I want to go into Graphic Design as a career but I'm a little stuck on A Level options. Any advice?

I'm in yr 11 now, and I desperately want to be a graphic designer when I leave.


Other than psychology, it's the only career i'm remotely interested in, and I'm nowhere near smart enough for psychology, as I've heard that it's strongly adviseable to have maths or/and sciences which I suck at.





Anyway, I've decided on Graphic Design, as I love art and being creative and I enjoy using programmes such as GIMP and Photoshop.





For GCSE, I've taken RE (Religious Education), History, Art and Media, and the compulsories, Maths, Physics, Chemistry and Biology.


I'll find out my grades for these in August.


I have a fast track English Language and Literature GCSE (both B), I'm retaking my English Lang, and I'm on course for an English Lang AS Level which I'll have by January 2010.





For A Level, I want to take Media, Art, Psychology and Music Tech (I'd love to be a producer, but there's no industry for it round here really.)


However, my mother is adamant that I have to take English Language for A Level.


As the course would finish in January, and I'd only have the other 4 to do, I've been told that I can do this. However, my cousin's told my mother that 4 A Level's are only acheivable by A* - A students, so my mother now wants me to drop one of my options, as I'm not clever enough.


I really don't want to drop any of the subjects I'm taking though, and I genuinely think if I put the effort in I could do it.





Anyway, back on subject, if I wanted a career in graphic design, which A Levels should I be looking at taking?





And for people who've done their AS Levels, do you think it's acheivable to do the 5 options?





Sorry for how badly I've worded this lol, it's quite confusing, I know.


Any advice would be very much appreciated though, thank you.


-KassI want to go into Graphic Design as a career but I'm a little stuck on A Level options. Any advice?
A significant part of graphic design is communication – with clients, colleagues and with your audience. To that end I would include English Language in your options. At A level I did three “proper” A levels – History, Ancient History and English Literature (and General Studies which was essentially a multiple choice lucky dip and worthless). I kept up my interests in art and design in my free time. Then I did a Foundation Course and a 4 year BA course (over 25 years ago).





You seem to believe that you are “not clever enough”, take some advice from your teachers – they will know your potential and can be objective. But don't accept that you are “not clever enough”.I want to go into Graphic Design as a career but I'm a little stuck on A Level options. Any advice?
I think it is good that you are already thinking about options before college, however you don't necessarily have to do A levels to be a graphic designer - although it would most probably help if you wanted to do a design course at University. if not, then i think the person who commented about doing a bTech sounds like a good idea.





i am currently finishing my first year at college and have just finished my graphic design course today! i don't want to put you off anything you've said, i just thought i will offer my genuiene advice and thoughts to see if it helps to point you in the right direction! first of all, i will warn you that graphics AS level is a LOT of work. on the AQA syllabus anyway there is no formal summer exam, the exam for AS is basically another unit of work with a set theme and this means there is a lot of coursework, and i'm not saying that half-heartedly! if you are completely passionate about being a graphic designer and are prepared to put in the hours for it then you will cope fine with graphics at AS :) as far as i know this is the same for all art subjects at GCSE - photography, fine art, textiles etc.





secondly, from what i have heard about media at AS from my friends who have taken it and also from a careers adviser, it is such a common subject at AS that it isn't very highly regarded and unless you wanted to go to a career or go to a uni doing a strictly media based course, it probably wouldn't be of much use to you. my friends have also told me that it is a bit here and there and a few of them regret taking it, but on the other side, a lot of people i know really enjoy it and see it as worthwhile so i guess it depends on the person.





thirdly, taking english with an art subject is actually a good idea, even if it is not your personal choice. i am taking an english combined AS and i find it really helps in my graphics and vice versa, as both of the subjects require evaluation and analysis so it is very handy if you do both as you get a lot of practise and it especially helps to do with developing your work.





(sorry this is a very long answer haha) i know about 8 people who chose to do 5 AS levels at the beginning of year 12 - at AS level the normal number to take it 4, and most people carry on with 3 at A level - and only one of those 8 still does it. it's not necessarily that you have to be amazingly clever to do 5 AS levels, its more a case of whether you can stay on top of the work and manage your time well enough to do it. in the second year, it is not advised to do 4 of more A levels unless you can prove that you can actually handle the workload. in the end, universities only look at the best 3 A levels grades anyway, so my mentality is that i would rather do 3 A levels so i can spend more time on each of them and get a good grade in each, than sharing out my time between 4 and only getting average grades in each. personally, i know that this year i could not have done 5 subjects because there is so much work and i would have hardly got any time to relax and simply wouldn't have been able to keep up with work.





and finally, a last thing to thing about is that if you want to do a design course at uni, most universities want you to take an Art Foundation course first - basically staying on another year at college, or going to a college which does the course, and doing a year of pre-university degree work in order to get you up to scratch for when you do go to uni.





so basically at the end of that giant ramble, you should really think about whether you have the motivation and self control to be able to do all the work that is required to do graphic design in the future, especially through the A level route as it is a pretty tedious - but still enjoyable! - process. it might be worth investigating the bTech and other diploma options which may be more suitable for what you want to do and may be the easier way to go about it. or you could always speak to Connexions/a career advisor at your school, or ask about the courses when you go to college open days if you haven't been already. and lastly, if you do take a course at college and end up not liking it, don't worry! you can easily drop the subject and take up another instead and it is a very common thing for people to do in the first few weeks of college! also you shouldn't think about your A level options so soon - deciding to carry on the subjects into year 13 depends completely on how you have found the course, your grades, if you can handle the workload etc so you really shouldn't worry about it so early on cos you have plenty of time to decide :)





ao anyway i hope you can make some kind of sense out of this and i hope it helped!
Personally I'd give A levels amiss and do a full time arts course, like a foundation course like a BTEC.


You can still go on to do a higher BTEC or a degree, even a post graduate degree if you decide you want to get back into something more academic later on, but you just can't beat the fact that you will doing art, design and craft full time 5 days a week instead maybe 6 hours a week for your art A level. You will also experience a lot of off different art / design, not just graphics, and might find out you actually prefer illustration, fine art, ceramics etc!


Good Luck with whatever you decide.