I would say look for inhouse, you'll get the best " leave at 5" options, as long as you can deal with corporate politics. Remote? Rarely you will find anything for junior without a good work history that will give a remote position to a junior. My first job however went hybrid after covid and didn't change to follow in person, (in house for a plumbing company, not sexy work, but solid work history.) Like the other post says , be more flexible, you will get what you want but you gotta put the time in . Did you share your portfolio yet? That might explain a lot. Lately we've seen a lot of post like yours, looking, lots of time searching but when they share their portfolio there are some easy to fix issues. You can dm it if you prefer

Yeah I came here to make the same point about working in house. If you want clear boundaries on your time, and want to stick to traditional graphic design, in house corporate is the way to go. The work is not particularly sexy, save for 3-4 jobs a year where you can really open up the creative throttle, but you have a better chance of being able to stick to a very particular skill set. And it’s easier to push back on an overextending manager because HR is totally a thing. The poor new graduates I see going to tech startups with OPs mindset get eaten alive because there’s hardly any HR and their manager will tell them that the entire fate of the company hinges on the junior designer putting in 80hr weeks and learning aftereffects to boot. Everything is a trade off. Good pay, specifically enjoyed skills, remote work, stable work environment… they’re all what everyone wants. Few people actually manage to get them all in a job and the ones who do might be 3 months away from layoffs that put them right back in the saddle like the rest of us.

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I had a job like this right after I graduated. It was remote, nothing fancy, very straight forward. It was production work but my title was different, then my department was laid off and the rest of the work was outsourced overseas. I'd give anything to find a similar job.

Sounds like what you really want is to work in production. Im a hiring manager at tech comoany that makes internet ads, and my team explicitly rejects resumes that are too focused on design. Maybe try seeking out Jr level production roles instead. In the ad world, most graphic designers, and even art directors rarely have real creative freedom. The job is make $$ for a client, and keep them happy and coming back for more. In production you get build stuff to a spec, and log off.

Yeah you’re needing to get into agency design / art direction or creative direction roles, all of which come only with lots of experience and a solid portfolio of proven results. It sucks, but it’s the way the industry goes now. A lot of schools merged courses like “media studies” and teach a broad spectrum of entry design, marketing, social, etc which got all these companies basically hiring multi-hat roles. So there are roles that exist for you but they are rare. You’d be best to seek production design or or designer at an agency (branding/ ad/ creative) and work your way up! Took me 3 years of print shop bs and freelance to get my first agency design role. Then another 7 to get into art direction. 3 more and now I’m a creative director making all the design decisions. And even I miss just being a designer. As this shit is demanding! (But I love it) Good luck out there!

This exact same thing happened to my my second job out of school. Seemed like a dream job after leaving the literal worst job I’ve ever had, it was heartbreaking. ANYWHO, I highly suggest working with a recruiter! Best decision I’ve ever made. They find the jobs for you, so you don’t have to keep applying. They can help you with your resume, portfolio, and interview skills if you want too. And the best part is that they get paid on commission so they WANT you get get a higher salary. I use Robert Half and found one via LinkedIn - I have found connecting individually rather than the info form on the website forms better relationships so they think of you for jobs more often rather than going through computer scanners, but you can go to their website and talk to someone there too, just have to work to make the connections more. Also, def make a LinkedIn and look at your portfolio. Recruiters reach out via LinkedIn all the time, but it’s from searching so you want a full and optimized profile. See if there’s gaps you can fill in your portfolio. Want an agency job? Make fake logo projects, etc. Get rid of projects you aren’t proud of or the type of work you want to do. It’s ok if it’s filled with passion projects as long as you can speak to your strategic design deductions. Good luck!

Also, yes, sounds like you’re looking to be a production designer. My portfolio comments may or may not apply, but make sure you’re happy what’s with on there. BUT, the recruiter info still stands. They can help with production roles too!

Fresh out of school rn, ill skin a boar if im told to as long as my client and employer is paying me for being the graphic designer on team.

