Top Fives I

I've just watched High Fidelity again and have decided that top fives are the way to go. To start here are the top five reasons why it's a total nightmare trying to find your way as a recently qualified graphic designer in London.

1. There are hundreds of thousands of you. You're in the pub - look around you. One out of every fifteen people there is a graphic designer (this rule may not apply in the Overdraft Tavern where at least twelve of them probably list their occupation as 'thug' or 'professional drunk').

2. Agencies won't touch you with a bargepole. Their clients pay them a fortune to hire someone with a videophone and shoes that cost more than your car who uses terms like 'interfacing' without giggling and strangles puppies for fun at the weekend. Probably.

3. Many, many people in London are wankers.

4. Without experience you can't get a job, without a job you can't get experience. Do you see the problem here? If you'd just take a damn look at my portfolio, if you'd just meet me and see how friendly and enthusiastic I am you wouldn't doubt for a second I can do your job. I can do the job!

5. Smallville. Ok, that's just a reason why I find it difficult to motivate myself to leave the telly and go hunt for jobs, but I'm sure I'm not the only one.

So here's the new gameplan - I'm going to take some mindless position, preferably in a nice shop selling nice things but probably behind a telephone for a couple of weeks until that comes along. Then I'm going to spend every spare second of my time printing out examples of my work and sending them to random companies whose designs I like. Then I'm going to use days off to tour design companies with my portfolio and be forcefully friendly to the reception staff until someone, even if it's the janitor, looks at it.

Give me two months. Then we'll think again.