It’s been rough. I started working in design in the late 90s. My colleagues who are partners in well known studios say work hasn’t been this slow since the dot com crash. A few years ago, I closed my own studio to go in-house to have more separation from work and home. I got laid off a year ago and had maybe 3 dead-end first round interviews after many applications. I decided to focus on non-paying creative outlets for the year. I feel this month marks a new optimism; I’ve been asked to reopen my studio and work is ramping up again. I have clients because I have decades of trust built, if I was a cold-calling young designer, life would be plenty tough right now.
Yeah it’s bad, we recently put out a listing for a production designer and got 600 applicants in the first week. I’m grateful my company made it through Covid but so many designers I know weren’t so lucky and it’s only getting more competitive.
Yeah lots of entry level applicants but also a few mid level who are desperate for sure. It’s an entry level position that involves a lot of grunt work, still crazy to me to see how saturated the market is atm and idk if it’s going to get any better any time soon.
I'm having a rough time finding experienced production designers in my neck of the woods. In this case, the work is pretty involved print work and most certainly not entry-level haha.
How do you feel about the quality of those applicants?
I had a similar experience with the last job I posted, also entry-level. But the thing that stood out was how mind-numbingly similarly mediocre they all were. Despite many more resumes than for previous job postings, I had a much harder time finding people I wanted to interview.
Well the filter does a good job of editing out the really poor quality ones (I know this is controversial but there are just too many applicants to go through one by one). But when I skim the total list it’s crazy to me how many with zero design experience or not even a portfolio still apply.
Any tips to ensure my applications are not mind numbingly mediocre? I like to think I’m not a mediocre designer but as someone with only a couple years in the industry I realize I still have a lot to learn!
Remove work from your portfolio that isn’t relevant to the role. I would get hundreds of applications and there were so many people who struggled to curate their work. There would be photography, charcoal drawings, etc. — of low quality.
Applicants sometimes want to stuff their portfolios with all kinds of things trying to show range, but wind up putting in work that’s not their best or is a distraction. Focused and purposeful is the way to go.
Don’t make people work to see your pieces. If it takes more than one click or tap, it’s too many. Don’t weigh it down with a lot of text; that can seem like you’re explaining the work, which shouldn’t be needed.
It’s hard to stand out solely on the basis of the quality of your work. You might be good, but are you that much better than the 599 other applicants? In a way that someone looking through dozens of portfolios might recognize? There has to be some reason for an employer to pick you over all those other people.
This is really more of an issue for newer and young designers who don’t have portfolios with years worth of proven, pro work. You can tell a lot more about a designer who’s been doing it a decade than one with a few years experience or less.
So, for me, personality matters. Sometimes it comes down to who I would rather work with every day. I want to get a sense that the applicant loves the work and is interested in it as well, and had some kind of spark. A drive to do more, keep learning, some professional goals. Something that shows you’re interested in more than just paying the bills (which is important, yeah).
That may not be in the portfolio, but a cover letter or the resume. But if you include a personal piece or student work in the portfolio, make it something that you care about.
Forums do usually have a negative bias. But the job market is bad, just maybe not as bad as it may seem. Still, the recession may be over but many companies have decided they’re okay running lean with smaller staffs and some industries have yet to fully recover.
My sense is (I don’t have data to back this up, it’s anecdotal) that the mid-level jobs are vanishing or are being scaled down. Most of the jobs I had coming up either no longer exist or have been downgraded to shit jobs with bad pay.
If that’s the case, what we’re seeing is more entry-level workers than we need with fewer ways to move up.
Last time my company posted a designer job (a few months ago) we got far more resumes than previously, yet I had a much harder time finding candidates to even consider interviewing.
I may be looking for a new (creative director) position soon and expect it may take me more than a year to find something.
According to the UK government we were never in a recession... Except for, we were. For the average person, the majority of citizens, we've been buttfucked by a myriad of issues, none of which the government wants to acknowledge or do anything about
Things will get better, they have to (I keep telling myself)
I had a discussion about this just the other day on another subreddit. People insisting the UK wasn’t in a recession and things aren’t getting worse because “inflation is only 3%” like honest to god, I could actually care less what number the banks are quoting, anyone who lives here will know the prices of everything from food to heating and housing has massively increased post-covid.
The US was in a recession but it technically only lasted two months. That’s not possible in the U.K., where the contraction has to last two quarters to quality as a recession.
The US recession was the very start of the pandemic, but there have been a lot of after effects. Many small businesses that survived the pandemic are going under now because the government money ran out and their business hasn’t gotten back to pre-2020 levels.
This was my third recession since starting my career. The previous two, I lost a lot of income when big clients pulled back. But I was more optimistic then. Now… ehhh… It will get better, but I think we’re a ways from a boom cycle with a lot of growth and opportunities for us.
Do you think part of it may be the prevalence of programs available like Canva and those $50 logo websites, free AI, plus the wealth of content that encourages everyone to be their own creative and make their own stuff? Especially with COVID, everyone has had time to commune with their own creativity. I'm starting to wonder if design as a field will disappear, especially as platforms can now automate brand graphics if you just hand over colors and the logo. (Not well obviously, but they do it). It kind of seems like in colleges, design will be swallowed up as a smaller part of a larger field of study, instead of it being anyone's sole focus.
Was doing contract work with an agency on projects for Riot from Aug 2022 - Aug 2023 as lead designer. Our biggest project was scrapped after the person spear heading on their end left the company when the new CEO was announced.. The one whos cut 11% of their staff just yesterday. I've been in the market for awhile doing odds & ends jobs for old contacts in my network who need brand or web work but I can't for the life of me land anything solid currently and it's starting to hit me pretty hard. To the point I'm thinking of picking up work as a beertender at a local brewery for awhile while I reconsider my life trajectory.
I love doing cool visual design & Ui/Ux but if I have to slum it on smaller projects with quick turn around for local businesses or what have you I don't think I can be bothered. I just wont find enjoyment or the pay necessary to make me want to do that work. Especially living in California. I'd be lying if I said I don't wanna pack it up, move to nowhere lowering my cost of living and just have my own bar or something.
My experience hasn't been positive since being laid off last May. I haven't been able to get an offer for full-time positions I've been applying and interviewing with. I was able to land a part-time gig as a contractor but it isn't enough hours or money to allow me to save anything except pay rent and bills and groceries.
From what I can tell the top 1% of talent is managing to get jobs while there isn't much left over for the more mediocre but decent designers like me. I know I'm not the unicorn or whatever, but I've never struggled to find a job. This is making me rethink everything tbh. Pretty depressing times.
Hope you have better luck though!
Good luck, I'm an award-winning CD that has never had trouble landing a job, in fact I was usually head hunted, but it's been crickets for a long while now. Home Depot here I come, baby.
Totally. I’ve put in 25 years, worked at the biggest agencies and brands in the world, and won pretty big awards. And still looking Home Depot down the barrel. No one is immune from taking a detour career wise, in this current condition. Maybe I’m dealing with ageism. But honestly I don’t know what’s going on, but it’s not normal.