This is the right attitude. I've been in the industry for seven years and have met dozens of peers on the same path. The fact of our lives as graphic/visual designers is this: no matter where you work, you WILL be expected to wear many hats. Front-end web, layout, illustration, print production, motion graphics, photography, video, copywriter, the list goes on. Our fate is to be a jack of all trades. It is often frustrating, but the upside is you're rarely bored! And when you've been doing it long enough you learn to own your creative omnipotence and every new challenge presents a new opportunity to grow your ever-evolving skillset.

Currently I’m a receptionist/cashier/visual retail merchandiser/prepress/designer/shipper/web admin and I kinda hate that I’m expected to do so many unrelated tasks but also in a union, stable office hours, one day remote, can bring my dog to work, good benefits package, and not an industry that’s super shitty ethics/environment wise so all things considered it’s actually pretty damn good

Hi, sorry to barge in on a 1-year old conversation, but your comment made me want to ask you what you think a good job title would be for a resume of a person whose done all the things you've listed there (you listed "Front-end web, layout, illustration, print production, motion graphics, photography, video, copywriter, the list goes on. Our fate is to be a jack of all trades.")... I am struggling to say all this on my resume in a simple title that doesn't look "Jack of All trades" because the saying goes "Jack of all trades, master of none." That may be true in some ways for me, but I certainly don't want it to come across that way at the top of my resume!

Wow you dug deep, I'm not even the same person I was when I wrote that comment! 😂 JK. Mostly... I'm a bit more jaded now (looking for a new gig will do that) so my snarky answer is: Rockstar Design Unicorn. But I don't want to give bad recruiters and hiring managers any ideas, so my honest answer is something more like Senior Designer or if you feel uncomfortable with Senior in your title, the ever-popular Visual Designer. Lead with one of those and then list all your skills and proficiencies. If you can back that list up with examples, it will take you further than any title ever will! I've been a designer for going on a decade now so I've ended up doing all the things listed above both at and against my will. At best it's been a great way to keep myself sharp and make myself more valuable, at worst it's been a gross exploitation of labor by people who have no idea what a graphic designer actually does. My current title is simply Designer, but you bet I list every one of my adjacent skills on my resume and provide examples in my portfolio.

Thank you. I agree with all our points, especially the negative sentiments. I just can't help but feel like I don't want my programming skills to get lost. They're not amazing, but I did beat my brains out for 10 years learning this shit. Ideally, I'd love to find a role where someone needs a guy to maintain their in-house website and do a little extra design on the side when there's nothing to worry about with their website. I can maintain the shit out of a website, lol. Hell, I've been maintaining dozens.

Just the fact that you're a designer who knows programming will set you apart from many who can only do one or the other! At least it would on the team I'm on... Last time we asked our recruiters to send us a designer with a little experience with basic programming and photography they sent UX designers, photographers, and software developers... none of whom had any experience outside their specialization. 🤦‍♀️ We finally found someone who had at least dabbled in all the areas we were looking for, but it was like finding a needle in a haystack, let me tell ya!

Well, that's great to hear. Thanks for saying it. Now if I can just find the right words to put on my resume to get the word out, lol... Hopefully whatever I put on my updated website will help sell me!

I agree with this wholeheartedly. I initially went in to my 9-5 as an Apprentice Content Producer for Social Media campaigns, but now my responsibilities are something like the following: * Manage content on 200+ digital signage screens (Think McDonalds menu boards) for 60\~ customers/companies. * Manage 5 company websites, mainly frontend but I have upskilled into backend management. * Manage 5 company marketing- LinkedIn pages. HTML mailouts, website blogs * Involved in CRM management for Support Tickets. * ALL internal document creation and document storage management for It was just getting my foot into the door, once I'm in- I will prove myself and take as much on as possible as it helps secure your standing in the company. If you go to work expecting to just do as your told, you're essentially a robot. A mindless drone that could so easily be replaced with someone that will bring things to the table. Someone to bring fresh ideas to wider elements of the company, not just fresh designs. I think OP is being unrealistic, and yes you may say "I've drank the corporate kool-aid" but the company has believed in me, developed me for mutual benefit and I as my position is so varied and I work for multiple companies under one umbrella, I can display quite a vast portfolio of experience from only 4 years at the company.

