Panel discussion between Eric Hu, Hassan Rahim and Erik Brandt. Really honest pragmatic stuff from Eric and Hassan about balancing rent and wanting to do creative work, and the dropoff of non-white-male identifying designers in industry compared to design school.

My undergrad was a really commercial institution, I didn't want to do that because all the designers I admired were working in the cultural sphere – it's funny now because the cultural sphere and print are pretty much synonymous – it wasn't a product being sold, it was a cultural artefact. And I wanted to do that stuff.

That's why I went to grad school, and it's what I tried to do when I got out. Here's the truth that a lot of people don't want to talk about, a lot of the culture stuff doesn't really pay well – especially in north america where we don't have a socialist government that has generous arts funding – and so logically you're going to have to come up with that other money elsewhere depending on your lifestyle. And the truth is, that I realised later on, is that the people who are doing this type of stuff just came from really rich parents, and I'm not saying that I grew up in a really disadvantaged household, but I was definitely left to figure out adulthood on my own for the most part.

I think recognising that became a hard thing to reconcile.

Eric Hu, AIGA Eye on Design

Watch it all here. The intros are slow but worth sticking with it.

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