The Digital Creative’s Survival Guide: Everything You Need for a Successful Career in Web, App, Multimedia and Broadcast Design

ISBN: 9781440318481

The Digital Creative’s Survival Guide: Everything You Need for a Successful Career in Web, App, Multimedia and Broadcast Design by Paul Wyatt published by HOW Books is an all inclusive guide as to the typical challenges being a digital creative professional. The title covers practical career guidance and how to secure your future in a competitive industry. The survivial guide achieves this through interviews with successful professionals around the world from some of the worlds most renowned design houses. Also Wyatt cleverly deconstructs these signature projects they have worked on. Wyatt, an award winning director, writer and broadcaster is responsible for the creative flair behind some big names including the BBC, Daft Punk, Adobe amongst others with experience and expertise in animation, digital design, print design and brand identity.

The chapters include:

1. Being Creative In Being Creative Wyatt talks about trying to find the best creative outlet based on your skills and desires and finding the right method for the job. This section is inspiring as it broadens your creative potential and stops you from just doing usual methodologies. It also goes into some interesting theories regarding how the environment can affect your space and seeking real feedback from other professionals.

2. The Right Way to Use the Left Side of Your Brain Features an interview with Alex Harding by Made by Many.

3. Brief Insight Showcases some extremely interesting projects like the Whale Trail iOS app and the Microsoft Surface Experience.

4. Creative Survival In another theoretical chapter Wyatt talks about working with teams in particular people from other disciplines. The chapter also covers how to work with clients and a number of other handy tips which I won’t spoil for you now!

With nice large text for people with bad eyes like me and a simple thoughtful structure, The Digital Creative’s Survival Guide is an excellent primer for any student or someone looking to change career paths. The book heavily relies on interviews and tips and tricks from professionals and this gives real insight into the industry as really why bother experimenting with different ways of working when you have industry heavyweights tell you what they do! The only weakness of the title is perhaps the lack of good imagery and the lack of theoretical writing on specific topics. Although the interviews and tips are fun they are often filled with lots of padding making it not very succinct. However all in all I would strongly recommend The Digital Creative’s Survival Guide.

[rating:3.5]