selophane.blog

So I’ve been on the job market since February; in that time, I’ve applied for over 175 different positions. Some of these have been outside of the world of architecture, while most have been with architecture practices.

I can see the writing on the wall, the architecture industry is changing and until it finds its new face there are not going to be many new positions out there working for other people. This is one of the reasons I’ve started my own residential design firm, studioSML, with a good friend of mine. On one hand we have the dream of working for ourselves, but on the other we are trying to be realists and understand that it is very likely that we will not bring in enough money to be self sufficient for years. This means that we both need full time positions elsewhere, and not just temporary ones. We are looking for long term (a number of years) positions that will allow us the ability to work on our own projects while still paying the rent/mortgage.

In my mind, the best way to accomplish this is to find jobs outside of architecture, and for me that means looking to my graphic design experience. Now, don’t get me wrong, if I somehow find a position with another architect or interior design or find myself with so much work i can actually take a salary I’ll be overjoyed, but I’m trying to be realistic. So I have been applying for graphic design jobs and not gotten much of a reply. Tonight, I finally got some helpful feedback from a potential employer. He questioned my desire to leave architecture and my dedication to graphic design, as well as the inability for me to find a salary that both takes into account my architecture experience(+4 years and almost licensed) as well as my graphic design experience (less than 2 years).

I don’t really know how to respond. I’ve already reworked my resume to feature my graphic design skills, but i feel it would be wrong to leave off the last 4 years of architecture jobs. In addition, in my cover letters I mention that I am looking to redirect my career into graphic design and leave architecture. I also mention that I understand that my architecture experience outweighs my graphic design experience, but that in my opinion (and hopefully theirs) it allows me to approach design issues form a different point of view. Beyond these measures I’m not sure what to do. Do I start applying for senior positions, or continue applying for entry level to positions requiring 2 years of experience?

I just realized the other day that it has almost been 2 months since I last updated this blog. Who would have thought that I would be able to keep a normal writing schedule while I was working 50 hour weeks, but once I became unemployed I would struggle to write something ever few weeks, let alone months?

So what have I been up to? Well, I have been writing an architecture criticism column for DC Metrocentric (check out the ArchiCritic category) and while at first it was every week that seemed to be nigh impossible to keep up. Now I have settled into a new post every other week, which is totally doable. I just wish that I didn’t wait until the last minute every time to write my article.

The next big piece of news is that tomorrow is my last ARE exam, at least of this go-around. So far I have taken 6 exams and passed three. I am waiting on my scores for the rest. Tomorrow is Schematic Design. If the exam is anything like the practice problems I should be OK. Hopefully, with this one down, that means all I have to do is wait 2 more months and I’ll have my license.

And the last big event (and the one that is most likely going to get me back into the saddle of writing on this blog) is that a good friend and colleague of mine, Andrew Merlo, and I have started our own design firm — studioSML. For right now our website is just a splash page at studioSML.com but in the next few weeks I hope to get it fully flushed out and start the daily chore of posting to a blog there and here as well as updating multiple twitter feeds. At least I have my facebook status repeating my twitter status, otherwise that would be one to many social media updates for me to make each day.

So, if you are looking for design work in the DC area and want to give a new design company a much needed break please think of us. In a few months I hope to be able to say that we are Architects, but we’ll have to wait and see what happens with my test results.

I have been twittering about my lay off experience and one of the people I’ve been talking to is Laura Conaway from the Planet Money Podcast by NPR. Today I had a phone interview with her and we discussed my situation. You can hear me at the end of today’s podcast (here is a link to their post about today’s show).

I have a great deal of respect for this podcast. They are one of the few media outlets that is really helping to explain what is going on and make it a whole lot less frightening. Yes, it still sucks, but at least it doesn’t feel like a giant economic cataclysm without any meaning.