r/Design

Oii, iniciei os estudos em Design Gráfico faz pouco tempo e gostaria de saber dicas que realmente funcionam para conseguir ingressar na área. Não estou procurando respostas genéricas como "faça faculdade/ cursos". Quero saber quais cursos, experiências, habilidades ou estratégias ajudaram vocês.

Tenho notado recentemente que muitas vagas exigem muito do designer e oferecem pouca remuneração, existe alguma forma de fugir disso? O que vocês fizeram para ganhar bem na profissão e oque fariam de diferente se estivesse começando agora?

Se puderem compartilhar experiência de vocês para alguém que está começando a vida agora, ficarei imensamente grato :)

Took a $20k pay cut for a necessary career pivot in my mid 30s and am trying to survive making only $55k in a HCOL west coast city.

I was a Senior Design Manager in the non-profit sector for 4 years, designing accessible healthcare communications materials for a national org in DC for $75k. Total of 10 years experience in Graphic Design. Couldn’t find Art Director or Creative Director positions in non-profit.

Now I’m at a small but influential niche lifestyle brand starting out as a Product Development Associate making $55k. It’s just me and my Creative Director, who makes $100k, in this department. I also do some graphic design for the marketing department and the storefront.

I have some merchandising and industrial design experience, so my product development work is going well. What milestones should I be aspiring to achieve in Product Design to prove myself and work back up to earning at least $75k? Without going back to school for another design degree.

There is a specific feeling I get when I pick up something like a classic Braun alarm clock or an old Penguin paperback and think, this is finished. Not outdated, not retro for the sake of it, just genuinely solved. The proportions, the material choices, the way it communicates its function without any extra noise.

I have been thinking about this a lot lately because so many redesigns of iconic everyday objects seem to chase newness rather than improvement. The original designers hit some kind of ceiling where adding or removing anything would make it worse, and yet brands keep revisiting them anyway.

What strikes me is that this does not seem limited to expensive or prestigious things. Sometimes it is a cheap kitchen tool or a municipal street sign that achieves this same sense of quiet completeness.

I am curious what objects you would put in this category. What makes something feel truly finished to you, as a designer or just someone who pays close attention? Is it purely functional clarity, or is there something harder to name at work? And do you think that ceiling is visible to the designer when they reach it, or only obvious in hindsight?

Would love to hear specific examples if you have them.

I always assumed designing was the hard part.

Turns out writing proposals is what eats my time.

Do you have a template?

Do you redesign every proposal?

How long does one usually take?

Ran my own design studio for a bit now. Deliberately picked charity and social enterprise clients because I wanted work that meant something, not just billable hours. Built a whole positioning around it. Turned people away who didn’t fit etc.

Lately I sit down to start a brief and just… nothing. Not the “ugh Mondays” nothing, more like the thing that used to make me want to open Figma at 11pm just isn’t there anymore. I still deliver and clients are happy. I just feel like I’m performing being a designer rather than being one.

Not sure if this is burnout, or if I’ve actually just changed and design isn’t it anymore, or if it’s circumstantial (been under a lot of pressure outside of work too, which probably isn’t helping separate the signal from the noise).

Anyone been here and come out the other side? Did you take a break, change what you worked on, or just… stop? Trying to figure out if this is a season or an ending.

i made these little troll shirt designs. anybody feeling it or too much?

https://preview.redd.it/ocx7sk2kyebh1.png?width=870&format=png&auto=webp&s=9fa9c241fa0ebe0ce2a54b7c18631926d468f7e2

https://preview.redd.it/3dkdumkkyebh1.png?width=858&format=png&auto=webp&s=0ac7e9960df0d3509d93a86bc24cdd33eea76a73

im starting my major in visual com this year but my family keeps worrying about ai and if its a safe carrer choice and its starting to make me a little scared. If you could not only give me your ideas but for those that took the same degree tell me how your doing and if you regret it.

Been thinking about this a lot lately after picking up a ceramic mug at a thrift store. Nothing special about it on paper, but every time I hold it the proportions just feel right. The handle, the height, the lip thickness. It all clicks in a way that most mugs from big retailers never do.

Compare that to something mass produced where you can tell decisions were made by committee or costcutting rather than any real consideration of how the object lives in your hand or on a table.

I started paying more attention to everyday objects through this lens and it's kind of ruining me in the best way. A wellproportioned chair. A door handle at exactly the right height. A light switch plate that doesn't fight the wall around it.

There seems to be a real difference between objects designed with an almost intuitive sense of scale versus ones that are technically functional but feel slightly wrong without you being able to pinpoint why.

Curious whether others notice this in their daily lives. Is it mostly about golden ratio type rules being applied, or is it something harder to define, more like a designer just having a strong feel for how a thing will exist in the real world? Would love specific examples if you have them.

I have been obsessing over this lately. I took the same layout, same spacing, same color palette, same everything, and just swapped the typeface. The shift in feeling was immediate and honestly kind of unsettling in a good way.

A condensed grotesque made the piece feel urgent and almost aggressive. A geometric sans made it feel clinical and modern. A transitional serif made it feel trustworthy and a little old money. Nothing else changed. Same hierarchy, same grid, same proportions.

It made me realize how much invisible work typography is doing before the reader even processes a single word. The letterforms are communicating mood before language kicks in.

I tried this with Helvetica too after reading an old thread here and it sort of flattened everything into this neutral confidence that is hard to describe. Like the design stopped having a point of view.

Curious how other people think about this. Do you consciously pick a typeface to set emotional tone first, or do you start with the content and let the message guide the choice? And has anyone had a moment where the wrong typeface completely killed a layout that was otherwise working perfectly?

Would love to see examples if anyone wants to share. This feels like one of those fundamentals that is easy to underestimate until you really isolate it.

Hi everyone,

I'm currently studying architecture, but I've realized I'm much more interested in design for digital marketing. I'd like to study design after finishing my current degree, but I have no idea which field of design is the right fit for me.

What fascinates me isn't just making things look good. It's how design influences people's decisions, emotions, and whether they'll actually click, engage, or buy something.

I enjoy branding, ad creatives and I'm currently learning web design.

The problem is that I don't know what this career path is actually called. Is it graphic design, marketing design, brand design, UI/UX, or something else?

If you work in this field, what roles do you think I should explore, and what skills would you recommend focusing on?

Thanks in advance!

Maybe that's not what they're called, if so my apologies. Let's say you have a logo for a coffee shop, I'm talking about texture pattern in the cup or coffee bag, paper bag or kraft. How should I approach it?

Hi everyone,

I'm a 20-year-old graphic design student, and I've been learning graphic design for about a year now. During this time, I've become comfortable with the basics of Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, and CorelDRAW. I understand the tools and can recreate designs, but now I feel like I've hit a wall.

My biggest question is:

What should I design next?

I don't want to spend all my time watching tutorials anymore. I want to create real projects that improve my skills and help me build a strong portfolio, but I'm not sure where to start or how professionals continue improving after learning the software.

Some things I'm struggling with:

1. How do you practice graphic design once you've learned the basics?

2. What kinds of projects helped you improve the fastest?

3. How do you come up with design ideas instead of copying tutorials?

4. What should a beginner portfolio include if I want to apply for internships or junior graphic design jobs?

5. Are there any daily or weekly exercises that made a big difference in your growth?

6. What skills separate an average designer from a great one?

I'm interested in areas like branding, posters, social media design, packaging, magazines, photo manipulation, retouching, and digital illustration, but I don't know how to structure my learning from here.

I'd really appreciate advice from designers who have been through this stage. If you could go back to your first year of learning, what would you focus on?

Thanks in advance!