Lonely Designers Could Die

By dying, in this article, we refer to the death of creativity, which is very similar to the real, physical death of any designer or artist.

No one wants to end up with a dead or obsolete creativity, because that wouldnecessarily mean the end of any designer’s career. Being isolated is one of the unhealthy situations that lead to losing a very important well of inspiration.

Being in a community is very important for human beings since the time of the ancient tribes that used to move in groups and build cultures and civilizations. This need for social communication is part of any artist’s or designer’s life (What Designers Can Learn From Wildlife). Furthermore, the community around the designer affects his or her ideas, talent and the method he or she uses to express their ideas and visualize them.

Designers who are involved in local communities, especially members of designers’ or artists’ groups, have more opportunities to learn new ideas, understand others’ ideas and communicate and deliver them more than the those who work alone in locked studios or work offices. Exchanging information and ideas is the key behind this concept. Although you can get information from books, the Internet and other resources, you will still need to share this information with others in design communities, to discuss, agree or disagree with the concepts. It is similar to chewing the food and digesting it. If you are learning alone and do not exchange knowledge with others, you will not be able to digest the information and get the most useful, hidden ideas that go beyond the book’s or the website’s pages.

The importance of having the design community

While being involvedin different communities, having friends and participating in general group activities is important, the design community helps you even more in your career, as we mentioned above in connection with exchanging ideas and sharing knowledge. This is not the only benefit that you can enjoy when you join a design community. Here are some others:

Be alive

Books, the Internet,or even your computer are not live persons (Useful Online Graphic Design Resources to Improve Your Skills). You need to have a connection with living people to learn from them and share what you have learned from books, magazines and websites.

An Interesting environment to learn

Groups and communities are definitely an interesting way of interacting with others and exploring new features of your character, and maybe discovering new talent mines that you can only find through communicating with others.

Find support

Groups and communities can help and support you to pass through your difficult times, bad clients and career drops. While you can find support through online communities, local communities may be a more effective way, because that way you get the support directly from your friends without any mediating tools, such as emails or chats.

Online communities

Thanks to the expansion of Internet usage, most of the designers are always connected to the world. There are many groups and communities that have been established online, toconnect designers, artists and photographers from around the world and let them share their artwork and opinions with others (How to Build a Self-training Plan).Here are some examples of the online creative communities:

Deviantart

One of the largest creative portals that allows photographers, designers and artists to share their work andevaluate others’ work, make friends and create their own groups. Do not forget to join our Graphic Mania group there.

Behance

This network is similar to Deviantart, but it focuses on sharing artwork more than building a community. So, you will notice that you have fewer tools to communicate with your online friends or followers than on Deviantart. In addition to this, it provides a job search service where designers caninteract with the company and get job offers.

Coroflot

This is another creative network that focuses on showcasing artists’ work and helping them interact and exchange their knowledge. Furthermore, it provides a recruiting service to help designers find jobs in the industry.

Flickr

This is a famous image sharing web solution, but it is also a very popular place for finding photographer communities, sharing photos and getting feedback from other photographers.

While these communities are accessible for everyone, there are some pros and cons to them. For example, the pros of online communities are the following:

• They give you the chance to interact with design communities when there are no local communities around you.
• Helps you to interact with different cultures and artists around the world.
• You are flexible to attend them, as it is not tied to specific timetables or location.

And the cons of the online communities are:

• They do not provide direct contact with other members in the community
• Makes your ideas easy to steal, because there are no effective restrictions or copyright tools.
• It may prevent you from interacting with friends and other people around you, because you focus on building your profile and interacting with online friends.

Local communities

Local design communities and organizations are way older than the online ones, as they have all been established before the Internet,in fact, some of them are older than many universities and design schools.

Local communities can be a part of large design organizations, design colleges and other educational institutes. However, the optimal solution is interacting with others in the same industry, sharing your knowledge and learning together.

While you can search for local design communities in your area or at a university near you, many of the large design communities have websites of their services, announcements and news. Here are some examples of these communities:

Icograrda

The International Council of Graphic Design Associations: While this large organization does not provide many activities to individual designers, its members include universities, design schools and professional studios from around the world. So you can find a local design community that is part of this large organization near you. You can search for local communities here.

Adobe Groups

Adobe has more than 700 user groups around the world. So it may be easy to find a group near you and meet people that interest you. You can search for a local user group using the Adobe user group website here.

Most of these groups are very active and useful. In Egypt, I have created one of these groups back in the days of Macromedia, which was the first in the Middle East at the time. If you are in the Middle East area, you can join my group here.

AIGA

The Professional Association for Design is a large design association in North America that provides services for both local and online members.

NAPP

The National Association of Photoshop Professionals is a US based community for Photoshop users and photographers that provide various events, training and a possibility of exchanging knowledge.

The local communities have different pros such as:

• Interacting with other designers and professionals in person
• Being involved in events, sessions and workshops
• Building connections and social relationships with other designers
• Getting great opportunities and potentialbusinesses

And here are some of the cons of these communities and associations:

• You may not find local group in your area
• Usually, they have membership fees
• Their meetings and events may not fit your schedule or plans.

Building a design community is very helpful for every designer and artist, not only for learning and spending time with individuals of the same interests, but also for finding good business opportunities (How to become a Better Designer). Design communities are a very good place for meeting professionals and designers either in your local area, or at international events.