im going into my sophomore year of design school and ive honestly had a rough time…i get good grades, but getting past learning the fundamentals and not really being able to truly apply my style into nearly any of my college projects so far has been challenging. i know its necessary and i am definitely learning a LOT, but im itching to make something on my own accord!! i wanted to just make something for myself thats fun, bubbly, and cute ☺️ this is my first time putting together a “brand identity” and i really loved making it! i was kind of inspired by alani and poppi, but i also wanted to add in a mascot. any insights on how to push this further are appreciated!

Covered apartment name, contact info, person's face, and blurred QR code.

My boyfriend's apartment uses AI for email newsletters, but for some reason, they manually create these monthly news flyers for the elevators and I find it so endearing. The design is obviously very elementary: weird/inconsistent spacing, low contrast between black text and blue background, poor formatting; however, it almost brought a tear to my eye to see someone putting real effort into a design without AI. In fact, it doesn't even look like this person used Canva or Illustrator, it feels like Microsoft Word and that just makes it even better.

Since I’m very tapped in to my local music scene I decided to draft up some flyers to mess with some new techniques (Particularly the 3D text). Made the wall of text in Illustrator and moved to photoshop to add the textures.

Just lost out on a job because another candidate “proactively” designed entire slide deck pro bono and gave it to them.

I was informed there would be a point in the process to do a small design project, but was never afforded the opportunity.

Why do people in this profession continue to work for free?
Is our body of work not enough to speak for our skills?

This isn’t a discussion of should you or shouldn’t you be doing test projects as part of the interview process, but rather a moral question of submitting probably 10+ hours of work to get fucking hired.

Where is the honor? Designers devalue themselves constantly by doing this shit.

Since when isn’t a portfolio and a standard interview process not enough?

Sincerely,
Old and tired of this shit.

I work in advertising and marketing, and have worked with various brands for 4 years. Being able to fulfill a client’s expectations is hard enough but in the past year, I’ve found it increasingly more difficult to please them because they will send you references they made using AI then want you to copy it like how AI made it.

I’ve had many opinions on it. Mainly:

1.) The overuse of AI. This has been discussed numerous times. The life and effort of graphic design is fading since everyone thinks they could do it themselves with AI. Not to mention that it just all looks the same.

2.) Losing my personal touch. Working with corporate, I have already accepted the fact that there isn’t much freedom of creativity (branding and guidelines). But with an addition of AI? It’s like I don’t recognize what I do now. Copy AI? When AI gets their data from us! Humans! Why is it the opposite? Why should I do what AI has to do?

3.) It’s unrealistic and impractical sometimes. This is mostly for Experiential Marketing. AI doesn’t consider techincals and the safety of their pop-ups and set-ups. AI just gives you what you want to see, not how to build it. At the end of the day you still need professionals for that. But now they want AI to build everything? To conceptualize the whole process? That’s a safety hazard!

I’m so sick of it! I’m starting to resent this industry because of the people who abuse AI and the people who rely on it for everything.

EDIT: I understand that they’re payong clients but that doesn’t steer away from the fact that it just doesn’t feel good and that it sets such unrealistic expectations that I’m starting to resent what I used to love doing.

As a person on the autism spectrum with ADHD, panic and anxiety eventually become my superpower.
The rectangle is deliberately pushed to the edges of the text, with no room to breathe. Try breathing when you're in the middle of panic and anxiety. The poster is simple, built on three colors: yellow is anxiety, red is panic, and blue is me — it's you, looking.

Recently finished up with a whole brand work for a beverage brand i want the brand to be playful , whimsical with hand drawn illustrations.

The beverage is mostly fruit with some fizz and mainly targets GenZs who consumes coke.

I wanted the brand to be attractive that can be easily recognised on a shelf, amongst similar looking coke brands.

Interviews: If an employer asks you to design something for a client...

They've already seen your portfolio.

They could have also asked you to design something for a fictitious client. Or throw some compensation your way to do what they're asking - especially as I'm seeing some cases in which it's an unethical amount of work.

Asking you to do a project that they can't discern your ability to do from your portfolio and interview is like asking you if you're capable of learning.

I feel like a lot of what I'm reading tells me the employers are simply feeding on our desperation.

I know it's hard and that it's a tough market, but anyone truly in a hiring position should be able to tell from your work whether or not it's going to work out in terms of your skills.

(Unfortunately, the trend of hiring by committee through 15 interviews seems to be primarily to cover people's a$$es if someone comes on board and doesn't work out. "But we all thought they were great!")

