What design school didn’t teach me (and what it should've)

Design school might teach you how to design, but it often doesn’t teach you how to survive as a designer. New York–based creative director and educator Amelia Nash explores these gaps in creative education, from boundaries and burnout to strategy and self-trust.

A bit about me

As a Canadian-born, New York-based creative director, brand strategist and educator, I divide my time between working and teaching at the School of Visual Arts' Master's in Branding program, freelance design and strategy, and writing for PRINT Magazine. Much of my practice centers on sustainable branding systems and supporting emerging designers as they navigate an evolving industry.

Like many designers, much of what I’ve learned about running a creative business — from pricing to boundaries to self-management — was self-taught. And it’s that lived experience that’s shaped how I understand the gaps in design education, and why so many of us enter the industry feeling creatively prepared but emotionally unprepared for what comes next.

Most of us leave design school feeling technically capable and creatively energized. We know how to build a grid, choose a typeface, articulate a concept and present our work with confidence. We’ve been trained to see the world through a designer’s lens — to analyze brands, decode culture and respond thoughtfully to briefs. On paper, we’re ready.

And yet, for so many emerging designers, the moment school ends, something quietly unravels.

Amelia Nash

When the structure disappears

The work doesn’t disappear, but the certainty does. The structure is gone. Feedback becomes inconsistent. Success feels harder to define. Suddenly, talent alone isn’t enough to steady you. And the skills you need most, emotional resilience, self-trust, collaboration, and strategic clarity, are the very ones no one explicitly taught you.

Design school taught us how to understand audiences, brands, colours and typography. What it didn’t teach us was how to understand ourselves.

That gap might not matter while you’re still inside the safety of academia, but it becomes impossible to ignore once you enter the industry, especially if you freelance, work independently or carve out a non-linear career. Because freelancing isn’t just a career path; it’s a psychological challenge.

The skills we needed but weren’t taught

The feast-and-famine cycle is real. One month, you’re juggling deadlines and turning down work; the next, refreshing your inbox and wondering if you’ve somehow fallen behind everyone else. The unpredictability of client work, paired with the constant pressure to self-promote, can be mentally exhausting. And yet, we were never taught how to manage that volatility. We were simply told to keep pushing, keep posting, keep saying yes, keep building, keep creating.

There were no real conversations about impostor syndrome — about how even highly capable designers can feel like they’re faking their way through their careers. No acknowledgement of burnout as something that can creep in quietly, even when you love what you do. And very little discussion of loneliness: the isolating reality of working alone, making decisions alone, carrying the emotional weight of your work without a built-in support system.

These experiences aren’t signs of failure; they’re incredibly common. But without language, tools or context for them, many designers assume the problem is personal rather than structural.

Learning discernment the hard way

We were also trained to believe that opportunity is rare and that we should grab it whenever it appears. Say yes to the brief. Say yes to the client. Say yes to exposure. But no one told us that saying yes to the wrong client can feel worse than having no client at all.

Clients who don’t respect boundaries. Projects that drain creativity rather than energize it. Rates that quietly signal your work is undervalued. These experiences don’t just affect your income; they affect your confidence and your relationship to your craft. We weren’t taught how to identify red flags, how to ask better questions at the outset or how to walk away without guilt. Discernment, the ability to choose work intentionally, is a skill that takes years to learn, often the hard way.

Collaboration and strategy in the real world

Another major oversight in design education is collaboration. While we often work in groups at school, the real dynamics of collaboration — power, communication, compromise, conflict — are rarely addressed head-on. In practice, designers must collaborate across disciplines, interpret unclear feedback, navigate different personalities and advocate for ideas that aren’t immediately understood. These are relational skills, not just creative ones, and they matter deeply to the longevity of a career.

Equally under-taught is strategy: not just how to execute work, but how to think beyond it. Many emerging designers struggle to articulate the “why” behind their decisions, not because they don’t understand it, but because no one taught them the language of strategic value. In the real world, design doesn’t exist in isolation; it exists in conversation with business goals, human needs and broader systems. Being able to situate creative work within that context is what builds trust and sustainable careers.

The identity shift after graduation

Then there’s the identity shift that freelancing and independent work demand. In school, we define ourselves by our portfolios. After graduation, that definition expands rapidly. Suddenly, you’re not just a designer — now, you’re a strategist, a marketer, an accountant, a negotiator, wearing many different hats. You’re running a business, even if you never planned to.

That shift can feel destabilizing. Without promotions, titles or a clear ladder to climb, success becomes abstract. How do you measure progress when the path isn’t linear? Who are you when you’re not actively designing? These questions can trigger a quiet identity crisis, one that’s rarely talked about, but deeply felt.

Design education does many things well. But it still prioritizes output over sustainability, mastery over self-awareness. What if it didn’t?

If design schools incorporated psychological preparedness alongside technical and business skills, graduates would leave not just as capable designers, but as resilient professionals. Designers who understand collaboration as a relational practice. Designers who can speak about strategy with confidence. Designers who recognize that self-doubt is not a personal flaw, but a shared experience and have the tools to navigate it.

Towards a more sustainable creative life

If I could offer a few takeaways to emerging creatives, they would be these: learn to value discernment as much as opportunity, and self-awareness as much as skill. Build a relationship with yourself as carefully as you build your portfolio, because confidence grows from understanding and not comparison. And remember that a sustainable creative life isn’t built by never struggling, but by having the tools to keep going when you do.

Because in the end, a creative life isn’t defined by how much you produce or how quickly you succeed. It’s defined by how well you’re able to sustain yourself over time, emotionally, creatively and mentally.

And being a designer isn’t just about design. It’s about knowing yourself well enough to thrive. And that may be the most important lesson we never learned.