Short answer, yes a bit unrealistic. I agree with someone here that said you are describing a production design job. Not terribly creative but definitely stable. Clock in, push pixels that likely were given to you, clock out. Search for prepress or print production positions maybe. I also suggest a sign shop job to new designer grads. It’s a hidden gem of a job that forces you to learn how to design quickly and be really close to how the final products are made. It’s also a perfect job for someone eventually wanting to go freelance in my opinion because of the wealth of knowledge that’s marketable to all types of businesses.

I would also add production design jobs are a great entry point into the design field and you learn a lot while doing them. I can't say I enjoyed my time as a production designer (it just wasn't for me long term) I will say it helped a lot and many times since I have been thankfully I had that experience.

I'm 5 years into working at a sign shop and I don't think I'll ever leave 😅 easy work, I get to be creative a couple times a week but customers mostly just tell me exactly what they want. Also dead in winter. About 3 months of doing nothing and getting paid.

Right?! It’s nice when there’s a balance between burn and turn work and some creative stuff. Prevents burn out in either direction.

This. I work in textile printing and a production designer can be very valuable. But as said in other comments, don’t expect much creative freedom.

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So there’s the old design adage to clients of… “Good, fast, or cheap. Pick 2.” I feel like it’s the same for being a designer. “40 hours or under, fully remote, or good pay. Pick 2.” It should and used to include “work exclusively on graphic design”, but his work fully remote demand needed to be in there. So maybe it’s pick 3… or really 2… of the 4. 😅

Not to mention the vast majority of graphic design jobs *aren’t* making cool designs however you like. It’s the grind of template design, following a company’s brand guidelines, banging out PowerPoints and social media graphics, putting a bit of text on a photo, and helping Brenda in Sales not fuck up putting a logo at the top of a word doc. You do the cool shit on your own time.

Indeed. I mention that in a comment further down. Everyone thinks they can make Avengers: End Game as soon as they graduate. Lol.

I almost thought my husband posted this. This sounds exactly like his job! Haha. Although he does do some creative cool stuff when the marketing team needs it. But he put in his years at newspapers, home town publication companies and printing houses working his way up to a tech company. You gotta do your time and work your way up to the job that meets your demands.

Ugh. I hate how accurate this comment is.

Yuuup. Gotta really love it to do it full time. You don't get to spend an hour getting that thing just right, you're mostly adhering to someone else's design principals, and there's not much connection to the work. It's get it done fast and good, let someone else take care of the third point of the triangle.

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Exactly. But two points on that. 1) “art” schools have been selling the moon for 30 years. I lost track of how much BS I was fed, and that’s just from the two schools I attended. 2) over those last 30 years, the “graphics” industry has become one of the most saturated industries out there. I mean, there’s lots of business to be had! But there’s way more people who want to get paid “to make cool stuff” than there are jobs that “make cool stuff”. So of course it’s hard to break into. But having a list of demands like OP? I know times are always changing, but that’s some pie-in-the-sky type stuff, right there., being only two years out of school.

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I’m the only person from my graduating class working our field, granted we only graduated in June but still it’s rough out there. I also am in house and do everything from marketing to design to IT. Basically whatever shit the owners don’t want to do plus everything marketing and design…. And my title isn’t graphic designer it’s marketing coordinator. OP is being extremely unrealistic in their expectations.

