r/GraphicDesigning

Hello everyone!

I recently graduated with a degree in Digital Production. Throughout high school and university I did a lot of graphic design, so I have experience with Illustrator, Photoshop, and After Effects (mostly for motion graphics and video).

The problem is that I'm not sure what direction to take anymore.

With AI changing the industry, it feels like many entry-level design jobs have become much harder to find. I still see plenty of design job listings, but most of them seem to be from digital marketing agencies, and it made me wonder if that's what the industry is now. It also made me question whether I even enjoy design itself, or if I just enjoyed creating things during university.

I'd love to hear from people who are actually working as designers.

- What kind of design job do you have?

- What does a typical day look like?

- Do you enjoy your work?

- If you were starting over today, what would you focus on?

- Is it better to specialize (branding, UI/UX, motion, packaging, etc.) or have a broader portfolio?

- What skills or software are companies looking for the most these days?

- What makes a junior designer stand out when applying for jobs?

At the moment, my strongest skills are Illustrator, Photoshop, and After Effects, but I'm willing to learn whatever would make me more employable.

I'd really appreciate any advice or personal experiences. Thanks!

I’m trying to improve my portfolio and would really appreciate honest, specific feedback.
Please don’t just say it “looks junior” or “isn’t good.” I’d love to know why you feel that way. What specifically is holding it back?
Some things I’m especially interested in:
Which projects are strongest and weakest?
Does the presentation feel professional?
What would you remove or completely rework?
If you were hiring for a junior designer, what would make you hesitate?
Some projects were created entirely by me, while others were developed with AI as part of my workflow. I’m mainly looking for feedback on the quality of the final work, the concepts, and the presentation.
I’ll put my portfolio in the comments to avoid Reddit’s spam filter.
Thanks in advance—I genuinely want constructive criticism and I’m open to hearing the hard truths as long as they’re explained.

I created an AI tool that takes in a flat design and converts it to a PSD with individual layers. It's a fun project and I have no interest in earnings.

However, if I want to offer it, due to the complexity involved in making it accurate, charges are pretty high for one run, so I wanted to get your opinions.

Would this tool make your work easier?

How much would you pay to run a design like this?

Eg. Just ran it on this flat design, and it reproduced a layer based file the exact same, with each UI component / fruit as a separate layer, preserving translucency as well.

https://preview.redd.it/4ta6wvkf9wah1.png?width=774&format=png&auto=webp&s=a5558262df535d714aa9cf5fe9d64ae0b3844096

Hi, I am working as a graphic designer for a somewhat big company. We need collaborators to be able to create their own assets sometimes so right now we are creating branded templates with powerpoint that they can modify, because that’s a tool accessible to everyone. But I’m really not a fan of powerpoint for this use and people always end up using the wrong font or colors.

I was wondering if there exists a super simplified design tool where you could register brand guidelines so it would be impossible to use another font for exemple. If you have similar needs in your company I’m also interested to know how you work it out.

I'm 40 and I have to leave Culinary, is graphic design possible for me?

I want to pursue the arts, Graphic Design screams out at me, I know photography, Drawing, I play in Photoshop for fun.

I'm a published writer and found I really enjoyed the creative process throughout.

Idk if I have knack for it but my body is giving out and I have little time to prep.

I've talked to someone in the industry and she says education is key and networking is a close second.

Any advice is useful. Thank you!

I am doing a lot of graphic design work for music artists, bands, festivals and so on. My latest project was for the summer festival of my music college, i was asked to make a poster, a timetable for the different stages etc. I am getting paid by my college for this project.
last week the digital version of the poster was published/sent to everyone in school via email.

Today one of the musicians performing sent an email to everyone announcing his performance at the festival, attached to the email is a photoshopped version of my poster with his face on it, the colours changed, his logo and name on it and some of the layout slightly altered to include the stage name he is playing at.
I was never asked by him nor did i publicly allowed any of this.