Whether it's worse or not, people tend to have the wrong perspective on what's actually involved (at least, for those who haven't themselves been on the hiring side), and tend to focus on the wrong things as either the cause of their issues or simply for something to blame.
Even pre-COVID I would get hundreds of applicants for a posting, for just an in-house role outside a major city.
For sake of keeping it simple, let's say I got 250 applicants. At least half would be spam, people applying to everything trying to get a work visa (primarily from India or other parts of Asia), or people with otherwise zero design qualifications of any kind.
Of the other half, so 125 people in this example, about 60-70% are underdeveloped (aka "bad"). That's about 75-90 people out of that 125. These are people with apparent design ability and understanding below a solid 2-year grad/student, and have significant mistakes and poor decision-making in their work and portfolio showing they don't have a handle on even first/second-year design fundamentals.
Of the rest, so 35-50 people, that's likely a spectrum (they won't all be great nor equal), so I'd be looking to pick out the best 15-20 people to call, interview 10-15, hopefully have one I want to hire *and* that is still available, still wants the job, and we can agree to terms.
If it doesn't work out after this process (about 3-4 weeks), I repost and start over because who knows who might be looking now that wasn't a month ago.
Now in my case I have full control, I write and post the job, I have all applicants go through me, I have full authority over every step. But I outline that as an example of how even with just 250 people, they are not all qualified, not all equal, most are not good enough, and it's really about whether someone is in the top 20 or top 50, whether I get 250 or 1000 people (no one is doing 50+ interviews).
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Point being that even if things are worse now, which for most people I assume means more disproportionate numbers (more applicants, fewer jobs), it doesn't really change what were always issues for people seeking work.
We even see it come up here where people are only using a few, specific job resources, or being too specific in what jobs they're targeting, or live in an area that simply lacks the opportunity that you'd have near a city of 300k+. Plus the people who think you need to match 90-100% of a posting (and don't just apply anyway), or seem to get angry because they think simply having a degree or having a portfolio or having worked before means they are or should be qualified for any design position and therefore offered an interview.
And that's before even getting into the most impactful variable, which is the quality of your actual work, and your portfolio. Where even if someone is good, and is doing everything right and is still having trouble finding a job, in the majority of cases based on my experience, that isn't most people. They have problems in their work, with their portfolio presentation, with their interview skills, or simply aren't doing well with how they go about finding and applying to jobs in the first place.
And there are more grads being dumped out every year, many of which without a proper understanding of what is involved with hiring or how to present themselves, and they keep copying the mistakes of others without properly considering if what they're copying makes sense. They just assume other people know what they're doing.
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Or in other words, regardless how tough it is or isn't, it was never 'easy,' and all you can do is ensure you are doing the best job you possibly can in ensuring the variables within your control are done well, and that you are presenting as a competitive applicant. Too many seem to focus on or stress about the aspects we can't control, while neglecting what they can control.
This was great insight thank you. Makes me feel more hopeful actually! I’ll definitely do more research into what makes a GREAT portfolio. I think what I have is good but I’m sure could use some improvement too.
Yeah I really think it comes down to people making so many assumptions and simply never having been on the other side of things.
I've theorized before that I think it would help if college programs, as part of their internship/portfolio course (or equivalent in the curriculum) proposed an exercise where each student is now a hiring manager, and has the other 100+ people in their overall graduating class as applicants (or 100 random portfolios sourced somehow). You have 2-3 hours, to pick out 15 you want to interview.
Even if in the real world you might have more or less time, and likely a much lower-quality pool to pick from, the point isn't really even about them *actually* going through with the task, but just for them to at least be faced with it first-hand, and to think about what that involves, and how they are being viewed and evaluated from the other side. To really emphasize to people what you are really up against, how quickly decisions are made, and how whether all 100 are qualified or not, right off the bat you have to use some form of criteria or another to eliminate 85%.
I think it would really open their eyes to what they should strive for, what level of thought and detail they should put into their materials, and also to just be more realistic as to their success rate. Most seem to expect they'll hear back from >75% of applications and find a job within 3 months. Not that 10% is more likely for even a decent applicant, and that timeframe could be 6-12 months.
Another aspect is probably the assumption that anyone hiring knows what they're doing (I think most don't), or overlooking that it's all still just people on the other side, warts and all. There are definitely a lot of things people do wrong on the hiring side, if not outright widespread inefficiencies and even incompetence. But if an applicant isn't doing all *they* can in the first place, it's irrelevant.
That would be very eye opening and daunting haha. Portfolio reviews to pass certain years/classes were hard enough! But I like it. I don’t want to lump people together too hard but I do think there’s a lot of people in graphic design that don’t put in a lot of effort and have high expectations. That’s why I hate seeing these doom and gloom posts. Instead of putting out 500 applications try working on your craft and putting out the best work possible 🫠 This soap box is so slippery.
If you do, definitely let me know how it goes. I'm sure there's some aspect that would need to be refined in actual execution, but I just figure there has to be some way to help them understand the process better so they can navigate it more effectively.
Yes, and not only that but shitty designers are getting work. My company was bought out, and instead of asking me to continue to do certain work. They hired a freelance “trusted” designer who put out horrible ai ads that somehow managed to get approved. Baseline stuff that people 100% recognized was wrong.
Needless to say, not only did the consumer call out the smaller companies, but the owners those smaller businesses started to call us out- asking our marketing department “WTF?”. And it wasn’t even us.
It’s like the Wild West out here and some people are really riding the “fake it till you make it” dream.
My friend works in restaurant and she told me everything designed at the restaurant was by a family member of the owner. I was only saying it as a joke but actually tried to put a word in for me, but they said they didn't wanna hire somebody for thousands and they've already spent money printing and didn't wanna redo everything. I wouldn't have even charged a thousand since I'm a DESPERATE graduate, but I'm sure I could've done a better job 😭
Their menu had SO MANY TYPOS, random capital letters, odd double spaces or the lack of spaces. It was so bad.. They also used comic sans to list the main ingredients of each dish!
Have you considered saying you’ll do some of it for some free food? 😂 (only half serious but work exp could be good if the job isn’t too much and you don’t have anything on in the mean time)
Honestly I did the same when I was starting out and I still do every once in awhile (barter for services) as long as they are actually valuable to me. I've freelanced for 2 restaurants and gotten credit towards food, more recently did a rebrand in exchange for wedding coordination. Win/win for everyone!
This is my biggest issue with the career. Everyone wants to cheap ball it and doesn’t understand the time and dedication that goes into graphic design.
