphic design, which has the keen distinction of being a skill-based job with no schooling-secured stepping stone with which to leap from education into employment; nor unified recruitment body or network you can relentlessly hound for a job; nor sturdy, well-trodden career ladder one can use to climb into the position, one vaguely tangible rung at a time.

So, I took to the streets and yelled ‘I AM A GRAPHICS LADY’ on the assumption that a sense of drama would have The Film People flocking to me — and by this I mean I tried e-mailing people and found out it’s not super easy to get into the film industry, even with the ever-desirable archaeology and anthropology degree.

Since then, I have learned that to get into graphic design for film, you need to employ a strategy called ‘just being everywhere and keeping busy all of the time until someone eventually hires you/takes pity on you, a weary skeleton.’ And from the outside looking in, it looks like that’s all there is, just endless busybodying, but actually from the other side, there is a mysterious logic to it. It requires some emotional discipline and, contradictorially, some ‘prior knowledge’ of a job you have not done before to make it make sense, but I’m going to talk about that stuff in later posts. For now, it’s tip time. Behold, seven tips on getting your start in The Industry.

Start small projects of your own

While design for the real world is all 'here's a logo and a mockup', for film and TV you want to be able to demonstrate that you can a) design from the perspective of a character, b) make those props so they don't look like they're straight from the printer, c) lay these out nicely and create a story with them. 

The best way to demonstrate this is to start feeling your way through your own projects. Once you prove to yourself that you know at least 60% what you’re doing, you can 60% convince someone else you know, and they’ll know about 25% of what’s involved, so to them you’ll seem overqualified, and meanwhile you can figure out the remaining 40% as you go, when it’s too late for them to stop you.

To make a start, watch a television show and try to recreate stuff you see on screen — it’s as simple as that. If you have no idea how to even begin, that is tremendously reasonable, and the best thing to do is start Googling and Youtubing everything in sight. Start small with birthday cards and fancy design-y presents for your fanciest friends, then start making stuff good enough to photograph, display, and put in a portfolio.

Attend (free) workshops

My recommendations will be UK-based, though look hard enough and there is sure to be plenty of opportunities to meet and have a little chat with a group of expert graphic designers, or art department professionals in general (every skill you can learn will come up in time, so take whatever’s going). I'd advise looking into free workshops with Screenskills and Talking Point, which people will recognise when you reference having attended their courses, and from which you’re likely to get great advice.

If you need a firmer hand to take the wheel and steer your life toward bracateering on the high seas (or you just want to treat yo’self), you can also attend paid workshops with someone like Annie Atkins, who can then butter up your hands while also dispelling illusions on what does and doesn’t qualify as graphic design. You can also get some lovely bursaries from Screenskills, who paid for a course I did at the London Film School - these are well worth a look.

Register for the Graphics Union

The Graphics Union is a perfect place to start if you’re looking for work experience. The film industry is highly connection based, so when it comes to forging connections of your own, where better to start than in your very own domain, with your people. While the GU will be more useful later in your career, helping to standardise your rates and demand blood upon unfair treatment (not really but I do sort of hope so, eventually), they are  still an excellent resource for early portfolio building.

Work with film students

Film students are often tasked with making degree-worthy films on shoestring (read: non-existent) budgets, but can always be depended upon to shoot for the stars — meaning they’re going to blow their entire budget on someone’s talented actor of an uncle and be unable to pay for crew.

Offer to help a film student with their final and not only have you got what we in the industry call a ‘blood debt’ that you can claim back at a later date, but you will also have an opportunity to gain invaluable experience in an environment where every slip is expected and every hand is appreciated.

Get in touch with some film organisations

Here are just a few film organisations that have been designed to help you and address the perpetual need for more workers in the industry:

• Screenskills UK — Create a profile, take workshops, apply for bursaries, apply for a mentor 

• Your local film board; i.e. Filmbang (Scotland), Creative England, Film Yorkshire — most of these let you create profiles if you live there and put up your skills; if you basically just Google ‘Where I Live [Film/TV]’ someone, somewhere, is paid to help you lovely lot into the industry.

• Talking Point UK — a mentoring scheme, some free and some paid talks, gets your face out there and gives you an overview of the art department 

• Facebook Groups — search for TV Film Jobs, (Where You Live) TV / Film, TV Runners, Art Department Runners, and other varieties of this. These groups are active and might also help you get your foot in the door

• The Graphics Union — limited visibility before you've got credits, but you can sign up as a new starter 

• BECTU — the union for people in film and tv, again a mailing list with events and talks 

• Filmbase — I think you can sign up as new to the industry, worth looking into

All just to name a few. Reach out, ask questions, volunteer yourself, and keep building contacts as you go.

Reach for the Stars (via IMDB stalking)

Once you have enough portfolio together to survive the first inevitable wave of rejections and feel confident that they really didn’t have room on their production of Air Bud 6 anyway, start thinking of some films and TV shows that you love or admire, and check out the graphic designers on IMDb. They're right there listed under ‘Crew’. Do some light Google stalking to find email addresses (a good rule of thumb is that if someone is super hard to find, chances are they don't want to be contacted, but if it's all there on their site you're grand) and introduce yourself briefly with your work.

Here is a really ace video about reaching out, and I’ll touch more upon my advice for talking to people in a later post. Just remember: people are busy, so brevity is key! Once you've got your foot in the door people will trust you and hire you, but before this you might need to offer your work for free in the form of work experience (alas, the world of creatives). You can also follow them on Instagram (again, if their profile is open and clearly slightly work-related, otherwise it's probably a bit odd following pics of their dinner).

Don’t lie

Perhaps the toppest of the tips is to be honest. It’s the curse of being a designer — we make designs, especially on our lives. No matter how prepared, graphic design for film is itself designed to overwhelm you with all that needs doing, so you are definitely better having the fall back of this being your first, second, third job rather than being caught in the lie that you are not in fact the lesser known student of the infamous Jeffery Collage (“yes, that Collage.”).

It’s also worth knowing about the spies. Film is a close-knit industry, so everyone can quickly find out what they need to know about the professional efforts of basically everyone else around them. Best to be brutally honest with yourself and your new colleagues about your experience and be eager to learn from the next one than to set yourself up for a fall by raising the bar too high too fast. (I don’t think these idioms make sense right next to each other, why are you raising this bar very quickly over a pit? What is this fast high bar pit job?? Must consider.)

Everyone will have mild variations on the above tips (in my case, I liked to not do half of these and embarrass myself frequently, which now I justify as the kind of character building that makes for exceptionally useful blog posts), but for the most part, if you’ve got all the above bases covered and a portfolio that shows at least some competency in the field of bracateering, you’ll eventually break through. The good news also is that once you’re in, things get much easier.

I recommend taking a look at my dailies and personal projects page, which will give you a good starting point for coming up with your own projects (as well as frank insight into my own early design work, which I have had described as “bold” and “not quite Air Bud 6 material, I’m afraid”). For further inspiration, I also wrote some tips on finding design inspiration, because I don’t know how to communicate to people outside of tips anymore. 1) thank you for reading. 2) goodbye.