When I tell people I’m a graphic designer, the usual response is something along the lines of “how cool! that must be so fun! wow, you got paid to color/draw.” I have friends who are engineers and the response they usually get when they tell their professions is “oh wow that’s really hard, you must be really smart.” I’ve never had this response during my 10 year career. Yet, graphic design is really hard. It does take someone really smart to do well in the field. All fields in the arts such as music, acting, art, photography and writing are quite difficult. In fact, they are just as hard, if not harder than engineering and science. Just because the product of the arts is more immediately enjoyable than let’s say an electrical engineer’s schematic, the arts are put into a lesser category.
Higher education for the arts is some of the most expensive there is and yet these programs are the first cut from public schools and the most underpaid and under-employed of any field. Students can spend just as much on art school or music school as medical school, but they never see the big paychecks. Supplies for careers in the arts such as instruments, photography equipment, oil paints and Mac computers are pretty spendy. So why does creativity have this reputation of being easy, silly, cute, and a career path for those who didn’t excel in math in school.
There’s an ongoing debate if creativity can be taught. Many, including myself, believe it’s an instinct you’re born with. Either you have the creative eye or you don’t. Michelangelo said “I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.” People without a creative mind would never see the angel inside. Creatives add human emotion and see things differently. I recently heard a story on NPR about engineering firms hiring artists to be on staff because they need the human touch to their projects. Engineers make it work, but the artists are needed to see if it is valuable to another person, what works for a human and what doesn’t. There is a value to a creative’s thought process that is seen as just as valuable to the mechanics of something working accurately.
Creative genius like Beethoven and Picasso is still genius. It’s just a brilliant as the minds of Einstein and Hawking, it’s just different results, but both spectrums deserve respect. One mind gave us the 9th symphony and the other gave us the atom bomb—which benefits society more? The earliest humans artistically expressed themselves with the cave paintings and designs on their pottery. It wasn’t just about function, but adding beauty to life. Without creativity, we wouldn’t have the Mona Lisa, the Brandenburg Concertos, A Christmas Carol, the Oscars or the popular TV show, The Big Bang Theory.
I’m not trying to dog on engineering or science or any non-creative field for that matter. Everyone has a valuable place in this world and makes great contributions no matter what area of study they’re in. That’s my point—it takes smarts and hard work to make something happen whether it’s make a building structurally sound or writing the next Broadway musical.
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