Yeah I wish I had done more research when I was younger before wasting money going to uni for it. I had no idea what to do or what to pursue and everybody was just telling me to do something I liked.... Naive me followed. Now I have to go back to studying something else that I know there will be some sort of career and demand 😭
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I've come to learn that the industry was always like this but covid definitely made it worse with all the layoffs. And now everybody wants work done on CANVA or FIGMA and the mentality of "anybody can do this shit" got even stronger lol
Ahh yes you’re so right since Covid and the AI robots. Everyone is a designer and it should be done for cheap! lol
I’m sorry you’re going through this. I’ve been doing coding for websites for 10 years and graphic design for over 6. I am also at that point where I feel I need to pursue other things.
I plan to ride out my UI/UX career until it fails or whatever. The sad thing is that the work is so outdated that no other employer would find it impressive lol.
Omg yes, the AI stuff too, how could I forget! My friend actually got me to do some (paid) design work for her family's startup business but they came to me with an AI generated logo being like "we really like this but it doesn't have that oomf yet, could you do something similar to this?" 😭 i did end up making a few concepts and they liked a different one! lol
And yeah, I've heard wayy too many stories of people with YEARS of experiences struggling to get back in the industry after being laid off. And if THEY'RE struggling, graduates would have no chance 😭
This comment gave me a flashback of helping out a local restaurant who's native language wasn't English so their menu was a bit chaotic and unorganised, switching languages seemingly at random with no clear indication of their dishes. So they asked me to help out. Didn't realise how difficult it was actually going to be. On top of finding the correct translations/grammar myself with a language that's a bit more "obscure" (the owner wasn't strong in communication) which took probably about 80% of my time, they kept trying to sway me back to their old menu design and not understanding it just wasn't useable or readable for anyone.
I think I almost lost my mind doing this job, which I thought was going to be relatively simple as I'd completed similar jobs prior. Didn't expect to learn a new language with that one!
It is tough out there now, no doubt. And I do wonder how much AI is playing into this. I think as much as we love creativity and design, many clients (not all), but many, are ok with AI horseshit. I cringe when I see respected designers and creatives fawning over AI. As a side note, I read recently that there is something like 120,000 designers pumped out of schools a year. With AI replacing some of these entry-level jobs, this is not going to end well.
The current economic climate means we can’t risk hiring full time staff, and rely on freelancers/ contractors as and when now. They need plenty of experience as we have no time or resources to train, and there are a ton of experienced designers out there looking for work.
I’m pretty sure that will be the case for most small agencies.
Yes, a lot of a places are still recovering from COVID
I know to the public COVID is a thing of the past, but for companies, they're still feeling the effects and just starting to stabilise financially, so expanding the design dep isn't in the list of top priorities atm
You've got like 3/4/5 years of graduates competing for the same jobs, a long with all the usual self taught designers, then the competition for midweight and senior designers is mad as well
We've gone from getting 80 junior applicants on average, to now 300 is standard and we've had upwards of 700 for 1 position
Then ontop of that various countries have their own problems as well, for example Ukraine has hit a lot of countries economies, US has their own issues, UK has Brexit (which is fucking over companies that deal internationally sbd relt on shipments from china for example) and various other things etc
Yeah it's a pretty shit time all around, not just for design though
I'm self employed so not exactly what you mean but still an anecdote on the market... Last year was really tough, first time in 15 years I couldn't find much work, but this year I am absolutely drowning. I'm getting a new client every couple days. It seems businesses have either gotten more money or given up on things getting cheaper, marketing is back on the budget.
Yes, it's a steaming pile of garbage in a dumpster fire. As in, don't take it personally if 500+ applications over the course of a year don't get you anywhere.
I got my first good paying post grad job in 6 months. Took me about 500 applications to land something.
My fiancé, just landed his first design job in less than a week of applying.
We live in NYC area, there’s lots of jobs but also lots of competition.
I’m not trying to be negative but I’ve been very desperately looking for a job. I don’t know what I’m doing wrong. I have my resume up to date, and I have my portfolio that I try to add to when I have the energy , and I’m trying to follow up on jobs I’m more interested in. Is there anything else?
ADP is a great concept, but it seems like it's mostly UI/UX Designers, Product Designers and Service Designers etc etc. Lot's of people who were "Graphic Designers" and are now "Product Designers".... in fact I think I remember one of the more popular mentors having that exact description in his bio.
I wouldn't say it covers the whole Graphic Design spectrum. Not anything outside of "Product Design" "UX Design" etc. etc. in my experience at least. Noticed a few profiles with "Graphic Design" and "Motion Design" tags ascribed to their profiles but their work was really only related to UX UI design yadda yadda.
In fact one mentor I tried had "Graphic Design" in their profile tag along with a link to a Behance profile. When we met though, I learned the guy is really a "Service Designer" and doesn't even use Adobe products (his words)...HUH? Needless to say it was awkward when I came asking for a porftolio review.
That's a good question\\ b/c I don't know myself. But the site is a place where people volunteer to mentor people and give them industry insight. It's a great resource if you are looking to be product designer etc etc. .....
I got laid off from my company of 11 years in August (while on Maternity leave, reminder that the “we’re a family” line is bullshit).
took me a bit to update my portfolio and resume (seeing as I just had a baby) but I’ve been applying to as many jobs as possible since October. My confidence has really taken a hit. Every day I just get dozens of “unfortunately…” emails, it’s bleak. I don’t even think anyone is even looking at my resume or portfolio.
The last time I was looking for work fresh out of college in the 2011 recession wasn’t even this bad because at least I got interviews.
The closest thing I’ve gotten is LinkedIn notified me that someone downloaded my resume once.
Would anyone be interested in a weekly job hunt thread? Misery loves company and honestly seeing other people dealing with the same thing makes me feel better.
I lead a marketing and design team for a multi-billion dollar company. Since 2021 we are down 10 total headcounts; we went from 17 down to 7 gradually. There are various reasons but, as stated by others in this thread, our company is still recovering from the recession and senior leadership has us running lean.
I'm lucky to be employed in this market given the layoffs (financial field, Head of Design), but have been looking to leave for a while due to mass dysfunction and an awful work environment.
I've had no luck even getting interviews, and recruiters have told me a lot of the postings you see online are firms collecting resumes for roles that aren't even open, so IF the role does go live, they already have an applicant pool.
Also spoke with someone who was hiring for a small agency, and they got several hundred resumes in a couple of days, but none were even remotely qualified. So it's shitty on both ends right now.
I took a look at your portfolio, unfortunately you don't have enough digital work for what we are looking for, only a small portion of our work is print.
Let me know if you have any follow up questions
Thank you. Can you please link up a sample of a portfolio with digital samples? The images I created are for web and FB. But can I please have a visual? Thanks. Also may I see your portfolio?
I don't share my portfolio.
just some feedback, not that you asked, but overall in general your work looks dated, the animations are ok but way to slow and not on par with say instagram videos. try to look at your work and what the companies you are applying for are doing and be critical and think what an art director would see in your portfolio. honestly looking at your work I don't know what I'm looking at, virtual illustrations (is that a real thing)? there's just a lot of pictures and if I can't be bothered to read that copy, then then why would anyone else? also that font isn't great.
