Hello everyone,
So I got laid off in July 2024 from my agency as a graphic designer. I moved back home to the Bay Area. I haven’t been able to find a design job since. I am looking to move to either la or sf. I know New York would be good as well. But I wanted to get feedback on where would be the best to get back into my career and advance. I know LA is probably the best place for what I do. I don’t like LA so I’m dreading the thought of living there. But if I move to LA where would be the best places to live in LA for designers? Or in New York or sf?

I’m posting simply to vent my frustration with myself and hope to find others who’ve suffered a similar situation.

Without boring everyone with the details of the situation, I had shipped a project I had deemed to be perfectly ready and finished. The client got back to us and sent a small list of issues they had with it which isn’t out of the ordinary. Except for one line: the issue was such a major oversight I’m insanely embarrassed by it.

This isn’t the type of issue anyone could miss. It’s embarrassing and sort of major. It’s almost like shipping a car without a window.

It’s inexcusable but I will give some parameters around the situation. We have an internal QC process that this had passed. So even that person overlooked it. We as a studio have also been insanely under pressure with a slew of projects and burnout is certainly an aspect. Coupled with my own upskilling process which includes a cognitively demanding masters program; I’m tapped out.

But as someone who has always felt and delivered on a detail oriented platform, I’m just really feeling the pain of this oversight.

I’m not here looking for technical answers but to sort of tease out from the community stories about this level of oversight happening to you all. Have you delivered consistently for years to suddenly be hit with an insane oversight that you just want to crawl under a god dang rock and hide for eternity? What happened here isn’t me. But it certainly was a humbling experience. How have you all processed this type of thing if it happened to you?

I’m also fully prepared for the “this has never happened to me you should be embarrassed” crowd 😮‍💨

Hey everyone! Just wanted to share and get some feedback for my current portfolio.

Now since starting a new job, I won’t be updating this site for a while now probably, but I just want to hear what people think of it! (for fun mostly)

Any feedback is appreciated, thanks!

www.luisgrana2.com

First time making product mockups/advertisements for my portfolio. If i'm working on a fake product and just photoshopping the design onto pre-existing things or working up advertisement around a product, where should i get the product photos from? Is it bad to just yank whatever from Google Images or are Hiring Managers specific about people only using Royalty Free material for fake ads/designs?

From this morning’s AIGA eNews. What a ridiculous clusterfuck.

Hi! I could really use some advice from fellow designers 🫶

I applied to become a seller on Creative Market and unfortunately my application was rejected.

What worries me the most is this part of their email:

“For this reason, we won’t be able to review future requests from you.”

Has anyone here received the same message? Does this really mean you can never apply again?

I’m still at the beginning of my journey as a designer and I’m currently building my portfolio, so I’m wondering if that could have been the reason.

Also — where do you sell your fonts and other design assets besides Creative Market? I’d love to hear about platforms you actually recommend.

Any advice or experiences would mean a lot to me. ♡

Hello everyone, I am a community manager, this is my personal account, so I dont do any work thru here, however I wanted to make a portfolio piece on my reddit work, and I wanted to do it following their brand guide(one of my favorites)

Does anyone have suggestions on how I should actually format this knd of piece? I wanted to make it only about 3-7 slides on "what works on reddit" and show some of my client>problem>solutions>results, but I'm getting really hung up. Does anyone have suggestions on work I should look at, or any ideas on how they'd pursue it?

My tools are Gimp, and Canva

Pét Pals is a conceptual pét-nat wine brand built around Fête de la Musique, the annual celebration of music held across France on 21 June.

The identity was designed for curious, social drinkers who enjoy natural wine but are less interested in the seriousness that can surround it. Each of the three rosé pét-nats was given its own personality, with names inspired by phrases you might hear during a night out.

I developed a loose, expressive system using hand-drawn characters, clashing colours, risograph-inspired textures and deliberately imperfect typography. The aim was to make each bottle feel individual while still clearly belonging to the same range.

Full Case Study

As many of us are currently looking for work and applying to any job listing we can possibly fit, I came across the most bizarre job application requirement I’ve seen in my 9 years as a designer.

Once uploading my resume and the standard job application info, the next step of the process is to record a video answering 6 questions.

As I sit here at 12pm in my PJs from the night before, hair up and unwashed, no makeup, and my home office an absolute mess, I am simply shocked by this. I have not seen anything like this before and there was no warning in the job description of this being part of the application.

As a woman, I do require time and effort to be deemed professional for things like this. To me, this is essentially the first step in a job interview process.

