Directors often have favoured designers that they use for their shows, but as shows come along so irregularly there are many occasions where that designer is unavailable and they have to cast around for someone else, and so they ask other directors and producers for recommendations. Often if they've seen a show and liked a designers work on it, they will be approached that way.

It can take a few years to build a sufficient reputaion to get regular well-paid design work.

However there are always people out there willing to take a chance with new designers, especially for low or unpaid design work that can't attract established designers.

How To Get Work.

Being a sound designer is about knowing how to communicate with an audience through sound, and how to communicate with a director through language. Working in the theatre industry is about working well with people.

Your training, whether at college or in the workplace, should be about developing the above three skills, and getting to know the equipment and the industry.

You're probably going to leave college wanting to be a sound designer but not really knowing how to become one. Sound design jobs are never advertised, and the first time you hear about an upcoming show, the chances are that the creative team will already have been appointed. Sound Designers are usually asked to work on a show by a director, a producer or a production manager.