r/graphic_design

Lately I've been hit with a bad spell of burnout, which isn't abnormal for me lately, it's just a matter of taking a step away. Usually my go-to creative outlet is music, specifically learning how to play guitar and sing.

What are some side-quests y'all have taken in order to create distance between yourself and the industry?

hi everyone,

A little while ago I made a post on here about a company rejecting me after 3 stage interview, one of the stages being a case study and presentation. Here is the original post if you’d like to read all the context: https://www.reddit.com/r/graphic_design/s/5DhIu6dxuu

If you don’t want to read then TLDR: junior graphic designer role. 3 stage interview. 1st with recruiter, 2nd with senior designer and hiring manager, 3rd case study - 2 brochures and a presentation I had to present in person. They were very impressed and happy with me and my work. Was so sure I was going to get it. But got rejected.

Well, I was looking at jobs on LinkedIn the other day, and I see now that that same company has a new job posting looking for the same junior graphic designer position again. Part of me is tempted to email them to let them know I’m still available because I desperately need a job. But I’m also incredibly pissed off. I went through all that effort, so many hours working on that case study (during my birthday as well), only to get rejected. And now they put the job posting back!!!

Again, I’m here for another rant and maybe some advice. Thank you for listening to me.

EDIT: a lot of people keep saying that they think this is a ghost job. This is what I personally think may have happened. I think that the person they picked over me accepted their offer but then changed their mind. But it was too late to turn back to me as they had already rejected me. Which is why they are now looking for people again 🤷🏻‍♀️

I see posts here all the time regarding burnout in the design field. I do like design but as I’m sure you all can understand, the pay is not worth the amount/variety of work that comes with a “graphic design” role. Video editing, photography, web design, UX work, being talked to like I’m AI, and being asked to “recreate this flyer I made in ChatGPT” is really getting to me.

I’m thinking about changing career fields but feel pretty lost. My degree is Digital Media and Design, and I’m not sure if I should just abandon it and pursue something else.

What are you all doing now, what are you looking for, or what career did you switch to? I’m just feeling directionless.

Hey guys, I am thinking about making business cards and a friend of mine suggested, that I could use some MtG Proxies I designed as business cards. Proxies are alternative artworks of existing playing cards from Magic The Gathering, for those wondering.

The idea was, that I have the proxy on the front and a more serious black / white business card with contact etc. on the back. Now my question is: Is this a good idea to stick out or too niche and unprofessional looking?

Thanks in advance :)

Been working as an in-house designer for almost 10 years, and at my current company for 6. The money is decent but I think I’m just completely done with design as a full-time career.

I recently got an opportunity to pivot into a more hands-on operations/production role, but it would mean taking a 43% pay cut. Financially, I can afford it, but after spending almost 10 years building this career, giving up that much income still feels kind of crazy.

I’m still a creative person and I still like design. What I’m tired of is how much the scope of being a designer seems to have expanded. My role started out as design, but quickly grew into marketing, events, content, media, etc. I’m exhausted and mentally drained from constantly wearing so many hats, and looking at other creative jobs, it looks like I will encounter the same issue elsewhere.

That’s why this operations role appeals to me. It’s much more hands-on and process-driven, mainly customising products using a UV printer based on set templates. I know it’ll come with its own stresses, but right now the idea of having a more defined scope and process, doing what needs to be done, checking things off and being done for the day sounds really refreshing.

The part I’m struggling with is whether that’s worth giving up 43% of my income for.

Has anyone here left design and taken a pay cut for something more structured/process-driven? Was it worth it, or did you eventually regret leaving the design industry and taking the pay cut?

Unfortunately cannot share imagery publicly as it is a decently known brand in the East Coast. Owner wants the… let’s say arabic, text rotated to its side. The text is two words, not one, so I have to stack them also. On its side readability is POOR and as a designer from a “successful logo” perspective I would never recommend that. Even in Arabic logos you never see that for good reason, now imagine a diaspora kid trying to read at quick glance.

I am rationalizing this in a way maybe he is not articulating - that he doesn’t mind if the readability is poor as long as it looks cool; as one of the defining parts of the english logo still remains and has some form of recognizability. I can see that, if he predominantly only is using it in flyers associated with Arab speakers (sponsoring Arab events) or merch. So I’m working with the request in that regards.

However I can’t help but think maybe I’m just not good at what I do, when tbh I truly believe a brand extension of a different language should closely mimic the original English logo too. There have been some suggestions I largely disagree with and I’m not sure where the line is of “I just need to be more creative” / “creativity is born under limitations” versus actually objectively this is wrong.

