Dave McDonald lecture.

So yesterday we sat down for a lecture from senior creative Dave McDonald from http://www.infinitedesign.com/ a creative agency based in Newcastle. Dave was inspiring and passionate about design and discussed his career path which began in the mid 90's where he worked in London for several large branding agencies but was not taken by the London lifestyle, and so returned home to carve himself a niche in the North East. He showed us examples of work from when he left Newcastle College before the days of the internet and explained his work process to promote work, through to his work for Infinite Design. Throughout this talk Dave was adamant that a reason for his success sprang from always mixing it up between personal and commercial work and that one often influenced and improved the other. Following this part of the talk Dave gave advice on the best approach to a career in Design including what he looks for in a potential employee, he summed this up by saying he looked for three main things, firstly Personality in that a person should be relaxed/professional/honest...Portfolio genuine as far as your work should be your own, confident, you should be positive about your work and hold your convictions, receptive as throughout a designers career you will face a lot of criticism and you should be graceful and receptive in how you handle it. Passion brave/committed/positive, he said that if a potential employee displays some or all of these traits they would be far more employable than say a person with a knockout portfolio but who did not relate to these things, as they are the people who you will see the most in your week and that a good work relationship is paramount. Overall i found the talk to be firstly inspiring but also it was good to hear someone being so passionate about design over 15 years after he began as a creative, but also giving an insight into design as a career. Finally the last point Dave made was that if he had his way he would keep all north eastern designers in Newcastle as he feels Newcastle should be a strong design community and I completely agree.

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