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The good side of being an in-house designer

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A massive thank-you to our friends over at Academy Class, as the winner of this year's 'in-house design team' award at Fresh Awards 2015 will get £1000 worth of consultancy from Academy Class amongst other prizes.

With less than 2 weeks left, Academy Class weigh in on why it's so good being apart of an in-house design team.

Working in-house is different from working at an agency, as in-house design teams often focus on one product or product range and don’t deal with varying client work. Because of this, in-house projects are able to maintain a higher level of consistency.

A common opinion is that in-house design teams lack respect and attention. They are under-
resourced, under-appreciated and overworked.

However, opinions are changing: there are thousands of in-house creative people in the field today gaining acknowledgment for their work. Big companies such as Facebook, Google and Specsavers understand the role of good design and the value it can bring. Their in-house teams work incredibly hard every day, and when put in competition with external agencies, in-house designers usually prove they can do even better.

There are many advantages of working as an in-house designer:

  • An ability to develop a more focused specialization.

    Working with the same company every day helps in-house designers understand all ins and outs of a particular company and industry very well. For example, if you work for a book publishing company, you’d be specializing in book design and excel at creating page spreads, layouts, covers, typography.
  • Ability to watch the product grow and help maintain it.

    In-house designers spend a lot of time focusing on a particular product. For example if you are doing packaging design, you are helping to sell a product and make it more attractive and appealing to customers. In-house designers follow a product’s growth and see how it ties in with the brand values over the time. The fulltime structure allows long term thinking about the company and product. It gives the ability to come up with the insights that external design teams might not be able to think of.
  • A chance to mould the product into something better and bring positive change through design.

    In-house designers work intimately with the company, get to know the product very well and develop an emotional connection with what they do. They have the ability to become familiar with all products and mentality of the company. In-house designers can always speak with people from other departments to gain a proper understanding of what it is they are working on. It helps to have a more holistic and unified approach to the company’s design. By knowing the products inside out, in-house designers can evolve it in the ways that the external agency wouldn’t be able without in-depth knowledge and understanding.
  • A possibility to engage in an interesting industry and live your dream.

    In-house designers can choose to work for an industry they have an emotional connection with. For example, if you have a passion for fashion, you can work for a fashion label and be in the centre of events every day: get to see all the latest trends, be up to date with the industry novelties, network and get to know interesting people and be entrenched with the industry you love.

Even though sometimes working on one product continuously can become monotonous and less creatively challenging, there are ways to battle this. For every creative designer it is important to feed creativity in other ways: build a fun side project and continue learning and developing skills.

'For every creative designer it is important to feed creativity in other ways: build a fun side project and continue learning and developing skills.'

The 'In-House Design team' award was launched in 2013 at the Fresh Awards and remains the only award to recognise great in-house design teams in the UK. It is a unique chance to gain recognition for your team within your business and the design industry, and all for FREE.

For more information about the awards, and how to showcase the work your in-house design team are doing for FREE, see here.

To see more information about our judging panel and other prizes for the in-house awards, see here.

Click here to view the original post which appeared on Academy Class - the digital media training company, which helps creatives grow, succeed and move forwards. No matter if you are a beginner or an advanced learner, Academy Class training helps to take your skills to the next level, encourages creativity and innovation.

Academy Class is so far the only UK company celebrating the in-house teams and helping with the in-house awards, rewarding the winning team with £1000 worth consultancy.

#InHouseRockstars

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