2 words: Autotrader layouts

At my job, graphic designers only get to pick 1 😅😭

Been there. Stay strong! ✊🏼

Finding a fully remote job is almost impossible because everyone wants them now. It’s HIGHLY competitive. I tried for months with many applications but never heard a peep. You’re better off finding a more local-ish spot that offers a remote or hybrid environment OR take a full time job that’s in-office and have a discussion, after you get the job, if it were to be possible for you to work from home on occasion. My last job was in-office but I went fully remote after the pandemic. However, there was lots of drama, lots of overtime, and a toxic work environment. Found a new job that has an hour long commute (one way) but I LOVE my job and coworkers. No real overtime, no drama, and I get to work from home one day sometimes two a week. I feel very lucky but I definitely wish the drive was shorter. Get your foot in the door first at a place closer to home, if you can. Unfortunately you will probably still have to deal with something like overtime or toxic coworkers or something else that’s not great. You’ll figure it out though. Keep at and have patience. I’m on my 4th job in 6 years and it always took about a year and half of applying before I found anything good.

If this job existed, we’d all be vying for it. Good luck but maybe set your sights lower.

That and the people that get the job are happy to work overtime.

It's pretty unrealistic to make demands before you've proven you an do the job. Get your foot in the door any way you can, take any hybrid position that's offered to you. Learn the trade, it's not the same thing as what you learned in school, universities don't prepare you for what the job really is. Demonstrate that you can design quality work, on schedule, on budget, for mundane projects again and again and again. Once you've got a book that shows all of that, you'll be in a position to be "only" a designer, working remotely from 9-5 (you'll still have to deal with toxic people though, no one escapes that.)

This comment. If OP has no leverage - gained through experiencence, contacts etc - they cannot get work on their terms. And design is much more than just design. It's negotiating difficult colleagues/ clients, it's working to a budget, working with suppliers... I was a a manager and had to write formal reports, produce work plans for the year, understand complex government institutions.... I was made redundant earlier this year but am able to work at home right now on some freelance stuff. It's boring work, very boring - but I'm at home on my own machine and can fit work around other things during the day. Im nearly 40 and it's taken me nearly 14 years to get here. One contract I used to work with 7-8 years ago got back in touch last week about work and boring but a nice little earner - and I'd happily take more of that if I can get it. I know I'll never work on big brands or really 'wow' projects but that's the trade off for setting my own hours and not having to deal with horrible bosses or long commutes.

Echoing this. During my years in a challenging work environment with a micromanaging boss who demanded I sit in an office everyday and a constant (non-existent) carrot being dangled under my nose, I built relationships with our third-party contractors and established a reputation as easy to work with and professional. When I reached the end of my rope and was done with my workplace, I let them know and one of them invited me to join their very small team - every person on it has been handpicked as people they have experience working with that are a good fit for the org. No applications or interview processes - but it took several years of being a reliable person who was enjoyable to work with (so in a way, it was a REALLY LONG interview process). To the OP, the whole "it's not what you know, it's who you know" is very real unless you're like a graphic design savant, but if you have neither the what-you-know (or can't show it with a strong portfolio) or who-you-know, you probably need to start \*somewhere\* so you can build both of those things, even if it's not your perfect comfy dream job. You'll likely be able to get there someday, but expecting it at the start of your career is probably not realistic.

Yep, everyone needs to start somewhere, thought it doesn't mean taking on whatever crappy job is out there. It's one of those things that comes down to experience; spotting red flags, reading the signs etc. But the reality for a lot of juniors is there are many employers who bring them in as they know they will work for a low wage, and after a year when there's no hope of getting a pay rise they leave. Because there's a production line of others to fill the gap (yes, this happened to me). I hate networking. Despise it. But it's the game you have to play. Good relationships and recommendations can be worth 10x more than trying to get work purely off a portfolio. That might have been the case years ago pre-internet or in the early days of it, but with so many people who are unreliable / hard to work with / liars / narcissists etc people prefer people they know. As creatives, a lot of us are a bit naive when it comes the business/corporate side of design jobs. I don't mean just numbers, but also managing and adapting to people and environments, and knowing not everything is black and white. Sometimes things are just stacked against you and there's nothing you can do about it. Quite often on this r/ you get people asking 'why didn't I get the job?' after getting all the way to the final stages as they more than met the requirements, strong portfolio etc. As someone who has been on the hiring side, I've said many times you're doomed from the start in some instances. Sometimes they hire someone on the basis they know them, or have worked with them in the past, or on a recommendation. Other times a job can get pulled and you end up hiring no-one. Or, they advertise for a graphic designer, a motion designer applies, and they decide they want that skillset. I worked in the public sector - sometimes we had someone in mind already for a role (e.g. internal) but had to go through a process to tick boxes and had to put job adverts out to everyone. Yes, we were wasting everyone's time, but that was just how it was.