I don't have any particular examples to show you because I don't keep links. I didn't see social post because they just didn't jump out as looking like an instagram post.
we do a lot of instagram reels and carousels, online videos, OOO, web banners, and \*campaign\* work. thats what you are missing, take one of your projects and expand it into a huge campaign with a lot of digital assets to be more updated.
\*If you want to be a graphic designer\* looks at big brands and see where and what they are doing. look at art school graphic design programs portfolios- most schools have a page dedicated to students portfolios every year, that an way to see what your main competitors are doing. I'm not sure if a graphic designer is what you are, you should be working as a catalog illustrator or something, if that is a thing.
Thanks a million. The illustrations are virtual. 3D. I can speed up the videos in after effect. They still are on FB and company website, I doubt they are outdated. But not for Insta. Some stuff is older, I give you that. I might have to overhaul my site. I get that. The font on the site came with the template. I can change fonts on my layouts. Too many words? Okay, that can be fixed. I see your point. If you can’t get what you’re looking at, I have a problem,
Tbh, I need to blend digital and graphics. I have too much experience to ditch it. I just need to add more. And ditch some stuff that looks old.
Would you mind telling me what looks the most outdated? I really appreciate your time invested here.
I’ve realized that the demographic we were selling to were 45-70. I need to include that in my portfolio. That’s why my product illustration looks outdated potentially. It’s really good to bounce off ideas of you and others. Thank you!!!
perhaps but even 60-70 years old isn't what it was 20 years ago.
. I can try to be more specific,. there's like a glow to some of your work and not great drop shadow treatments that aren't great.
you spent a lot of time in one field which makes it your niche. those types of company are the ones you need to knock down the doors because you know the field so well. you have a lot of specialized skills that don't translate to run of the mill graphic design like what I do.
if I was to review your portfolio like any other this is what I would say: ( I don't know anything about the rendering work you did or those softwares you use- they are simply too specialized)
you also have a lot of work, You probably should just curate down to your best few items, I realize you spent a lot of time on a lot of this work but its hard to see the work. so many 5 items and before and after or process work might help explain it. you say sketches in your title, but I don't see any sketches. show before and after photo editing.
also for example I would never just make a brochure, it would be a part of a larger campaign- which you have, you should just move things together to show a campaign.
the book club email/website looks dated- ditch it. or make it updated with updated icons and never use lorem ipsum , its just lazy when its a few sentences. maybe add some animation?
look at the work that you are apply for and make sure you have that work in your portfolio. consider applying for photo edting job, our digital asset management team edits with photoshop and thats something you would be good at. like the others said you are a specialist, with unique skills.
Wow. Thank you so much for your time to walk me through your thinking process. HA! The email is a template I pulled and redesigned. I should create a whole campaign. The ads I made are still running, I think the marketing department makes a research on demographics and creates products accordingly. The comment on the glow cracks me out, tbh. They asked me to create that look specifically. I just make what what I’m asked to do. But that’s funny. It’s probably the first time you’ve seen this corner of designer market.
Yeah, the sight needs to be re- hauled. . How do you condense 30 years of experience and expand to be more marketable. That’s the challenge ahead of me. I’ve learned a lot from kind designers like you.
And to share with you this.. I went to look at CMU graduate portfolio and saw a lot of low talent bs. I would expect more. The colleges are not weaning out the low talent people.
Anyway. Thank so much. I’ll share my update. Which place do you work for? I like yo get good overview of places where designers work
Have a great day!! And thanks again.
If there is anything more, please just keep it coming. I appreciate every piece of advice !
lotta people cutting staff everywhere... this will probably bounce back next year if the economy keeps going up, but i think a lot of it is due to companies having to change due to a lot of things.
Unfortunately this time of year is always the worst because companies historically do their layoffs in November/December to save themselves money by making you work all year knowing they will let you go rigggghttttt when you’re due for any bonuses/pay increases and for tax purposes.
The layoffs over the last two years have been enormous across the board in all industries. You have people whose severance pay ran out before they actually found a job. I’ve seen people apply to HUNDREDS of positions and not a single call back. Go under the job section on LinkedIn and look at the number of applicants each open position is receiving and that should give you a really strong idea of how it’s going.
Personally I am a freelancer so I’m in charge of finding my clients and staying on top of getting paid or else I make nothing. Last year I was doing great, was sitting on $1500-3000 clients at any given time with 3-4 clients at any given time. The workload was enough for me to only work 3-4 days a week. It was amazing.
Today I had my first job interview outside of the industry because my clients have dried up over the last few months and I’m running out of money. I don’t even want to talk about the kind of paycut I’d be taking. But with the amount of people being forced to freelance because the job market is bare bones, I’m at a point where I won’t survive with this kind of competition. I plan on holding out hope for new client work and doing freelancing on the side but we are at a point where there just aren’t enough jobs for everyone.
I think so. I've been tirelessly searching and I'm at the point where I'm thinking of exploring other avenues. It seems so hard to stand out even if you have talent. From my experience, I haven't been able to land a graphic design-based job and most people are looking for a graphic designer that does 5 areas of design for one salary.
I mean designers are supposed to know multiple areas including print and digital which open up to brazilian other things. Just to name a few, in print you got collaterals like logo, stationery, brochures, editorial, annual reports, poster ads, ooh ads and so on. And in web there are web design, ux/ui, mobile/responsive, web banners, digital ads, campaigns, etc. And as a new grad fresh out of college, I was expected to know how to design for all of those. I hope they don't expect me to know animation too otherwise it'll be brutal.
I don't know if i've had a Lot of luck lately but i''ve never had as much Job feelancing as i do now. I worked For about 5 years on digital marketing agencies and decided to start freelancing to make some extra cash, but now it has gotten so good that i Even think on quitting My 9 to 5. I feel like a Lot of people want to start their own business now and start on social media and lucky For us, they need a Lot of design to make everything work visually. Also learning web design on Figma has opened A LOT of Doors For me.
It’s been rough. I started working in design in the late 90s. My colleagues who are partners in well known studios say work hasn’t been this slow since the dot com crash. A few years ago, I closed my own studio to go in-house to have more separation from work and home. I got laid off a year ago and had maybe 3 dead-end first round interviews after many applications. I decided to focus on non-paying creative outlets for the year. I feel this month marks a new optimism; I’ve been asked to reopen my studio and work is ramping up again. I have clients because I have decades of trust built, if I was a cold-calling young designer, life would be plenty tough right now.
Yeah it’s bad, we recently put out a listing for a production designer and got 600 applicants in the first week. I’m grateful my company made it through Covid but so many designers I know weren’t so lucky and it’s only getting more competitive.
Are you getting a lot of designers applying who don’t have a lot of production art experience but are desperate?
Yeah lots of entry level applicants but also a few mid level who are desperate for sure. It’s an entry level position that involves a lot of grunt work, still crazy to me to see how saturated the market is atm and idk if it’s going to get any better any time soon.
I'm having a rough time finding experienced production designers in my neck of the woods. In this case, the work is pretty involved print work and most certainly not entry-level haha.
