The Unemployment Stage

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Unfortunately they cancelled the meeting because apparently something urgent came up. So now it's next Monday.

Now I understand the problem. Too much UX and not enough UI.

Imagine a shop. The UX is the shop workers working in the background and the cleaners who make sure the place is in a decent enough condition to hygienically work as an establishment. It's the managers, the windows, the doors, the ceiling, the floor, everything that technically makes a shop.

Whereas, the UI is the layout. It's about designing the store so that a customer can easily find what they want, get that item and pay for the item. For instance, if someone entered your shop and it was just a disorganised pile of oddments and you wished them luck in finding what they want, chances are they are just going to leave. However, if you have a system that makes sense, where it's easy to find items and relevant items together (such as if you were searching for potatoes, found potatoes, but also found some leeks which you could use with the potatoes if you wanted). User interface (UI) is about creating a clear path for your users to follow.

People who do UX (User Experience) often dabble in UI and vice versa. However, they are not the same. They are two different skillsets. You can have a website that technically functions in theory as a website, but if users can't tell what they're supposed to be doing to achieve what they want, then it's not going to work in practice. Much like how making game art is a different skillset to coding the game into existence. You can be the best coder to ever code, but if you can't make visuals, you're going to have a difficult time. Likewise, you can have the best illustrations and character designs but without code you're not going to be able to turn it into a game. The two skills rely on each other, but they're not always found in the same person. Don't get a developer to do a designer's job.

However, a fair amount of people don't realise this and may expect a creative to do it all. Many developers dabble in design, and many designers dabble in development but you're generally better off employing them for their speciality.

I've since been moved to the social media team. Which so far has included designing a post for Instagram, and now I'm making a poster for their window display. They haven't had much work for me.

Frankly I'm having a bit of a crisis over how to market myself. Or how to schedule my day. I'm such a mess at the moment. Fittingly, I am feeling lost.

Do you have a job right now

You mention you are part of the “social media team.”

Nope. This is still the same volunteering gig.

It's a bummer that people have to go through hoops these days just to get gainful employment.

Did you get internships while you were in University? If you did, perhaps you could use them as references?

Unfortunately, due to timing, we did not. Our course was structed so that by the end of the second year, we had the option to go on to a placement and do internship work with companies that the University had connections with. However, it was also the time that the pandemic was at a particularly high point. A lot of companies withdrew since they didn't want to spend time training students when their business was on the line, so the whole placement scheme didn't happen that academic year. If I'd known that the pandemic would hit, then I would've tried to find something sooner...but then again, a lot of internships were aimed at second year students or final year, so I would've struggled to find something even in that case.

My final year was a no-go with internships, it was quite busy and things were well and truly locked down by then. Remote work may have been possible, but with my workload I don't think I could've done it realistically. I was also struggling with my mental health at time, I was physically exhausted and being stuck in my flat was getting to me. One time I looked out into another flat and saw what looked like a party, but there was only one person and instead of guests there were balloons on each seat with party hats on. So clearly it wasn't just me struggling. We used to write encouraging messages to each other on the windows using sticky notes, I appreciated seeing that - it helped. The messages varied, sometimes they were jabs at the university, or complaints about the government, or just a friendly hello. Seeing those messages made me feel...connected, in a way. They improved my day.

Anyway, I have the odd freelance gig, which I've listed, but it would be beneficial to have something more recent on there. That's why I'm seeking out volunteer experience, to try to bridge that gap. I'm still applying for junior positions though but unfortunately companies can sometimes ghost you. However, I've had one formal rejection so at least I'm not always ghosted.

I think that all I can really do is keep applying for jobs, work on projects to keep adding to my portfolio (plus it would be beneficial to have content to share on platforms such as LinkedIn...I also need to make a banner for my page), continue doing my volunteering work, possibly look for more volunteering work elsewhere and maybe take a free online course. Thankfully I have a spreadsheet to keep track of which jobs I've applied for. Looking for a job is basically a job in itself.

Can’t say you are not making a grand effort

I hope you get something soon.

Update: I'm entering a design competition. Hope it goes well.

Good luck!

Disappointingly, I fell ill with a seasonal bug and missed the deadline to submit my design. Halfway through designing it I became ill, which is unfortunate timing. On the plus side, my covid test came back negative so at least it's not covid. I may be stuck in bed for a couple of days though.

Get well soon.

True. They always like people who are willing to work overtime.

Wait, that overtime question wasn't in the video (unless he asked it while he was muted)

But ugh, that 5 year requirement on entry level jobs...I can't even...

(and yes, I did hear there were job postings requiring 5 years programming experience with React when it'd only been out for 2y )

Hopefully something gets better in the job search for you. Empty words I know, but empty words are all I have to offer All I can say is I hear ya, it all changes so suddenly after school ends

Despite this, I am glad that I left University when I did. The Master's courses they offered focused on areas that I wasn't interested in, they are predominately about my least favourite parts of the course I was on. So I didn't fancy staying on for that. I suppose I could've gone to a different university to do a Master's, but when I finished my course I'd simply had enough.

Personally I'd like to learn how to make something like this:



I think it'd be really cool to use my illustrations and animate them to show movement. This is something I'm experimenting with, I'm currently putting together a Showreel of my work and I'm trying to teach myself (via tutorials) how I can use my game art designs and make them move to show how they'd potentially interact if they were in a game. Rotation is something I struggle with but hopefully with practice I'll get the hang of making the movement flow a bit more naturally. Shape morphing would be good to learn, I currently just awkwardly fade the shape out and a new shape in, but if I can learn how to make fluid transitions then that would greatly improve my work. I am hoping to release my Showreel soon for possible freelance promotion purposes, so depending on how the experiments go I may have to leave them out for now.

At the moment, the job market is a little...dead. I'm hoping it picks up a bit in January.