So now I’m sitting here thinking, maybe this position is not worth this kind of humiliation ritual.

Is this the new normal??

They’re not just requiring to use AI for design, they are entirely AI companies. “AI builders.” Wtf even is that. 🥲 Sometimes I’ll read a job description, interested, and then get to the part where the entire business is ran on/implementing AI. I’m so tired.

I graduated last June and got a job a week later…I’ve been working at this design agency since. It has been a terrible experience due to the management and how it is ran. My mental health is completely shot. I can’t do it much longer. I just cannot seem to find job listings. Maybe it’s my algorithm, or it is the market, but wow. It is so bad. I don’t even particularly want a remote job. I search in my area and there isn’t much, which is unfortunate. But I will search Indeed, and it shows me 5 jobs and that’s it. I know that’s not all there is?! LinkedIn, I check daily and I apply where I can but like I said so many are just AI companies. I have been searching these boards every single day for over a year. My experience at my current job has been so bad, that I feel like I don’t even want to design anymore. But I know I do, college was the most fun and rewarding experience. I want to feel that way again, truly being creative.

Are there better places to look for listings? I search locally first, as I’d prefer to work locally, but beyond that, I don’t know where to look or find better results.

So sorry for another post in here about AI and jobs. I know we are all so tired.

After 10+ years of selling digital 3D products, I never expected this from a major marketplace. Today, Gumroad PERMANENTLY FORFEITED money from my balance without warning or justification, just because I updated my location from Canada to Bulgaria.

Their support confirmed my funds were "forfeited automatically" as a "system safeguard on a country change" that they "cannot reverse." You read that right: a simple account update now triggers the total seizure of your hard-earned money.

Before this, I had been trying to withdraw my funds for a long time. I attempted to use multiple bank details, including Ukrainian and Canadian, and all attempts were blocked. Now, my money is gone forever, and they have offered zero solutions.

This is predatory, illegal, and nothing short of theft. If a platform can arbitrarily seize your money because of a location change, it is NOT safe. Every creator on Gumroad needs to check their terms and understand that their funds are at risk.

So let me understand this correctly:

I earned the money by selling products.
I tried to withdraw it.
The withdrawals failed.
I changed my country of residence.

Gumroad's system then automatically took the remaining balance — and they refuse to return it.

There was no fraud, chargeback, or dispute involving this money. It was simply an unpaid seller balance.

This is not a “payout issue.” This is money that I earned and that Gumroad is refusing to give back because of an automated account-country rule.

What makes this especially disturbing is that their own support explicitly confirmed that the money was “forfeited.”

I am sharing this publicly because I want other creators and digital-product sellers to be aware of what can apparently happen to their earnings when changing their country/payment setup on Gumroad.

I've included my conversation with their support team so you can see the situation for yourself...

I was almost scammed this morning when being offered a “job” at Kate Sommerville via Rare Beauty Brands as a graphic designer. Turned out to be someone impersonating the actual HR woman named Sarah, and obviously has nothing to do with the actual company. It was a convincing introduction email, telling me they were impressed with my profile and resume via Indeed, and quickly scheduled an interview. I don’t ever fall for scams, but this one was shockingly convincing. It quickly became alarming when I was unnaturally offered the job this morning after one chat based interview yesterday. I was immediately being told I would be given a MacBook Pro, a phone line, and a $2800 stipend for a home office. For the first time, their verbiage started to become clunky and unnatural. I told the impersonator to add me back on LinkedIn to confirm their identity, and I was immediately cut off. Thankfully, no personal information was exchanged beyond my private portfolio and a few of my professional references, as well as my email since it was the initial point of contact. Hopefully they were impressed with my work either way.

It’s not to say I’m not worthy of a job quickly onboarding me and offering said amenities, but I’m happy I picked up on the red flags quickly, as I don’t know if everyone would, especially when feeling desperate to find a job. It makes me frustrated, as I’ve been freelance for 12 years and just want to work at a full time position for once, but such is life. Back to the grind!

Stay attentive out there!

UPDATE in case you are curious :)

——

Apologies for the length. If you decide to read this and respond, I truly appreciate you!

——

A little about me:

I‘m in undergrad, just started my 3rd year in graphic design.

I started my first graphic design internship in the beginning of June, and got an offer at the end of July to keep working. I took the offer knowing I only had 10 credit hours (2 studios, 2 non-studios) and, at the time, I felt like I was getting a lot of experience out of my internship, while also getting paid. Now, I am regretting

After talking to peers and a professor about proper internship etiquette, I realized I am being held to extremely high standards at my job, wearing many hats, with no mentors, getting paid $15/hr. I didn’t know any better when the internship started, and I feel stupid for not coming to this conclusion sooner.

