I Joined Penninghen to Study Design and Art Direction

Julien Reszka · 2013-02-06T17:15

I started at Esag Penninghen in Paris today. The school trains art directors. I want to understand how good visual communication actually works.

1954 — Year Penninghen was founded in Paris, one of the oldest and most selective schools for art direction and graphic design in France — **1954** Year Penninghen was founded in Paris, one of the oldest and most selective schools for art direction and graphic design in France Esag Penninghen, Paris

I started at Esag Penninghen today.

The school is on Rue du Dragon in the 6th arrondissement. It trains art directors and graphic designers. The program is five years.

I applied because I wanted to understand visual communication at a level that goes beyond taste. I can tell when something looks good. I cannot always explain why, and I cannot always reproduce it deliberately. That gap is what I want to close.

What the first day looked like:

A studio environment, not a classroom. Tables, not chairs in rows.
Work already on the walls from previous years. The standard is visible immediately.
Faculty who work professionally. They are not academics explaining design from a distance.
A small cohort. Tables, not chairs in rows.
Critique built into the structure from day one. You show work. People tell you what is wrong with it.

I do not know yet how long I will stay or what I will build from here. What I know is that I have been interested in how things look and why some things communicate clearly and others do not. I want to understand that seriously, not as a hobby.

The school treats it seriously. That is why I am here.

Myth: Design is something you learn by doing, not by going to school — Reality: Doing without feedback produces confident mediocrity. A rigorous school compresses years of self-taught trial and error into a structured critique environment. Both matter, but school accelerates the early part. — **Myth:** Design is something you learn by doing, not by going to schoolPersonal experience, 2013

If you want to get serious about a craft, find the institution that treats it most rigorously and put yourself in that room. Proximity to people who are better than you is the fastest feedback loop.
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Discussion

Did you ever put yourself in a room where the standard around you was clearly higher than what you were used to?
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