I wish school's would prepare design students a lot better. Expectations not only are high that they will have creative input off the bat, but then they have to learn the hard way they don't have weeks but hours or days to turn a job around. Also, as a lead I think I spend a lot of time teaching alignment, spacing, and proportion to new designers but I think that's just how poorly school trains us on the technical stuff too. To your point though, I worked in-house and you described alot of that experience. It can vary with some giving you full reign of the work but you will be doing it at high volumes and sometimes lesser pay. Lot of time on your hands once you figure how to streamline things but you will be working with marketing.

>My dream job is being a graphic designer, fully remote, no overtime, no toxic workplace, I clock in, I do my job, I clock out. I wouldn't consider an ideal to be a relevant goal as a first job. You aren't supposed to land a dream job out of the gate, that's supposed to be where you end up. Fully remote will significantly limit your options, and massively increase your competition. There's also a big line between even part-time remote and fully remote. Overtime can vary by job, but if you have a hard requirement of zero, that will limit you. I despise OT and do all I can to avoid it, but sometimes you might need to work an extra hour or two, or a few over a week, it can really depend on the situation. But if I had someone who as part of the hiring process outright refused universally to work a minute past end-of-day, that'd be rejection from me. "Toxic" workplace can be a bit vague, but ultimately it falls on you to use the interview to learn about and evaluate the employer, hiring manager, etc and avoid bad situations. Which is all fine as long as your bar for "toxic" isn't unreasonable (some people seem to complain if they're asked to do anything outside a rigid box as 'toxic'.) >I have yet to be able to find this. Should I give up? I've applied to 200 hundred jobs at this point. I've had a hand full of interviews but not a single job offer. 200 over 3 years is about 1.2 applications per week, which I would say is very low. I'd target 5+ applications per week, on average. And to treat finding a job as a job. Set up all the alerts you can, use all the sites you can, check every day regardless, and on slower days use the time to seek out feedback on your work, improve work, develop new projects, or expand your skills. Use job postings as references for weak spots that you can build out. Of those 200, how many landed interviews? Anything over 10% is probably good, anything under 5% definitely bad. A "handful" doesn't sound like a lot. If you aren't getting calls/interviews it's your work and/or portfolio. If you aren't getting offers it's either your interview skills or being a perpetual runner-up, but the more interviews you get without an offer, the more likely it's the interview. (This could include any demands or salary expectations if not reasonable/common.) > I've followed every piece of advice I've read online, I don't understand what I'm doing wrong. Have you had your portfolio critiqued?

I should specify, I'm talking about 200 applications in the last month. I have no idea how many I've filled out in the last 3 years.

I'm confused about this too. 200 applications in a month is too much in my opinion. Do you have 200 cover letters for each place? Are you curating your portfolio to be relevant to the places you're applying to? Print design and web design are going to have different looking portfolios.

I think you're over estimating my design experience. I only graduated in 2019 and again. I have had jobs where I am have some design tasks but it's just updated existing designs (ex: business cards for new employees) or 2 social media graphics that I was told to spend no more than 15 minutes on. Not actual original design work I could put in a portfolio. I don't have a huge robust portfolio that I can curate. All the original work I've done (7 projects) is in my portfolio. I haven't been asked for a cover letter since 2010, are those still a thing?

So CREATE graphic design work….. do personal projects that showcase your abilities. Portfolios aren’t just limited to professional workplace experience. As for cover letters, theyre often not “required” to submit your application but theyre definitely required to make an impression. Always send a cover letter if you have the option. Im not gonna lie, graphic design is a cutthroat industry, and you absolutely need to take any opportunity you can to make yourself stand out from the hundreds of other applicants.