I don’t know how to feel about it. It is clearly still my poster with my layout and font i picked etc.
what do you all think? I don’t feel like posting the posters for privacy reasons but i think i explained it here pretty well.
Colours changed, layout of the text slightly changed, picture and logo added, whole vibe of the poster therefore different but very clearly still based on my work i was payed for.

EDIT: i am from Germany

I want to learn graphic designing where and how can I start.also is it still worth doing it since ai can do it within a minute?

My brain is running on fumes, so apologies if this is a mess and struggling to put my question into words.

I'm more on the beginner side of things, doing some digital and print work from a brand that has its main colours as Cyan and Magenta.

Obviously, it looks great in RGB digital, but I'm scratching my head when it comes to print.

I know the difference between RGB and CMYK and all of that, but when designing a suite for a campaign, I use these colours on a background (navy in this instance, from the branding) and when I design in CMYK for print, I use the supplied CMYK values and on the same navy background (with the provided CMYK equivelant) there is no where enough contrast that looks suitable - compared to the RBG equivalant where the contrast between colours is fine.

Am I doing it right, using the same colours for the RGB designs for print, but swapping them for the CMYK values for the print versions?

https://preview.redd.it/odwofnti2gah1.png?width=916&format=png&auto=webp&s=4c34bd8a96c934f6654e72154315b4ce87e2bfb5

Per design budget I am ready to offer 5-6$. You can also bid what are your expectations are.

I am looking for a designer who can give me some designs for some merch I am planning to make.

The theme is poker and the design feel is

Aesthetic, minimal and it should look luxurious.

For instance I want 4 designs each

1. Oversize tee

2. Hoodie

3. Cap

And

4. Polo tee

Per design budget I am ready to offer 5$

Is it possible for me to get an entry level job as a graphic designer?
I took a class in high school for 'graphic communications' over 2 years and I have certifications In Adobe Illustrator/Photoshop. Is this enough to get an entry level graphic design job or do I need to go to college in order for people to even consider hiring me?

My boss said he "polished" my design by feeding it to chatgpt. Everything but the colors and background were my base design. Font choice, font style effects, 3D elements, even the Portrait that I painstakingly polished to look sharper are mine.

To clarify, yes our company is already adapting to use of AI. But i still put in at least 80% manual work because i still find AI can't give 100% results i wanted even with the right prompts.

I feel like my creative input has been diminished to nothing.

Hello, im 16 and i want to start doing graphic designing
Where do i start and how?

I do the designs for theatre companies, which back in the day meant one poster size, one brochure size, and maybe a print ad or two. Now all (or at least most) advertising is done online - social media, enewsletters ads, website banners, etc. Meaning that there are usually a minimum of 20 or more sizes that need to be created. Larger ones can usually hold most of the original design, but then they get smaller and smaller... long and short, tall and skinny, so many different aspect ratios and sizes. some so small that only a word or two will fit.

I end up spending more time adjusting the design to fit in these crazy sizes than it takes to do the initial design.

How are you managing things like this?

I'm a designer, I hated manually resizing banners across ad platforms, couldn't find a tool that actually fit my workflow, so I built my own. Not selling anything — just sharing the story and happy to give free access if anyone wants to try it.

For the longest time, the part of my job I hated most was resizing. I'd design a banner in Photoshop exactly how I wanted it, and then I'd have to rebuild it over and over for every ad set — a full Google Display set, a PMax set, Meta, LinkedIn… It ate up a huge amount of my time and it was the least creative work imaginable.

I went through a bunch of existing platforms and never found one that actually worked for me.

At some point I just started making my own — honestly, at first only for me. One thing led to another and it turned into an actual product, oppye.com. The short version: you upload a banner you've already designed and it re-composes the layout for each platform size instead of cropping or stretching it. A few things I cared about:

1. Re-composes the layout for every format format (Meta, Google Display, PMax, LinkedIn, Stories)

2. You bring your own approved design — no rebuilding it inside the tool

It can also create creatives from a prompt, and also have a prompt builder inside.

If anyone wants to try it, there's a "Request Free Access" button on the site and I'll set you up for free....or just DM me