Abstract

Leaving The Ivory Tower ...
How about becoming a self–employed designer?

Being excellent in designing is unfortunately not enough to succeed in working as a self–employed person. “Leaving the Ivory Tower“ is a seminar aimed at students who want to inform themselves about possibilities of working as a designer. This seminar is meant to help students to turn abstract future visions into something tangible. In addition this seminar is also a first–aid–package for students who start performing commissions during their studies – maybe because they want to gain experience or they want to earn money or just because they are asked to do an interesting job.
This seminar provides the students with exercises (e.g. role plays), facts (e.g. economic basics) and case studies. It illustrates steps of cooperation between designers and clients: starting with the first phonecall and ending with being paid – hopefully. Moreover it sensitizes the students to regcognize potential conflicts at an early stage.
To give realistic impressions and additional information from different points of view, this seminar presents a number of guests such as product–managers, patent agents and young designers.