DESIGN SCHOOL CONFIDENTIAL: #1

PUT YOUR NAME ON EVERYTHING

The first day of studio is the first day someone loses something forever. Don’t let that someone be you. While it’s impossible to escape four years of design school without losing a few cans of Super77, X-Acto knives, and Fineliners, you can protect yourself. When it comes to your supplies, trust no one. The good news is that only 1% of your class will be comprised of malicious thieves. The bad news is that the other kind-hearted 99% will happily “borrow” your things from time to time. If you leave a ruler on your desk the night before a deadline, by morning it will have migrated to the other side of the room. Like a game of telephone, your classmates will pass that thing along as they make a mad dash toward the presentation. 

While it’s a good rule to keep your possessions under lock and key, play it safe and commit to the Sharpie. It may be painful to scrawl your name across your beautiful new over-priced art supplies, but you have to do it. And do practice your handwriting before you finally sign those triangles, or else you’ll have to stare at those scribbles forever and people will ask how you managed to misspell your name. Print your name large and with authority so that no one dares to take that template off your desk without risking injury. In spite of that, stuff will still go missing. And one day, when you stumble upon a student from a different major, in a wing completely across the building, hovering over a cutting mat with your name on it, you will be rewarded with the simple pleasure of saying, “Not yours! Yoink!”