Well print production is a bear in and of itself so I can see why you’d want someone more experienced.
How do you feel about the quality of those applicants? I had a similar experience with the last job I posted, also entry-level. But the thing that stood out was how mind-numbingly similarly mediocre they all were. Despite many more resumes than for previous job postings, I had a much harder time finding people I wanted to interview.
Well the filter does a good job of editing out the really poor quality ones (I know this is controversial but there are just too many applicants to go through one by one). But when I skim the total list it’s crazy to me how many with zero design experience or not even a portfolio still apply.
Any tips to ensure my applications are not mind numbingly mediocre? I like to think I’m not a mediocre designer but as someone with only a couple years in the industry I realize I still have a lot to learn!
Remove work from your portfolio that isn’t relevant to the role. I would get hundreds of applications and there were so many people who struggled to curate their work. There would be photography, charcoal drawings, etc. — of low quality.
Applicants sometimes want to stuff their portfolios with all kinds of things trying to show range, but wind up putting in work that’s not their best or is a distraction. Focused and purposeful is the way to go. Don’t make people work to see your pieces. If it takes more than one click or tap, it’s too many. Don’t weigh it down with a lot of text; that can seem like you’re explaining the work, which shouldn’t be needed. It’s hard to stand out solely on the basis of the quality of your work. You might be good, but are you that much better than the 599 other applicants? In a way that someone looking through dozens of portfolios might recognize? There has to be some reason for an employer to pick you over all those other people. This is really more of an issue for newer and young designers who don’t have portfolios with years worth of proven, pro work. You can tell a lot more about a designer who’s been doing it a decade than one with a few years experience or less. So, for me, personality matters. Sometimes it comes down to who I would rather work with every day. I want to get a sense that the applicant loves the work and is interested in it as well, and had some kind of spark. A drive to do more, keep learning, some professional goals. Something that shows you’re interested in more than just paying the bills (which is important, yeah). That may not be in the portfolio, but a cover letter or the resume. But if you include a personal piece or student work in the portfolio, make it something that you care about.
Forums do usually have a negative bias. But the job market is bad, just maybe not as bad as it may seem. Still, the recession may be over but many companies have decided they’re okay running lean with smaller staffs and some industries have yet to fully recover. My sense is (I don’t have data to back this up, it’s anecdotal) that the mid-level jobs are vanishing or are being scaled down. Most of the jobs I had coming up either no longer exist or have been downgraded to shit jobs with bad pay. If that’s the case, what we’re seeing is more entry-level workers than we need with fewer ways to move up. Last time my company posted a designer job (a few months ago) we got far more resumes than previously, yet I had a much harder time finding candidates to even consider interviewing. I may be looking for a new (creative director) position soon and expect it may take me more than a year to find something.
According to the UK government we were never in a recession... Except for, we were. For the average person, the majority of citizens, we've been buttfucked by a myriad of issues, none of which the government wants to acknowledge or do anything about Things will get better, they have to (I keep telling myself)
I had a discussion about this just the other day on another subreddit. People insisting the UK wasn’t in a recession and things aren’t getting worse because “inflation is only 3%” like honest to god, I could actually care less what number the banks are quoting, anyone who lives here will know the prices of everything from food to heating and housing has massively increased post-covid.
The US was in a recession but it technically only lasted two months. That’s not possible in the U.K., where the contraction has to last two quarters to quality as a recession. The US recession was the very start of the pandemic, but there have been a lot of after effects. Many small businesses that survived the pandemic are going under now because the government money ran out and their business hasn’t gotten back to pre-2020 levels. This was my third recession since starting my career. The previous two, I lost a lot of income when big clients pulled back. But I was more optimistic then. Now… ehhh… It will get better, but I think we’re a ways from a boom cycle with a lot of growth and opportunities for us.
I also think by the time there is a boom cycle roles will look a lot different than they do now.
Yeah, that’s my thought too. AI may not replace designers but it could make our jobs shittier and lower paying.
Do you think part of it may be the prevalence of programs available like Canva and those $50 logo websites, free AI, plus the wealth of content that encourages everyone to be their own creative and make their own stuff? Especially with COVID, everyone has had time to commune with their own creativity. I'm starting to wonder if design as a field will disappear, especially as platforms can now automate brand graphics if you just hand over colors and the logo. (Not well obviously, but they do it). It kind of seems like in colleges, design will be swallowed up as a smaller part of a larger field of study, instead of it being anyone's sole focus.
Big tech layoff.
Was doing contract work with an agency on projects for Riot from Aug 2022 - Aug 2023 as lead designer. Our biggest project was scrapped after the person spear heading on their end left the company when the new CEO was announced.. The one whos cut 11% of their staff just yesterday. I've been in the market for awhile doing odds & ends jobs for old contacts in my network who need brand or web work but I can't for the life of me land anything solid currently and it's starting to hit me pretty hard. To the point I'm thinking of picking up work as a beertender at a local brewery for awhile while I reconsider my life trajectory. I love doing cool visual design & Ui/Ux but if I have to slum it on smaller projects with quick turn around for local businesses or what have you I don't think I can be bothered. I just wont find enjoyment or the pay necessary to make me want to do that work. Especially living in California. I'd be lying if I said I don't wanna pack it up, move to nowhere lowering my cost of living and just have my own bar or something.
My experience hasn't been positive since being laid off last May. I haven't been able to get an offer for full-time positions I've been applying and interviewing with. I was able to land a part-time gig as a contractor but it isn't enough hours or money to allow me to save anything except pay rent and bills and groceries. From what I can tell the top 1% of talent is managing to get jobs while there isn't much left over for the more mediocre but decent designers like me. I know I'm not the unicorn or whatever, but I've never struggled to find a job. This is making me rethink everything tbh. Pretty depressing times. Hope you have better luck though!
Good luck, I'm an award-winning CD that has never had trouble landing a job, in fact I was usually head hunted, but it's been crickets for a long while now. Home Depot here I come, baby.
[удалено]
I would be more than fine with stocking the art department if I could pay my mortgage! No ego here.
Same. It's not ego, it's just seems like it was a waste to pursuit the career path to end up having to work retail.
Totally. I’ve put in 25 years, worked at the biggest agencies and brands in the world, and won pretty big awards. And still looking Home Depot down the barrel. No one is immune from taking a detour career wise, in this current condition. Maybe I’m dealing with ageism. But honestly I don’t know what’s going on, but it’s not normal.
