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Graphic Design Professional Working for an Electric Engineering Company

by Eric Shanman
http://JustJobs.com

I started in the field of Graphic Design with an Electric Engineering company working for two departments related to Graphic Design. This was a great opportunity for me since I could practice my skills as Graphic and Industrial Engineer. My areas of proficiency within the Commercial department were branding, logos, product packaging, websites, e-commerce and advertisement; my title with the Engineering department was 3D CAD/CAM Industrial designer. I worked for this company for more than 2 years and this experience made me become a very detailed oriented person with excellent organization skills and a great professional.

The work environment in the office was always excellent, in terms of discrimination. 8 i am a 32 years old man and, even though the color of my skin is white, i am Hispanic. I have never heard any disrespectful behavior or demeaning comment at work towards me or any of my co-workers.

The Engineering department had me working on the designs for both electric and electronic products. The Technical department uses these products for electric works, like new electric installations or maintenance. I used 3D CAD/CAM software for Industrial designers. The experience in this department helped me to understand better the Commercial department. I had the opportunity to work on logotypes and branding, web-site designs, product packaging and advertisement.

If I had to rate my job satisfaction on a scale of 1 to 10, I would say 8 because I do love this field but I do not like having so much responsibility. Because of my professionalism and my I-CAN-DO attitude, I am overloaded and being under too much pressure makes me lose interest, enthusiasm and motivation.

This job really moves my heart because it is a real interesting job in the sense that the visual part is something that I really enjoy. I was very proud of myself because I could see the final result; I could check for myself that my designs worked.

I would like to share my experience with others because I think that they should consider that this is a real stressful career but very exciting. But the reality is that one always feels great when the final product just looks wonderful.

I started in this line of work when my best friend from college told me about helping his company. We were both studying Industrial Engineering but I also took classes in Graphics Arts & Design. The different projects from college, like technical designs with CAD/CAM software was very helpful to understand more this type of career. If I could go back in time and do it differently, I would enroll in more classes for Graphics Arts to cover all of the aspects of the Graphic Design field.

One of the most stressful time while working in both departments was when I learned the hard way in this job about deadlines. I was put in charge of one of the projects and I had to supervise every single aspect of the design. Being in charge of both designs, industrial and commercial, taught me a great lesson: a person cannot be in two places at the same time and has to have great members working in the team.

The single most important thing that I have learned outside of school about the working world was the different levels in the hierarchy of the company. I really enjoy this aspect because it gave the opportunity to talk to professionals from the same company in this and other fields, who helped me to achieve my goals and to become a great professional.

The strangest thing that ever happened to me in this job was when I thought that I had lost the whole design of this metal part. This meant that the metal part had to be done again. But hours later, me and my supervisor realized that, blueprints and printouts were just behind a desk, as if somebody had put it in there. That was so strange that, my supervisor never again said a thing about it. He did not even get mad at me for making such a huge mistake because, we both were under the impression that those very weird.

I like getting up in the morning thinking that I would have a great day at work. But the fact is that this job makes it easier since it makes you see the final results of the designs. This is a career where I personally could really appreciate my work. I am so proud of myself and it feels so good when I can hold with my hands one of those products that I have designed. It is a great feeling.

When am not able to meet deadlines because of the complexity of the tasks, I get this feeling of frustration; mostly when I know that I have been working very hard but projects are not realistic, in terms of time or budget. I never though about quitting this job, it is just that, a better opportunity in other field showed up and I just took it.

This is a very stressful job since projects in this industry require heavy loads of work, overtime, deadlines, and much more requirements. But, in my case, I love this job and am really good working under pressure so I will always say that it is a pleasure working as Graphic designer.

When it comes to salaries, I always thought that the paycheck was not enough because projects always take several weeks and I was forced to do a lot of overtime to be able to meet deadlines. I also know from my experience that, it is difficult to disconnect from work. Even when I was at home, I used to end up doing some work from home so that I would have more time in the office to work on other projects. I really think that the salaries for this type of jobs should be higher since designers use a great deal of their time.

Vacations were 30 days a year, which I believe that it is a nice period of time. But there are also 10 more days off during the year because of the national holidays and that makes it easier and I could forget about the stress at work.

I really believe that a great education helps to succeed in this field. I hold a Bachelor's degree in Science and two certified diplomas related to Graphics Arts & Design with the Unemployment Educational System. I will always recommend to study other fields of this profession.

If I had a friend considering this field, I would recommend to obtain a great education first. I think that a solid education, with diplomas and degrees in different fields, can always offer a lot of opportunities.

I would like to see myself running my own business in the next five years because I really believe in myself. I am a hard worker and a great professional. I would like to work with great professionals to share my point of view and make them part of the business.

This is a true career story as told to graphicdesignjobs.org and is one of many interviews with graphic design professionals which among others include a graphic artist, a freelance artist, and everything in between

Article submitted Thursday, September 01, 2011 & read 5 times.

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