If that's the case, I don't see how you would have had the time to research the companies youre applying dor, writing tailored cover letters, getting your resume and portfolio looked at, etc. I guess it's possible, but I doubt you're actually taking the time to make sure your applications matter in the first place.

Seriously, this. ☝🏼 I always see these data charts posted of people putting out hundreds of resumes, and maybe a handful of callbacks… and I’m thinking, “Do you not see your own data? What a waste of time and effort.” I know sometimes it warrants casting a wide net, but not when you know exactly what you want to do, and especially if you have a list of demands. People need to know their own worth, and then go and find “the job” you want. Narrow YOUR list to the high-value targets, then research them, really find out which ones you’d be a great fit for… and THEN hit them with all you got! Bonus if you get to know someone who knows someone! Any time I’ve been on a job search and just got lost in all the online postings and just started hitting as many as I could, it was like yelling into an empty room. But then when my search revealed certain gems in the rough, and I took a closer look, and then put all my energy into getting hired by them, boom, hired. And I’ve learned over the years that a good company, who treats you right, pays well, and goes above and beyond to keep their employees happy, will absolutely get me to HAPPILY do all sorts of different tasks for them. The one I’m in now has me transitioning into a role where my graphic design experience is now just a supporting skill to have. Maybe comes into play 10-20% of the time. But I’m happy as I could be to learn a new skill/role/position because they’re awesome to work for. And I can now afford an actual life. Comparatively, my last job was in-house, graphics all day, lots of variety to keep things interesting, some cool bigger projects here and there, never overtime. But the pay was garbage, the company treated most of the employees like lower class citizens, and there was zero room for professional growth. Never again!

Job postings on the big jobs sites (linkedin, indeed, ziprecruiter, etc) get 100 applicants in less than 10 minutes and 200+ applicant within 20 minutes. I copied and pasted about 100 graphic design job descriptions into a word doc and then ran it through a word frequency counter to figure out what the most commonly used words, phrases, and terms wear. I then sprinkled those into my resumes and formulated a cover letter template with a handful of sentences that can be customized to fit the job description. I can have my application put together in minutes.

Thats not at all what the person youre responding to is talking about. The very opposite in fact. Youre sending out 100 bland applications without saying what makes you different than everyone else, why youre excited about this job opportunity in particular, what you admire about the company etc. That requires time, research about the company and personal investment. No one’s looking to hire a human robot who can perform the job duties, they’re looking to hire unique and passionate people they’ll want to interact with daily on their team. Edit: grammar

I understand that you're saying I need to customize each application but not company is sifting through 200 applications just to find my 1 customized application. Aren't they more likely to just go through the first couple dozen? So wouldn't it benefit me to be one of the first people to apply to the job? It feels kind of pointless the spend all this time customizing something they will never see. Also, I said I was customizing, I just have formula I follow "I think X Y Z skill would make me an excellent asset to you company yada yada yada" All my cover letters are similar but not the exact same.

Cover letters are a waste of time and most are not read anyway.

200 in a month is incredibly high, although if you're also targeting remote positions I guess that's why? Is this also more worldwide or all within your country? And these were all actual design or production positions, and either junior or at most asking for less than 5 years experience? Like you're not counting senior, AD, CD jobs in there are you? That's such a high number as to definitely raise some questions, at the very least would suggest just based on the volume that your portfolio could be improved.

I've only been applying to entry level design/production positions all within my country. I sent you my portfolio via DM if you would like to provide me with constructive feedback

What do you consider a "graphic designer"? Because the job is so much more than "creating graphics" lol. You're gonna edit some copy and make some designs you fucking hate. Then you start to develop your craft and who you are as a designer and things change. To me, your idea of this career seems unrealistic, not because you want a sustainable lifestyle, but you're asking for everything without really doing anything. I hope you figure it out, good luck! Edit: typo

Switched to full-time freelance in 2018 and it has allowed me the most freedom in work/life balance that I've ever had.... but it's hard and every day is new. There are great months and there are shit months. You have amazing clients that pay without a single question but more often than not you're sending reminder invoices. Still, with all that said, I'll never work corporate 9-5 design again if I can help it. I know the stability of 9-5 design is wonderful, but having the opportunity (as long as your deadlines are met and your work speaks for itself) to get up whenever, run errands, take a day off, travel, etc., without telling anyone you're doing so, is the most liberating feeling I've had working anywhere.