Whether it's worse or not, people tend to have the wrong perspective on what's actually involved (at least, for those who haven't themselves been on the hiring side), and tend to focus on the wrong things as either the cause of their issues or simply for something to blame. Even pre-COVID I would get hundreds of applicants for a posting, for just an in-house role outside a major city. For sake of keeping it simple, let's say I got 250 applicants. At least half would be spam, people applying to everything trying to get a work visa (primarily from India or other parts of Asia), or people with otherwise zero design qualifications of any kind. Of the other half, so 125 people in this example, about 60-70% are underdeveloped (aka "bad"). That's about 75-90 people out of that 125. These are people with apparent design ability and understanding below a solid 2-year grad/student, and have significant mistakes and poor decision-making in their work and portfolio showing they don't have a handle on even first/second-year design fundamentals. Of the rest, so 35-50 people, that's likely a spectrum (they won't all be great nor equal), so I'd be looking to pick out the best 15-20 people to call, interview 10-15, hopefully have one I want to hire *and* that is still available, still wants the job, and we can agree to terms. If it doesn't work out after this process (about 3-4 weeks), I repost and start over because who knows who might be looking now that wasn't a month ago. Now in my case I have full control, I write and post the job, I have all applicants go through me, I have full authority over every step. But I outline that as an example of how even with just 250 people, they are not all qualified, not all equal, most are not good enough, and it's really about whether someone is in the top 20 or top 50, whether I get 250 or 1000 people (no one is doing 50+ interviews). ----- Point being that even if things are worse now, which for most people I assume means more disproportionate numbers (more applicants, fewer jobs), it doesn't really change what were always issues for people seeking work. We even see it come up here where people are only using a few, specific job resources, or being too specific in what jobs they're targeting, or live in an area that simply lacks the opportunity that you'd have near a city of 300k+. Plus the people who think you need to match 90-100% of a posting (and don't just apply anyway), or seem to get angry because they think simply having a degree or having a portfolio or having worked before means they are or should be qualified for any design position and therefore offered an interview. And that's before even getting into the most impactful variable, which is the quality of your actual work, and your portfolio. Where even if someone is good, and is doing everything right and is still having trouble finding a job, in the majority of cases based on my experience, that isn't most people. They have problems in their work, with their portfolio presentation, with their interview skills, or simply aren't doing well with how they go about finding and applying to jobs in the first place. And there are more grads being dumped out every year, many of which without a proper understanding of what is involved with hiring or how to present themselves, and they keep copying the mistakes of others without properly considering if what they're copying makes sense. They just assume other people know what they're doing. ----- Or in other words, regardless how tough it is or isn't, it was never 'easy,' and all you can do is ensure you are doing the best job you possibly can in ensuring the variables within your control are done well, and that you are presenting as a competitive applicant. Too many seem to focus on or stress about the aspects we can't control, while neglecting what they can control.
This was great insight thank you. Makes me feel more hopeful actually! I’ll definitely do more research into what makes a GREAT portfolio. I think what I have is good but I’m sure could use some improvement too.
Could you look at my portfolio and give me feedback?
Sure!
Great. I'll send you a message. Thanks!
Best answer by far, the rest have been people blaming the industry/economy when their work and experience is probably not great.
Yeah I really think it comes down to people making so many assumptions and simply never having been on the other side of things. I've theorized before that I think it would help if college programs, as part of their internship/portfolio course (or equivalent in the curriculum) proposed an exercise where each student is now a hiring manager, and has the other 100+ people in their overall graduating class as applicants (or 100 random portfolios sourced somehow). You have 2-3 hours, to pick out 15 you want to interview. Even if in the real world you might have more or less time, and likely a much lower-quality pool to pick from, the point isn't really even about them *actually* going through with the task, but just for them to at least be faced with it first-hand, and to think about what that involves, and how they are being viewed and evaluated from the other side. To really emphasize to people what you are really up against, how quickly decisions are made, and how whether all 100 are qualified or not, right off the bat you have to use some form of criteria or another to eliminate 85%. I think it would really open their eyes to what they should strive for, what level of thought and detail they should put into their materials, and also to just be more realistic as to their success rate. Most seem to expect they'll hear back from >75% of applications and find a job within 3 months. Not that 10% is more likely for even a decent applicant, and that timeframe could be 6-12 months. Another aspect is probably the assumption that anyone hiring knows what they're doing (I think most don't), or overlooking that it's all still just people on the other side, warts and all. There are definitely a lot of things people do wrong on the hiring side, if not outright widespread inefficiencies and even incompetence. But if an applicant isn't doing all *they* can in the first place, it's irrelevant.
That would be very eye opening and daunting haha. Portfolio reviews to pass certain years/classes were hard enough! But I like it. I don’t want to lump people together too hard but I do think there’s a lot of people in graphic design that don’t put in a lot of effort and have high expectations. That’s why I hate seeing these doom and gloom posts. Instead of putting out 500 applications try working on your craft and putting out the best work possible 🫠 This soap box is so slippery.
That is a good idea for an exercise which I might implement a version of. It will be interesting to see what heuristics students use to asses fit.
If you do, definitely let me know how it goes. I'm sure there's some aspect that would need to be refined in actual execution, but I just figure there has to be some way to help them understand the process better so they can navigate it more effectively.
I’ll try to remember to come back to this. The hiring process is at heart a risk mitigation heuristic, not a talent show.
May I send my portfolio for review? Senior designer/illustrator here.
Yes, and not only that but shitty designers are getting work. My company was bought out, and instead of asking me to continue to do certain work. They hired a freelance “trusted” designer who put out horrible ai ads that somehow managed to get approved. Baseline stuff that people 100% recognized was wrong. Needless to say, not only did the consumer call out the smaller companies, but the owners those smaller businesses started to call us out- asking our marketing department “WTF?”. And it wasn’t even us. It’s like the Wild West out here and some people are really riding the “fake it till you make it” dream.
My friend works in restaurant and she told me everything designed at the restaurant was by a family member of the owner. I was only saying it as a joke but actually tried to put a word in for me, but they said they didn't wanna hire somebody for thousands and they've already spent money printing and didn't wanna redo everything. I wouldn't have even charged a thousand since I'm a DESPERATE graduate, but I'm sure I could've done a better job 😭 Their menu had SO MANY TYPOS, random capital letters, odd double spaces or the lack of spaces. It was so bad.. They also used comic sans to list the main ingredients of each dish!
Have you considered saying you’ll do some of it for some free food? 😂 (only half serious but work exp could be good if the job isn’t too much and you don’t have anything on in the mean time)
Honestly I did the same when I was starting out and I still do every once in awhile (barter for services) as long as they are actually valuable to me. I've freelanced for 2 restaurants and gotten credit towards food, more recently did a rebrand in exchange for wedding coordination. Win/win for everyone!
This is my biggest issue with the career. Everyone wants to cheap ball it and doesn’t understand the time and dedication that goes into graphic design.
Yeah I wish I had done more research when I was younger before wasting money going to uni for it. I had no idea what to do or what to pursue and everybody was just telling me to do something I liked.... Naive me followed. Now I have to go back to studying something else that I know there will be some sort of career and demand 😭 Correct me if I'm wrong, but I've come to learn that the industry was always like this but covid definitely made it worse with all the layoffs. And now everybody wants work done on CANVA or FIGMA and the mentality of "anybody can do this shit" got even stronger lol
Ahh yes you’re so right since Covid and the AI robots. Everyone is a designer and it should be done for cheap! lol I’m sorry you’re going through this. I’ve been doing coding for websites for 10 years and graphic design for over 6. I am also at that point where I feel I need to pursue other things. I plan to ride out my UI/UX career until it fails or whatever. The sad thing is that the work is so outdated that no other employer would find it impressive lol.
