Some venture people just got very lucky...

Last October I wrote a post Prime for a kicking?

Dr Martens had just been taken over by an investment group and I expressed the hope that they would respect, understand and propagate the brand because of the emotional connection people have to the product. There's good reason to fret whenever a much-loved brand is taken over because its welfare isn't necessarily top of the list for some investors. Read my post Knowing your arse from your elbow.

In years to come, Primera, the new owners of Dr Martens will be talked about in revered tones and referred to as those lucky bastards because, Peter Capaldi, the new Doctor Who, has been revealed as a DM wearer. I think there will be tea parties with cream cakes in their offices every day from now on. Let's see what the Doctor also does for Crombie.

Lunch with Johnny and Sue

Eyes down...demonstrating how design works. In this case a graphic solution to road signage.

We forget how much we know. We are only reminded of how much we know when someone asks us a question, the answer to which might be blindingly obvious, but we have to remind ourselves that there was a time when we too didn't know the answer, because we forget what it was like not to know.

A quarter of a century ago in earth years, we at The Fine White Line realised that there was a need for careers information for undergraduates because there was absolutely bugger-all out there, so we set about designing something. I'd been lecturing for a long time and the difference between what the powers that be thought that students needed to know and what we knew they needed to know was clear to see and demonstrated by just about every interviewee. This, remember, was pre-internet so the thing became an A1 brochure called Whitebait and having established the tone and style of it the task of making it so was handed over to our designated writers and a succession of student placements, or interns as they are now inexplicably called.

Whitebait was funny and chock-a-block with stuff – little things that can have a big impact – like holding your book in the opposite hand to the one you shake with so you don't deliver a sweaty one. Or making sure that you go to the loo when you're waiting in reception to check for rogue bogeys, toast in your teeth or panda eyes. (The horror of finding any of the aforementioned after the fact!) To sage nuggets from industry leaders such as the dangers of telling porkie-pies in an incestuous business: don't, you'll be found out! (I should add at this point that although this is about design the same can be applied to just about any industry sector or study area.) 

In the intervening years nothing much has changed. 
I have the same conversations with school kids, students, postgrads and parents – all manner of people. Some may get lucky and get help from a clued-up tutor, or a parent or a contact in the business, but many don't. Then there's the prevailing view of the arts (since we all tend to get lumped together) as being a secondary or (in some quarters) useless activity – a Mickey Mouse degree, a degree in colouring in – one where no cerebral prowess is needed whatsoever, regardless of the considerable contribution that the creative industries make to the national GDP.

Run a search for careers advice on design and there seems to be quite a lot of it – the efficacy and value of which I leave to you to decide – although much of it seems a tad too po-faced for my liking. Official offerings come in the form of sites and films from bodies such as The Design Council, D&AD and the Government amongst others.

Design is everywhere and touches every area of our lives and so it follows that one should be able to talk about it and demonstrate it anywhere at all, so we have. My mate Johnny and I started making short videos at lunchtimes at the Royal Festival Hall. They're not big CGI ventures, nor are they meant to be. They are personal takes on information black holes and pet peeves. And that's key: personality. Design is a fun industry so why talk about it as if you're reading a mortician's rate card? There's no one view, that's one thing we do learn in college by dint of the conflicting advice we get from our tutors, so we'd quite like yours. Obviously one can't cover everything in a few short videos, but it's a start. If people watch we'll do more. If they don't we won't. If someone wants to know about something we'll do a video for them. I suppose you could call it a kind of careers surgery and that's where you come in. What do you wish that your younger self had been told? What do students need to know in your view?

If any of you would like to add something to the mix then please let me know, no matter which discipline you're working in or what the subject matter. Just send me a video (2 mins or less) plus a caption. In fact the more diverse the views the better since we all criss-cross in some way eventually, because there are no career paths just crazy paving.