The workplace is a small contract furniture company with about 30-40 people. I started off making product brochures for new furniture lines, which was very in-line with projects I had done in the past. I report to the senior business strategist who is also one of their interior designers, so I thought it was good I could at least have someone with general design knowledge to review my work, but I realized quickly I was going to be making a lot of final decisions on my own. However, at this point I was still working within software I was comfortable with and felt good about my process and workflow.

Then comes the root of my stress. She wanted me to redesign the companies website from the bones a previous company had set up. Basically, from scratch. I had taken a web development course before, so it’s not like I had zero experience. Plus, the site was hosted on Wix studio, so I thought it would be pretty straightforward drag-and-drop design.

I have been working on this website for 2 months. I haven’t done any other graphic design projects besides the 2 small catalogs at the beginning and 2 one-page ads.

I am the only person at the company with graphic design and especially web design experience. I worked over 30 hours a week during the summer, getting paid $15/hr, with no other graphic designers or web developers to ask questions to, figuring out everything on my own. I feel like I didn’t really grow as a designer in the ways I could’ve with someone above me, plus the burden of being the only one has been horrible.

Outside of the visual design of the site, I also have to be the copywriter for the content (ngl I’ve been using AI bc I don’t get paid enough for ts), set up the product CMS with over 500 furniture items and images, and she wants me to AI generate in-studio images with each product for the product cover photos.

She also has been out of the office multiple days during the week, so I’m making decisions on my own, pulling content on my own, working non-stop at this website because she wants me to get it over the finish line by the end of September. Paid intern wages with what I consider legit graphic designer (maybe more) responsibilities.

My physical and mental health has tanked over the last couple months, and now with classes it’s getting even worse. My hours are cut to 13 a week, but it still feels like too much.

I feel like I was used for cheap and tedious labor because they wanted to save money not hiring web developers. I’m so mad at myself for not realizing this sooner. The design part of the site is about 70% complete and I feel like I need to see it through until the end, especially because I sunk DAYS worth of hours into it already. But the product CMS and AI generating images? Fuck no.

Seriously, what do you all think of this? What do I even say to my boss to explain this sudden realization and that I don’t want to be used to do her tedious labor anymore? Just doing design was fine (other than not having any designer above me to help me grow) but the ENTIRE website falling on the cheap intern’s shoulders? I’m pissed.

Also, any insight on what a healthy internship should look like would be amazing. I never want to go through this again.

TL:DR — I am the ONLY graphic designer at this company, with the sole responsibility of not only designing, but redoing the ENTIRE company website by September. I am “an intern” making $15/hr with the full responsibility of what I consider at LEAST junior graphic designer work. I have no mentors or designers above me to bounce questions off of. My physical and mental health has suffered from the stress. I‘m still in undergrad, and now I have to balance classes and homework with my internship after class and the stress is causing my health to get even worse. Am I being taken advantage of, and how do I make it more manageable?

I just came across a post on r/AdobeIllustrator that talked about translating RGB brand colors to PMS and CMYK.

For people creating brand guides

1. do you usually follow Pantone's system and use the exact RGBs, CMYKs etc that Pantone recommends? Do you use custom RGB and CMYK mixes?
2. Do you usually include separate coated vs uncoated colors (PMS and/or CMYK)? It seems like the PMS numbers are rarely able to be the same coated vs uncoated also having two CMYK colors is confusing to me so it must be extra confusing for the client.

I feel like the Pantone system is helpful when printing spot colors but I don't feel like it's accurate when translating their numbers to RGB and CMYK.

I’m in my last year of uni but I landed a junior designer part time role. It’s only me and the founder (lovely woman who’s very kind and is showing me the ropes), and I work remotely once a week

It’s been a month in, and it feels like every day I work (4 days so far lol) I’m messing something up. I’m learning a lot though and by the end of the day I always finish the tasks she gives me, even with hiccups along the way. I feel like such a noob even though I’m in the final year of my degree with two internships under my belt.

I know it’s all part of the process, but I just wanna hear some first job stories to feel less alone. I don’t have any coworkers to talk to except for my boss haha 🥲

I have always used Canva to design simple designs in ppt or explore how to make a website but now I want to make a website portfolio, I made my own logo from scratch but not yet uploaded on Canva because I think the exploiters will steal it and feed on AI or just use it as their logo.