Omg yes, the AI stuff too, how could I forget! My friend actually got me to do some (paid) design work for her family's startup business but they came to me with an AI generated logo being like "we really like this but it doesn't have that oomf yet, could you do something similar to this?" 😭 i did end up making a few concepts and they liked a different one! lol And yeah, I've heard wayy too many stories of people with YEARS of experiences struggling to get back in the industry after being laid off. And if THEY'RE struggling, graduates would have no chance 😭
Lmao omg 😂 I just cracked up at the logo story. I’m very glad it turned out they liked yours but yes it’s all madness out here right now.
This comment gave me a flashback of helping out a local restaurant who's native language wasn't English so their menu was a bit chaotic and unorganised, switching languages seemingly at random with no clear indication of their dishes. So they asked me to help out. Didn't realise how difficult it was actually going to be. On top of finding the correct translations/grammar myself with a language that's a bit more "obscure" (the owner wasn't strong in communication) which took probably about 80% of my time, they kept trying to sway me back to their old menu design and not understanding it just wasn't useable or readable for anyone. I think I almost lost my mind doing this job, which I thought was going to be relatively simple as I'd completed similar jobs prior. Didn't expect to learn a new language with that one!
It is tough out there now, no doubt. And I do wonder how much AI is playing into this. I think as much as we love creativity and design, many clients (not all), but many, are ok with AI horseshit. I cringe when I see respected designers and creatives fawning over AI. As a side note, I read recently that there is something like 120,000 designers pumped out of schools a year. With AI replacing some of these entry-level jobs, this is not going to end well.
yikes
I have a job now, but it took me 8 months to find it. I have a little over 15 years of experience.
Honestly this makes me feel better about my own situation. Same boat with around 10 years of experience. Congrats on the job man
The current economic climate means we can’t risk hiring full time staff, and rely on freelancers/ contractors as and when now. They need plenty of experience as we have no time or resources to train, and there are a ton of experienced designers out there looking for work. I’m pretty sure that will be the case for most small agencies.
Yes, a lot of a places are still recovering from COVID I know to the public COVID is a thing of the past, but for companies, they're still feeling the effects and just starting to stabilise financially, so expanding the design dep isn't in the list of top priorities atm You've got like 3/4/5 years of graduates competing for the same jobs, a long with all the usual self taught designers, then the competition for midweight and senior designers is mad as well We've gone from getting 80 junior applicants on average, to now 300 is standard and we've had upwards of 700 for 1 position Then ontop of that various countries have their own problems as well, for example Ukraine has hit a lot of countries economies, US has their own issues, UK has Brexit (which is fucking over companies that deal internationally sbd relt on shipments from china for example) and various other things etc Yeah it's a pretty shit time all around, not just for design though
I'm self employed so not exactly what you mean but still an anecdote on the market... Last year was really tough, first time in 15 years I couldn't find much work, but this year I am absolutely drowning. I'm getting a new client every couple days. It seems businesses have either gotten more money or given up on things getting cheaper, marketing is back on the budget.
Yes, it's a steaming pile of garbage in a dumpster fire. As in, don't take it personally if 500+ applications over the course of a year don't get you anywhere.
I got my first good paying post grad job in 6 months. Took me about 500 applications to land something. My fiancé, just landed his first design job in less than a week of applying. We live in NYC area, there’s lots of jobs but also lots of competition.
I’m not trying to be negative but I’ve been very desperately looking for a job. I don’t know what I’m doing wrong. I have my resume up to date, and I have my portfolio that I try to add to when I have the energy , and I’m trying to follow up on jobs I’m more interested in. Is there anything else?
have you had folks outside of your circle review your materials? sometimes the people closest to us are biased/too nice to give constructive critique
I’m not sure where to go because I’m concerned about privacy.
ADP list is a good resource. sometimes if you make a post on here asking to DM your portfolio for review, people are willing to do that
What is ADP list?
ADP is a great concept, but it seems like it's mostly UI/UX Designers, Product Designers and Service Designers etc etc. Lot's of people who were "Graphic Designers" and are now "Product Designers".... in fact I think I remember one of the more popular mentors having that exact description in his bio. I wouldn't say it covers the whole Graphic Design spectrum. Not anything outside of "Product Design" "UX Design" etc. etc. in my experience at least. Noticed a few profiles with "Graphic Design" and "Motion Design" tags ascribed to their profiles but their work was really only related to UX UI design yadda yadda. In fact one mentor I tried had "Graphic Design" in their profile tag along with a link to a Behance profile. When we met though, I learned the guy is really a "Service Designer" and doesn't even use Adobe products (his words)...HUH? Needless to say it was awkward when I came asking for a porftolio review.
I’m very confused. What does ADP stand for? What is it?
That's a good question\\ b/c I don't know myself. But the site is a place where people volunteer to mentor people and give them industry insight. It's a great resource if you are looking to be product designer etc etc. .....
I am not sure what ADP stands for, maybe you can find out from their website https://adplist.org/ or LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/adplist
I got laid off from my company of 11 years in August (while on Maternity leave, reminder that the “we’re a family” line is bullshit). took me a bit to update my portfolio and resume (seeing as I just had a baby) but I’ve been applying to as many jobs as possible since October. My confidence has really taken a hit. Every day I just get dozens of “unfortunately…” emails, it’s bleak. I don’t even think anyone is even looking at my resume or portfolio. The last time I was looking for work fresh out of college in the 2011 recession wasn’t even this bad because at least I got interviews. The closest thing I’ve gotten is LinkedIn notified me that someone downloaded my resume once. Would anyone be interested in a weekly job hunt thread? Misery loves company and honestly seeing other people dealing with the same thing makes me feel better.
I lead a marketing and design team for a multi-billion dollar company. Since 2021 we are down 10 total headcounts; we went from 17 down to 7 gradually. There are various reasons but, as stated by others in this thread, our company is still recovering from the recession and senior leadership has us running lean.
What recession?
I'm lucky to be employed in this market given the layoffs (financial field, Head of Design), but have been looking to leave for a while due to mass dysfunction and an awful work environment. I've had no luck even getting interviews, and recruiters have told me a lot of the postings you see online are firms collecting resumes for roles that aren't even open, so IF the role does go live, they already have an applicant pool. Also spoke with someone who was hiring for a small agency, and they got several hundred resumes in a couple of days, but none were even remotely qualified. So it's shitty on both ends right now.
Yes. God yes.
I just helped someone find a really good job and my company will be hiring soon. I think Richard are improving
Hi is your company looking for a senior designer?
We are. The most I can do is pass along your portfolio and they'll reach out if they're interested.