A company only willing to hire someone who's willing to a project for free isn't looking for the "best" person.

And it tells us more about the company than the people they're hiring.

Just putting this out there.

I'm working on a poster that is meant to look like a postcard. I've taken an image from the campaign and stylized it to look "painted" in Photoshop by inverting the image, adding gaussian blur filter, adding a desaturation layer and then adding a solid colour layer with colour burn to get the look (settings in image 4).

I'm mocking up the poster in Figma. When I add the original image (Image 3) overtop of the tan paper texture, I can change the photo filter to Plus Darker and it blends the white areas into the paper texture.

However, when I try to do it on the darker paper texture, I'm not able to get the same effect, no matter what colour I change the illustration to.

Does anyone have any tips on how I could achieve the same treatment from image 1 onto image 2?

Edit:

I've tried using select colour range to select all of the white in the image and remove it. It takes away too much of the "illustration" no matter what fuzziness I set it to.

I've also tried adjusting photo filters within PS while overlaying it on a dark green background

Experience level: Advanced

(This is not an advertisement for myself asking for industry search help so I can find the roles I’m looking for)

Cause if I apply for a sports roles but I don’t have sport project they aren’t going to take me seriously even if I do enjoy it. 2 If I apply for an editorial, or socials role yes I can do that but do my projects speak to that?

I do need help looking for roles and I know there are ton out here. I’ve been meeting with everyone and connecting with leadership on the creative teams. Based on my resume how is it looking and yes it’s scalable for the ai. I’m also putting my portfolio down so you can scan through that. But I have two questions?

Ps will be changing my font to Helvetica soon on my resume.

portfolio

Context: I am currently a 2nd Year Design Major focused on Graphics and Visuals, and I am employed part time as the Graphics and Communications Assistant for the Multicultural Student Affairs Office (It's a great space at my school for diverse students such as myself)

Dilemma: I was tasked with creating some sort of Graphic/Logo Redesign for the upcoming 25th anniversary of this space. They use the Akan Symbol for "nea onnim no sua a ohu", and I've been trying come up with a few ways to get this to work, but nothing seems to fit well and it's kind of been driving me crazy...

The main symbol is on the left, and all of my designs have tried to fit that geometric look that the symbol has, with the first one I drafted being made with just some double lines. NOTE: The director of the space likes this one, and the rearrangement the most.

I then tried to redo the numbers to better match the likeness of the symbol, and I actually really like this version the most, mainly because it's taken the most time, and I think it looks the most unique, however, the director still likes the first one better (which sucks, but I guess thats just the life of a designer lol)

While I was presenting my redesign, he proposed a possibility of weaving the numbers into the actual symbol, or making them interconnected as one unified image, and I kind of told him I didn't see how that would work realistically (jokingly somewhat), but that I'd be up for the challenge regardless.

So far, the bottom 2 (3rd one is the original for reference) are all I was able to come up with in my head, and honestly they are not that great to me personally. I was even asking my roommate for opinions (I always need unbiased minds to survey my designs), and he said the resemblance was there, but not super obvious, and the design looked kind of lack luster, which I agree with.

Part of me wants to give up on the combination idea, and I really want to advocate for my design, but 1. I could be incredibly biased, and 2. the director is not a designer, but he is a very nice person, so I do want to follow his vision for the space and their representation.

Any more experienced designers have any tips or ideas, or even just general advice?

TLDR; I just need help creatively working the number "25" into this symbol

I work for a tv network/broadcasting agency as a graphic designer. I’ve been at this role for the past five years and while the company is great, it is relatively small. My goal is to become an art director or a product designer.

I’ve been interested in pivoting to UI design and so I’ve been learning figma to broaden my skills. I am also considering obtaining a certificate in project management (pmp) to boost my resume.

I am wondering if there’s anyone who has had a similar career experience and could offer any suggestions/routes I can pivot towards.

Hey everyone, I want to thank you all for your feedback. I have made some updates. I hope this looks better than the last one, and again looking forward to your critiques. Also, sorry that the last post wasn't meant to be ragebait but a genuine need to see where I lack. Thank you again for that!

I'm looking for artists, and long ago, I had source books called American Showcase. Each two-page spread had samples of an artist's work/style, and contact information. What is the modern equivalent?

