Brendan Murphy

On October 15th, Brendan Murphy, a PSU alumni and senior partner for Lippincott, came back to Pitt State for a symposium. I was unable to make it to the symposium, but I’m sure it was very insightful and inspiring.

He originally came to Pitt State on a track scholarship and had taken commercial graphics as a safety net. I can kind of relate because, although commercial graphics is my primary career pursuit, I also plan on pursuing musical composition. Why not both? He also went on to say “when you’re trying to get established in your career, the craft that you learn is essential,” and mentioned that after your first year, your degree doesn’t really matter that much. Which to me, means that you have to know what your doing. Your work speaks louder than your resume. I really hope this is the case, not because I have a bad resume, I’m sure I have a good enough resume, but because I want the opportunity to let my work speak for itself. I want to be hired based on my abilities, not because of the school I went to or my past work experience. I also hope that is the case when I look for composition work, because I won’t have much of a resume for that, but I can still have a great portfolio based on my own work.

He also emphasized the importance of technical writing, saying, “Although my job is as a designer, I spend 75% of my time writing and about 5 to 10% drawing.” I can defiantly believe it, and it is good to know I’ll be making use of all this experience I’m getting with all these writing to learn classes that I can’t seem to avoid taking. He also went on to say “What Pittsburg gave me was an appreciation for typography.” I’ve defiantly learned to appreciate typography, though I wish I could take a typography class. From what I understand Pitt State used to have one a few years back, but I guess it got remove due to lack of interest. I think there is interest now…

I do find it pretty cool that he redesigned the handicapped symbol. It takes guts to redesign a symbol so well established as that one. If you think about, it is very similar to what Gap tried to do, and we all know how well that worked out for them. His redesign was received well, however, and you know he did good when a company as big and widespread as Wal-Mart adopted the design and stands at the forefront of a new idea.

He concludes with three main points. First he reminds us that technology is always changing and that we should work on our design skills and ideas, not just technological skills. I believe his exact words were, “Never fall in love with technology, because technology will change.” Well, I do love my tech, but I also love change and advancement in technology, because with every major upgrade in hardware, or new version of the Creative Suite, by design process is less hindered by the technology I need to complete my work. His second point is, “Problem solving is sort of an art. A bad consultant will give you answers. A good one will raise questions.” I suppose what he means is that a consultant should ask the client the questions that will lead them to their own solutions and ideas that they really want.

For his final point he says, “Any time there is change, you’re going to get opposition.” 

…How true is that.