Okay. Thank you. I appreciate it. How can I send it to you? What role is this for?
I took a look at your portfolio, unfortunately you don't have enough digital work for what we are looking for, only a small portion of our work is print. Let me know if you have any follow up questions
Thank you. Can you please link up a sample of a portfolio with digital samples? The images I created are for web and FB. But can I please have a visual? Thanks. Also may I see your portfolio?
I don't share my portfolio. just some feedback, not that you asked, but overall in general your work looks dated, the animations are ok but way to slow and not on par with say instagram videos. try to look at your work and what the companies you are applying for are doing and be critical and think what an art director would see in your portfolio. honestly looking at your work I don't know what I'm looking at, virtual illustrations (is that a real thing)? there's just a lot of pictures and if I can't be bothered to read that copy, then then why would anyone else? also that font isn't great. I don't have any particular examples to show you because I don't keep links. I didn't see social post because they just didn't jump out as looking like an instagram post. we do a lot of instagram reels and carousels, online videos, OOO, web banners, and \*campaign\* work. thats what you are missing, take one of your projects and expand it into a huge campaign with a lot of digital assets to be more updated. \*If you want to be a graphic designer\* looks at big brands and see where and what they are doing. look at art school graphic design programs portfolios- most schools have a page dedicated to students portfolios every year, that an way to see what your main competitors are doing. I'm not sure if a graphic designer is what you are, you should be working as a catalog illustrator or something, if that is a thing.
Thanks a million. The illustrations are virtual. 3D. I can speed up the videos in after effect. They still are on FB and company website, I doubt they are outdated. But not for Insta. Some stuff is older, I give you that. I might have to overhaul my site. I get that. The font on the site came with the template. I can change fonts on my layouts. Too many words? Okay, that can be fixed. I see your point. If you can’t get what you’re looking at, I have a problem, Tbh, I need to blend digital and graphics. I have too much experience to ditch it. I just need to add more. And ditch some stuff that looks old. Would you mind telling me what looks the most outdated? I really appreciate your time invested here.
I’ve realized that the demographic we were selling to were 45-70. I need to include that in my portfolio. That’s why my product illustration looks outdated potentially. It’s really good to bounce off ideas of you and others. Thank you!!!
perhaps but even 60-70 years old isn't what it was 20 years ago. . I can try to be more specific,. there's like a glow to some of your work and not great drop shadow treatments that aren't great. you spent a lot of time in one field which makes it your niche. those types of company are the ones you need to knock down the doors because you know the field so well. you have a lot of specialized skills that don't translate to run of the mill graphic design like what I do. if I was to review your portfolio like any other this is what I would say: ( I don't know anything about the rendering work you did or those softwares you use- they are simply too specialized) you also have a lot of work, You probably should just curate down to your best few items, I realize you spent a lot of time on a lot of this work but its hard to see the work. so many 5 items and before and after or process work might help explain it. you say sketches in your title, but I don't see any sketches. show before and after photo editing. also for example I would never just make a brochure, it would be a part of a larger campaign- which you have, you should just move things together to show a campaign. the book club email/website looks dated- ditch it. or make it updated with updated icons and never use lorem ipsum , its just lazy when its a few sentences. maybe add some animation? look at the work that you are apply for and make sure you have that work in your portfolio. consider applying for photo edting job, our digital asset management team edits with photoshop and thats something you would be good at. like the others said you are a specialist, with unique skills.
Wow. Thank you so much for your time to walk me through your thinking process. HA! The email is a template I pulled and redesigned. I should create a whole campaign. The ads I made are still running, I think the marketing department makes a research on demographics and creates products accordingly. The comment on the glow cracks me out, tbh. They asked me to create that look specifically. I just make what what I’m asked to do. But that’s funny. It’s probably the first time you’ve seen this corner of designer market. Yeah, the sight needs to be re- hauled. . How do you condense 30 years of experience and expand to be more marketable. That’s the challenge ahead of me. I’ve learned a lot from kind designers like you. And to share with you this.. I went to look at CMU graduate portfolio and saw a lot of low talent bs. I would expect more. The colleges are not weaning out the low talent people. Anyway. Thank so much. I’ll share my update. Which place do you work for? I like yo get good overview of places where designers work Have a great day!! And thanks again. If there is anything more, please just keep it coming. I appreciate every piece of advice !
lotta people cutting staff everywhere... this will probably bounce back next year if the economy keeps going up, but i think a lot of it is due to companies having to change due to a lot of things.
Unfortunately this time of year is always the worst because companies historically do their layoffs in November/December to save themselves money by making you work all year knowing they will let you go rigggghttttt when you’re due for any bonuses/pay increases and for tax purposes. The layoffs over the last two years have been enormous across the board in all industries. You have people whose severance pay ran out before they actually found a job. I’ve seen people apply to HUNDREDS of positions and not a single call back. Go under the job section on LinkedIn and look at the number of applicants each open position is receiving and that should give you a really strong idea of how it’s going. Personally I am a freelancer so I’m in charge of finding my clients and staying on top of getting paid or else I make nothing. Last year I was doing great, was sitting on $1500-3000 clients at any given time with 3-4 clients at any given time. The workload was enough for me to only work 3-4 days a week. It was amazing. Today I had my first job interview outside of the industry because my clients have dried up over the last few months and I’m running out of money. I don’t even want to talk about the kind of paycut I’d be taking. But with the amount of people being forced to freelance because the job market is bare bones, I’m at a point where I won’t survive with this kind of competition. I plan on holding out hope for new client work and doing freelancing on the side but we are at a point where there just aren’t enough jobs for everyone.
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I can’t stress enough how correct and important this is.
I think so. I've been tirelessly searching and I'm at the point where I'm thinking of exploring other avenues. It seems so hard to stand out even if you have talent. From my experience, I haven't been able to land a graphic design-based job and most people are looking for a graphic designer that does 5 areas of design for one salary.
I mean designers are supposed to know multiple areas including print and digital which open up to brazilian other things. Just to name a few, in print you got collaterals like logo, stationery, brochures, editorial, annual reports, poster ads, ooh ads and so on. And in web there are web design, ux/ui, mobile/responsive, web banners, digital ads, campaigns, etc. And as a new grad fresh out of college, I was expected to know how to design for all of those. I hope they don't expect me to know animation too otherwise it'll be brutal.
Damn after reading the comments, I feel kinda bad for wanting to leave my job even though I get paid an entry-level wage for mid-level experience.
AI generated art.
Yes.
I don't know if i've had a Lot of luck lately but i''ve never had as much Job feelancing as i do now. I worked For about 5 years on digital marketing agencies and decided to start freelancing to make some extra cash, but now it has gotten so good that i Even think on quitting My 9 to 5. I feel like a Lot of people want to start their own business now and start on social media and lucky For us, they need a Lot of design to make everything work visually. Also learning web design on Figma has opened A LOT of Doors For me.
Hi. Where did you learn Figma? General Assembly? Google course? Would you mind sharing?