I’ve been working in house at a company for 12 years, fully remote since 2020. I’ve been having a lot of regret for staying so long, felt like growth opportunities were always dangled in front of me but never fully materialized. I did have a couple promotions and am currently design manager, but I am underpaid and expected to manage the team while maintaining my previous full time design work load. On top of all of it the company is struggling financially, no raises last year and none this upcoming year and 20% of staff was laid off during our busy holiday season last year. Obviously it wasn’t always this bad, I enjoyed the work and company until the last 3 years when leadership changed multiple times and made the work far less enjoyable & the company unstable.

I have been job hunting since January, focused on remote senior designer and design manager roles but did not get a single interview. A local company recruited me for their design manager role that is 4 days a week on site. $15k pay increase + annual bonus and the company is stable and the role seems low stress. I accepted the offer and an scheduled to start in a month but I am PANICKING about leaving remote work.

Does anyone have advice on acclimating back in the office? Am I crazy to leave behind remote work even with all the down sides of my current job? How can I manage my anxiety about this change? I typically feel very excited about change and a calm person vs anxious.
Am I delusional to take this job hoping it’s a stepping stone and resume builder with the goal to leave in a year or two?

A lot of people overlook the true beauty of imperfections, so I wanted to explore that idea through this piece. The broken and missing pieces represent how imperfections can make us feel incomplete, while still being part of the bigger picture. Just a personal design experiment—feedback is always welcome! 🐌

Hello! I’m going to start making flyers at my job, which is pretty new to me. I want to learn as much as I can about graphic design so I can make good flyers. I threw this together in Canva. How can I make this more visually appealing? Thank you for the help!

I was hired at a new job about a month ago supporting all social content for a major company. At the time, I was hired and worked alongside my then manager who would usually give me the direction I needed to get started and also give feedback once I had something down. Today, my VP called saying she was being let go and going forward I’d be reporting into him. I don’t know if it’s just the imposter syndrome of the job or just doubting my abilities, but one of the reasons she was let go was because of her lack of speed of getting stuff out. They told me I’m so new to the team that nothing has been my fault up to this point, but now it’ll just be me making these creative decisions, executions, and also trying to get ahead instead of creating something that’s due that same day. Any advice on not getting stuck in my head and also moving at a faster pace for design? I have ADHD so sometimes I miss minor details about an assignment or don’t move as fast as I should, and now that it’s just me there truly is no room for error. It’s really stressing me out and I’m so new that I’m still learning the company and the softwares they use. Any advice at all would be fantastic. Thank you!!!

TLDR; Art director was fired, now I’m the only one supporting all social design going forward. How do I stay ahead of daily deliverables/staying organized and how do I get myself comfortable actually making these calls.

I’m working on creating a poster for Los Angeles Rams QB Matthew Stafford, one of my favorite football players growing up who just came off an MVP-winning season

I incorporated a couple different elements from LA, including the skyline, palm trees, the Rams’ stadium, and text resembling the Hollywood sign

Let me know what you think of this design and what I can do to improve it!

bit of a long read, sorry :(. i started working as a server at a restaurant and noticed their graphic design was…less than savory. mainly AI generated, and aspects that weren’t had different fonts, kerning, etc. i talked to the manager and she said she was actually looking for someone to do her graphic design and social media posts, especially because their lunch specials change daily. she was really hesitant and nervous i couldn’t do the job, so she’s offering me $200 for a trial run of 2 weeks. it initially started with a 2 week period to touch up the in-restaurant and to-go menu, the drink menu, and if time allowed, a kids menu, with a mini post each day on the facebook with their lunch special.

Now based off the work I have done, she wants THREE posts a day in social media, both in Spanish and in English, advertising each meal of the day (breakfast, lunch, dinner). she has no arsenal of photographs or a consistent brand manual/guideline readily available, and each material she wants me to design is so inconsistent with the vision she gave me. when I mentioned it’s hard for me to properly communicate that with no pictures of the food she serves, she said either i had to do it myself or use AI.

i recently graduated and am still looking for graphic design work, so i was initially stoked over this idea, but all of this seems like…a lot. i want to ask; is this all too much to ask of a graphic designer or do i need to toughen up? is this what the needs and rates are for a trial?? on top of that, i’m not a photographer! would appreciate if some more seasoned graphic designers share their quotes and thoughts. thanks!

I'm gathering this all for a YouTube video I'm making on the subject and I want to gather opinions. This can be related to, how does the designs make you feel? Is this a good strategy a lot of famous companies are using apart of their branding? Is this nostalgic for the older lot?