Participants who entered professional life before the 2000s underlined the lack of recognition of the industrial design profession and the scarcity of jobs that were available to them at that time in the Turkish industry. These participants commonly stated that due to this situation of the industrial design market there were not many job advertisements addressing industrial designers, and as a result, after graduating they could find jobs only through personal relationships. Some of them asked their relatives and acquaintances working in industry, particularly in large-scale manufacturing companies, if there were any suitable jobs, whilst some others assisted their tutors in the university who do consultancy work for mostly architecture or interior design projects. Many of those who found positions in manufacturing companies were the first industrial designers ever employed there.
Aysel, one of the first industrial designers in Turkey, indicated that when she graduated in the late 1970s, there were literally no manufacturers looking for an industrial designer. As she explained, she and her colleagues had the mission of introducing and promoting design and they struggled to convince companies that they would benefit from industrial designers.
It was difficult to be an industrial design in our time. Why? Because they didn’t have it anywhere. Umm I was graduated from Mimar Sinan University, I enrolled in year 72 [as one of the first students]. (…) Now, of course there was this disadvantage that no one knew what industrial design was. Nor did the companies know. No one knew. Therefore you are graduated, you are graduated as an industrial designer, and umm first of all, you have to explain what industrial design is to the companies you apply to. It’s because there is no one looking for an industrial designer, no one. [1]
Ziya, also being one of the first industrial design graduates in Turkey, recalled how he had worked as an interior designer for four years before finding a job in a large-scale sanitaryware manufacturing company, where he was the only industrial design graduate among ceramics graduates. He indicated that the company encountered industrial design by coincidence:
Now, actually it’s interesting. In that company, it was mostly ceramics graduates doing the design work. (…) Meanwhile, the niece/nephew of the company’s general manager was studying design in Mimar Sinan [University]. This is how he learns about design and looks for a designer for [the company]. So I started working there in 1979. [2]
Emine graduated in 1986. She indicated that at that time industrial design was still an unknown profession, and like Zehra, she underlined that in those years designers had to introduce and promote industrial design to industry. Nevertheless, she found a position as an industrial designer in a large-scale manufacturing company.
E: The year I started professional life is 87. From 87 perhaps to the end of the 90s another mission of ours was to [explain] what industrial design is, what the profession is, who the industrial designer is. Umm we spent most of our [professional] life explaining these. (laughs) (…)
P: Were you the first designer there? E: Yes, I was the first designer.
P: Had you applied for a job advertisement?
E: Umm [the request came] from the upper management. I mean, as they were considering, like “We need a designer, let’s publish a job ad in a newspaper”, umm one of the top managers, now I don’t remember [his title], he knew my father. He talked to my father about me, like “Isn’t your daughter a designer?” (both laughing) I had such an obscure degree. (both laughing) I was abroad at that time. My father said, “You may not have another chance like this one. Now that you’re close to finishing your [Master’s degree] there, I am making a promise here, and I’ll set you an interview once you come back.” Umm I mean mine happened in a couple of minutes. They asked the schools I went to. Like “High school?” “American High School.” “University?” “METU.” They said, “OK”. (laughs) I mean, without going through a test, I started working as a designer right away. [3] Whilst the company defines a need for an industrial designer, in the job interview the representatives of the company do not assess and evaluate her competence and success as a designer, e.g. by examining her portfolio, but rather employ her on the basis that she had degrees from prestigious schools. This attitude of the company can be linked to the fact that, as indicated by Emine herself, at that time it was not clear for employers yet what to expect from an industrial designer. The following quote by Canan, another woman designer who also entered professional life in the late 1980s, further supports this interpretation.
In that period there weren’t many job opportunities for industrial designers. I mean, umm, considering the job ads of that time, you had to apply to jobs for, say, graphic designers or umm (stops for a while) for engineers, as well. There weren’t many that aimed directly at industrial designers. So, I wasn’t applying through job ads. Umm, I was hearing about companies from
people, or from those who work there, and was going around asking whether they need designers. Umm I applied for [a position at a conglomerate]. Umm in that period [this conglomerate] had been setting up a design team to organise the industrial design work in its [manufacturing] companies. And for all these manufacturing companies two designers had been employed. Umm [one of] the designer[s] working there even told me, “Apply for the job only if you can do everything. Here they ask me to, umm say, to go and take photos, and also to sit and draw a pattern. They don’t know what a designer is. Consider this before you apply.” [4]
Like Emine, she emphasised that even though large-scale companies had started to set up design teams by then, there was a lack of well-defined and formalised job descriptions for industrial designers. Instead, industrial designers were assigned any kind of task that was considered to be related to design in general. According to Canan’s account, this is why ‘being able to do any job’ was suggested as a necessary qualification for an industrial designer to find a job during the 1980s.
Berna also said,
I graduated in ‘88. In that period there were only a few places where you could enter and start working as a designer right away. I mean perhaps a few in the furniture sector. Apart from that, [I don’t know] whether there were a lot of mass-production companies doing R&D. In our summer practices or school trips [to factories] we used to see that there were not many people [working in that manner]. Designs were coming from abroad, and so on. There were only a few [job opportunities]. Thus we all turned to [other fields of design, such as graphic and interior]. [5]
Figen’s description of the mid 1990s’ industrial design market shows that her experiences as a new graduate were not much different from that of the older participants. She considers herself lucky that she was able to find a position as an industrial designer, since this was not possible for the majority of her classmates.
I graduated in ‘95. It’s been 15 years now. Since ‘95 [I’ve been working as a designer.] Actually maybe it was an opportunity that many of my classmates couldn’t get. I mean, many people don’t work as designers, because there were only a few people who could work as a designer after graduation. Either they get into computer[-related work], or there are those who do anything, under the ‘interior design’ title. This is why I consider myself a little lucky. Immediately after graduation, in November, I started to work in a design company. [6]
To summarise, participants who entered professional life before the 2000s highlighted three main problems they encountered as industrial designers. First, they experienced difficulties in finding a job in which they could use their professional knowledge, competence and skills. Second, they had to introduce and promote industrial design in the companies they worked. Third, due to the lack of stable and delineated roles and job definitions for industrial designers, even in large and highly bureaucratised companies, they had to take the responsibility for any kind of task associated with design in general by employers.