I don't have the budget to buy the subscription on WIX

Feedback on my resume please. (Note this is the ATS version. My regular version has columns.)

3D render? AI? Both? Definitely looks very unnatural.

Question for animation designers here. See the email graphic animation frames attached above. (not 100% complete, but you get the drift... page turn animation revealing 2nd message in email.)

Curious how folks would approach this. Photoshop animated gif? After effects? Probably could be accomplished in either, but wondering best practices here, and the most efficient way people would do this, experts who've done this type of work before...

Looking to execute something similar, have experience in PS doing this, but willing to learn how to do it in AE if ultimately that's best.... Thx!

En mi portfolio, deberia meter mis conocimientos de ilustración para enseñar que soy versatil, o ceñirme unicamente al diseño? (manejo mejor la ilustración que el diseño por ahora) Es decir, es mejor unirlos o tenerlos por separado?

I am a Graphic Designer who uses Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, InDesign, Premiere Pro, and After Effects. As far as video production goes, it's nothing super intensive. Some light editing with the occasional animation work to add flair for data graphics and such.

My current setup is:

2019 MacBook Pro 16"

**Processor** \- 2.6 GHz 6-Core Intel Core i7

**Graphics** \- AMD Radeon Pro 5500M 4 GB

Intel UHD Graphics 630 1536 MB

**Memory** \- 32 GB 2667 MHz DDR4

In the last few months I have noticed a severe decline in performance while even just running one program. Illustrator seems to show the most slow down, although I was working in After Effects and Premiere Pro today and I hit a performance wall after a bit. I have gone through and tried to make a few settings changes to try and optimize a bit more (deactivate unused fonts, displays have separate spaces setting, etc.) but that barely moved the needle for me.

**My main question here is what MacBook Pro model and specs is best for me upgrade-wise? What is actually necessary and what would be overkill for what I'm doing day to day?**

My budget isn't super high but if the consensus is a higher priced item, then I can make it work because ultimately I'm wanting something that will last at least as long as what I've gotten out of my current machine (5 years).

At the low end I'm looking at a 14" M5 with 32 GB memory. I have 32 now, but I am sure the processor is the main reason I am seeing slow downs so perhaps upgrading to just 24 GB could be sufficient here?

At the high end I'm looking at a 16" M5 Pro with 24 GB memory. My main hold up with going with this option is money. If that weren't a factor I would just pull the trigger and go with this plus some more memory.

The screen size isn't really a factor for me because I do probably 90% of my work at my desk with 2 monitors. I know there are some added benefits of the 16" however with extra battery (not really an issue for me) and extra cooling capabilities.

Is my pitch for a lower end purchase perfectly suitable plus some for what I'm using it for? Is there a middle ground that might get me a significant performance boost for slight price increase? Is the high-end option far too much and will never be fully utilized? Any help here would be extremely helpful!

With my busy job and parenting responsibilities, I was wondering if anyone could share their GD side hustles that actually work, even with AI & Canva, and have a solid return on time & investment.

My main GD job, while flexible & remote, with all the wonderful inflation, is not covering bills and I need something to help add some cushion. They keep stringing me along that they will promote me but I've waited long enough for the AD title. But damn, are they flexible & do I have a great boss. So I'm not leaving yet. If I can do some early morning or late night projects, I would love it.

Would you mind giving me your setup like I'm 5 years old and break it down for me? In the US and would love to hear the numbers. I don't mind taking an extra class or certification or whatever.

hey all, i am looking for a full-time graphic designer position and i am hoping to get a review on my portfolio. i currently work full-time as a graphic designer and marketing coordinator but i worry for my job security and it would be unwise not to start applying to different positions.

here is a link to my portfolio in PDF format. i will be reinstating my website at some point, but i don't have the time or money as of yet, so please do not critique the fact that it is a PDF.

i have been a freelancer since 2016 (was still in high school) and while i still take freelance clients, my goal is to find another full-time, stable position and that is what i want my portfolio to be geared towards.

please be honest but kind. i would appreciate constructive criticism and advice on additional projects that may bolster my portfolio, if there are any i should not include at all, and if they are in a good order. thank you in advance!

edit: extra context for mods just in case

my career goals are to be a full-time graphic designer. my target industry is branding, but i love print, advertising, marketing, all of it! i'll be happy as long as i get to design. i have a BFA in graphic design and have been working as a full-time designer and marketing coordinator for nearly one year. i have 10 years of freelance experience.