When someone chooses a major, they rarely consider changes which would take place in their chosen industry during the time that they spend pursuing it. Unfortunately, today there are not many professions secure from fast changes that lead to the lack of newly-necessary skills.
“I have some nice statistics for you” promised Kevin Bennington, Assistant Professor of Art at Concord University, when he spoke about the future of employment in the graphic design field. “There would be 35% increase in jobs with graphic design and web design over the next 10 years and a 10% decrease in jobs with just print production over the next 10 years.” The numbers are quite scary for students who prefer to stay within their comfort zone and simply follow the list of required courses. The same applies to professionals who do not take the changes of their industry seriously. “With graphic design or video production there is always new software. So it has to be learned, whether it is in school or in the years after school” said Bennington. It is true not only for graphic design, but for most of the fields that require technical skills. One should constantly ask him or herself what skills they need to acquire to keep their jobs within next 10 years. There are always some extra skills that would help to save or land a job.
There was a good example of this “little extra knowledge” graphic design students at Concord could get about 5 years ago before the general studies program changed. “The video productions class was one of the most important classes we removed from the program” said Kevin Bennington. Graphic design students could acquire additional skills such as video editing and adding sound bites to turn a clip into an advertisement video. Even though there are classes within the Communication major program that teach students video production for news, the class offered in the past was more about producing commercials and advertising for products.
“I think video production course in the past helped multiple graphic designers to get jobs. Having this extra bit of knowledge about videography and video production enabled them to walk into jobs which current graphic designers would not be able to get. We had students getting hired at news stations like WVVA and videography based design positions,” said Bennington.
Eric Colly is one of these graphic designers who, without video production skills, would have never had a chance to get a job in Los Angeles as a video editorial/production professional for TMZ. For his biography sketch for Concord freshman convocation Colly said “A video production class at Concord, in addition to my graphic design courses, led me on a path to a rewarding career in television”.
Colly’s story should make students think of what extra skills they should acquire in order to land a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity in the future. Videography was one of those helpful classes for future professionals who were seeking creative jobs.