When I explain to him why I would not encourage this, he is still wanting to try it, which makes me feel like I’m wasting my time, but I am not opposed to really stretching my limits here and seeing where it is taking us so I still am trying it. But if I am unsuccessful at this I feel like it is positioning me as the “incapable” one when in reality the request is uncommon and difficult to begin with.

Wondering if you have some advice here or have been in similar situations. I love designing but find myself having difficulty with clients like these and need to learn how to handle this better.

I’m in an internship, and recently, I was asked to a flyer. It’s for a small company and for reasons I can’t really disclose what exactly it is. However, I was asked to to a halloween based flyer for this event. The visuals passed and the only criticism was to make the text bolder. I send my flyer over and I don’t hear from them fast forward a few days later. I see my design but it has ai enhancements along with the entire layout/font choices changed. I feel disrespected that I wasn’t alerted about this and it’s not one one flyer it’s multiple on their Instagram account. Has this happened to anyone and what did you do?

I'm 29. I graduated with my associates degree back in 2018. That alone took me 3 1/2 years but through no fault of my own, my school just made it ridiculously difficult to take all of your required courses within the promised 2 years. That said, I didn't go back to school for my bachelor's degree until 2021. Graduated in 2024 (again, the school made you take an extra year if you were transferring in, so it took 3 years as well.) Good grades, good design work (according to my professors), got some experience doing a bit of client work for a class so I had that under my belt too. I got a job within 3 months of graduating.

The job was a packaging design role for a major retailer, with a salary of 55k a year. That's something I never expected when I was very new in the field. However, without going into the other pitfalls of that job (the whole place is a lawsuit waiting to happen,) despite the Packaging Designer title, most of my work was production work. Proofing, translating, product art, etc. While I still got to do some packaging design, I didn't really get to create much of anything. That part seems more in line with what I expected for my first design job (minus the trauma of multiple HR nightmares.) I lasted there for 1y3m before I was able to find another job.

Unfortunately, that job was only 50k, so I took a pay cut. The job title is simply 'graphic designer', no 'jr', so I guess that looks a little better on a resume, if titles really make much of a difference. I've been there for 10 months now. Loving the job, getting a much wider variety of projects to work on, doing actual design work, healing from the hell of the previous role, and getting to make meaningful work. If I could stay here forever, I wouldn't complain. Financially, though, that isn't an option.

With all that in mind, plus the client work/freelancing I did in the last semester of school and after graduation, I've got about 2 1/2 years of experience. I'd consider myself still pretty green when it comes to being a graphic designer, and without deviating from the point, my previous role did no favors in my design practices and confidence. At the same time, I do feel like I've got a much more different experience than what I've heard about for new designers. Which is why I'm conflicted about my current status.

Am I in a good spot career wise for my length of experience/age? Many of my designer friends have been working in the field for much longer than I have, and many of my peers I graduated with are still job hunting for their first roles. Is it unreasonable for me to hope to find work for more than what I'm currently getting, at this point in time? I know with more experience, the better the optics will be, I just want to know what a realistic expectation is. I also don't want to hop from job to job hoping to keep getting more money.

Thoughts?

Edit: I'm the only designer at my current role. I do just about everything: flyers, event graphics, magazine layouts, illustrations, logos, wall graphics/signage, some motion, reports, etc. I don't report to a creative director, just a boss for the whole department. Its a fairly decently sized organization, so not really a 'ma and pa' business. I'm given a lot of responsibility and trust to create what's needed with little hand-holding, and I've been told I'm doing a good job at that. If that adds any additional context.

Edit 2: I'm in the US (Virginia)

Just curious to see what other teams in the industry look like and how you like it.

Currently I work in the marketing department where I’m the sole designer. We have a marketing director who oversees me and the marketing manager who supervises the project manager and marketing support person. Im at the same level as the marketing manager, so I only repot to the marketing director, which is nice. Our team all get along pretty well.

I definitely feel like the odd one out in a marketing heavy department. Lots of creative freedom though which is nice, but definitely hard to gain actual design feedback.

B2B in an engineering industry so it’s nothing flashy. Also it’s a smaller 80 ish person company so it’s pretty relaxed. I did get a design intern over the summer, but it’s back to just me.

Definitely busy but I don’t mind too much.

Hello!

I am teaching a graphic design class to middle school students (grades 6-8). It has been a blast teaching them, but I feel like they need another perspective or a different voice so they aren’t bored of me all of the time haha.

I am focusing on teaching the elements of design and would like to show them some videos or a documentary.
Anything involving graphic design would be great as long as it’s appropriate and middle school students would enjoy it.

Do you have any suggestions of documentaries or videos I could share with them?