I understand it will take time, especially after I was schooled in all the wrong ways for graphic design in my opinion. Something you said stuck out to me on that subject: “Clients typically don’t know how to communicate what they want, so you have to show them what’s possible.”

When I was in the prerequisite courses for my university’s graphic design program, all of my instructors explicitly said they would act like real world clients towards us. This meant they were irritatingly vague in their criticisms of our work and it was stated to be on purpose. This was also supposedly for the sake of “neutrality and not playing favorites” as they were our judges when we applied to the program. They would decide who would go forward into the program.

The other neurotypical students seemed to catch on like it was some sort of secret handshake, and made amazing work in way less time at way less neglect to themselves. Meanwhile I had to try over and over again to produce something and be told each time it wasn’t quite what my professors were looking for. My drawing professor was much more supportive and easier to learn valuable lessons from. He would actually talk to me about what I was doing wrong and show me new ways to approach things. You know…like a TEACHER.

I think a big part of why I got so upset by the criticism wasn’t that “I couldn’t handle competition” as my mom said the night I called her sobbing about my rejection letter… It was that all the criticism was veiled in not even attempting to express or share the concerns or come up with solutions beyond the vaguest concept. None of it was constructive. I had no foundation to build off of to even begin to communicate with my “client” to solve any of these things.

It was so horribly ironic that these professors told me “communication was key in this field”. These professors knew the field inside out and they knew exactly what they wanted from us, yet they’d stop giving feedback at a certain point and just stonewall us. It wasn’t like they just didn’t have a preference and I could show them what was possible. They knew more than me and they didn’t even want to communicate about what I did wrong.

I was very easily frustrated not because I was insulted, but because I was desperate for advice from the people I was supposed to learn the trade from.