Careers in Art and Design

If, upon graduating, you realize that architecture is in fact not for you, design and art might be. Architecture already is a form of design (or maybe it’s the other way around), making it easier to create direct links between your education as an architect, and your profession as an artist or designer. Another alternative is to combine two disciplines, such as graphic design and architecture. Perhaps your passion is to make it easier for architects to communicate through graphics?

1. Artist

Although Olafur Eliasson did not study architecture, he works with many architects at Studio Olafur Eliasson, exemplifying how harmonious and imperative the relationship between space and art is. The spatial reasoning and visualization skills one gains from an education in architecture lends themselves perfectly to installation art, sculpture and spatial experiences, without the necessity for functionality.

2. Industrial Designer

Several architecture firms have branched into industrial design, due to their close creative ties. However, industrial design focuses on smaller scale objects of mass production, as opposed to large-scale buildings designed for a specific context. If the prospect of designing something enormous, permanent, and landscape changing sounds all too intimidating, industrial design is a great, smaller scaled alternative.

3. Furniture Designer

Even more so than industrial design, furniture design can be seen as architecture’s little sister. Countless famous architects have made significant contributions to furniture design: Charles and Ray Eames, Alvar Aalto and Arne Jacobsen, among others. Contemporary architects such as Zaha Hadid Architects are following suit, proving that the two can even be done simultaneously.

4. Textile Designer

Designing textiles requires sensitivity for color, tactility, construction, patterns and forms, all of which are developed during any student’s years at architecture school. The relationship between “skin” and structure is in some ways even more literal than in a building, as the two merge together. High fashion is also reminiscent of architecture in many ways, adopting the geometric and sculptural constructions of contemporary buildings.

5. Graphic Designer

Graphic design is the way in which we take in our world and identify it. It is invaluable when it comes to communication. It can also be so aesthetically pleasing that one can hardly resist becoming a graphic designer. Taking a short course in graphic design to supplement a degree in architecture can open up a range of possibilities to still work within the field, but take charge of tasks that are more suited to your interests in communication.

6. Video Game Designer

The near-limitless boundaries that come with designing a virtual world may be one of the most fun things a newly graduated architect could think of doing with their education. Constructing the architecture of a video game is a way of letting your imagination roam free, but could also add more depth to your spatial reasoning.

7. Photographer

Architecture photography is becoming increasingly popular, possibly due to the beautiful geometry that can emerge by constraining something within a lens. Photography concerns itself more with the aesthetic, with the object and the composition in that unique moment, within that specific frame. It concerns itself with the fleeting atmosphere, more than with the permanent organization of people and spaces. Yet it still consists of composition, colour, environment and experiences.

8. Production Designer

Although a set or a stage are far smaller platforms than a virtual planet, designing theater and film sets allows for just as much creative flow. It lifts the pressure of traditional spatial design and expression, allowing for experiences that may be more evocative, sensuous, and story-driven, while still utilizing all the knowledge and skills one gains from an education in architecture: time pressures, conceptual environments and collaborative creativity.

Source: Archdaily.com