Rob Deloach  is a talented artist and a great person to run the admissions department at the  Circus.  1. He respects other talents. 2. He’s a perfect example of someone to talk to when you’re a young designer and don’t quite understand how to make a career out of art. He’s not a bad guy to kick it with, either.

A lot of designers are taught to organize information first, and produce chaos second. With few exceptions, I’ve been more impressed by the nonchalant angle that artists approach the canvas. The struggle of creating something that feels good is a war already won. I began as an artist. I would never have put my pencil down if I felt there was a real future in it. Even today, I find it hard to believe that if I would have executed half of the things I illustrated on lined notebook paper, my boldness would have been rewarded.

Maybe I was irritated that my high school art teachers were married, and it was negatively evident in the classroom. Maybe I blame them for not showing promising talent a way to pursue a career in art, outside of charcoal and glue sticks. Maybe I shouldn’t expect so much. I was destined to fall back into a career path embracing my creativity, but I’m a minority in the field of dreams.

Here’s an idea. I’m sure there’s a JobBank. There’s probably a database of every possible job paying tax dollars. But there’s not a place accessible to the majority of america’s youth to get an intimate view of careers that could cross their paths.

“Go to college and figure it out, continue what you’ve been doing, go to jail, or do nothing.”

A website that pulls information from the  WikiPedia,  side by side with real life cases filed by those in that field. Better examples are bumped to the top by the users so that the information added to the database remains positively filtered. Only now are America’s lesser significant careers also accessing the internet. They publish nationwide salaries in the newspaper - grab those. Connect careers with the likelihood that they might intersect with one another to show a probable path, or at least a place to look for options in career changes. It would involve a lot of information gathering but it will build a sense of confidence to those with a pencil or a paintbrush to continue leading themselves rather than be led off to war or construction jobs out of fear. And it seems doable.