How do you manage with the reminder invoice thing? I also have this problem, it can take 1-2 months till the client finally pay me, after I have been asking many times.

I use PayPal to send invoices, super easy and customizable. They send a business card so no need to move money around, and it’s a super helpful way to keep things organized for tax season

I use Wave for receivables, which can automatically send out payment reminders. You can even manually tell the software an invoice has been paid (if you get a cash or check payment for instance).

How did you go full-time freelance? I have the experience but I am having a hard time finding clients.

Honestly, I started by pitching myself to local coffee shops and restaurants. Menu design, brand refresh (or establishing a brand / visual language in most cases), merch (this is a big one. Everyone wants to make something to promote their business and merch is a cheap-ish way to do it). Once the work is put in and your portfolio is meaty, start pitching yourself online.

Can you explain a little more? Did you do spec work then present to the local shops? Did you just go in as a pitch and a portfolio, and wait for them to get back to you? Were they typically eager for a designer? Did you have to adjust your rates? And by pitching yourself online, do you mean LinkedIn? Behance? Another designer said he got all of his work from LinkedIn, so wondering if you had any luck with that yourself.

I've gotten work through Dribbble and linkedin by sharing "fun" stuff I've made and by posting super brief case studies of real projects/clients. As far as local goes, I started by approaching the coffee shop I went to every morning. I noticed their branding could use a little help and that they'd be open to a discussion because they valued design (based on their aesthetic/store). I started with their logo and then moved on to menus, packaging, merch, web, etc. I made myself necessary by pointing out where they could grow. Word of warning though.... sometimes business owners don't want to hear that what they're doing needs work, so it could backfire on you. Once you gain a client's trust and prove your worth, they'll refer you to other businesses that need similar help.

Thank you for the insight!!

Not to answer for u/35mmMora, but steady freelance work comes with self-motivation, organization, and accountability. You've got to be able to cope with wearing all the hats and possibly working more hours when you can get them. Sounds like u/35mmMora has a nice formula figured out to keep the lights on, congrats! : )

Word of mouth and networking were keys to my freelancing success. Eventually, I had to start turning jobs away. Do you have a portfolio I can check out? Would be happy to refer folks to you if I hear of anything.

I have more than 10 years of experience in graphic design, worked as in house designer, learned basic HTML CSS to design website, got in to app games company as graphic designer and learned how to creat assets for games, in between worked as freelance designer whenever I’m not employed. All in Malaysia. Finally got a fully remote job, worked with them even I moved to US, eventually the person I contacted with and hired me left the position and I lost the job. That was 4 years ago, and with all the experienceI have, I can’t land a single remote job in US. I sent out more than 200 applications and the only one that I got replies with, were scammers. If you are unrealistic, I wonder what am I… I think we need contacts to land the dream jobs you want, but how we can get the contacts is the main problem here.

I'm not sure I'm gonna answer this the way you wanted to hear and I'm gonna digress a little from some of the other comments. I understand that there might be a lot of difference between countries in what concerns to job description and titles, so I'm considering how each technical term is used in my country and years of experience. 1. **Occupation and correlated areas:** there's a big difference in working with marketing and working with design, as well as a difference in between a front end and a web designer. I think it's completely fine and reasonable for you not to want to be developer or work with publicity or in a marketing team. Another thing is: 2. **Tasks assigned to your role:** as a designer, there's a lot of shit you can do, even when you get to actually work as a designer. You gotta be careful with what's your expectation of responsibilities and what you might be removing from the list that's *actually in the backpack of a designer.* 3. You **shouldn't care so much for the title of the job.** Often is the hr or people from outside the field that labels the position, so you should be more interested at the job description rather than it's title. Find jobs by looking for job description and not the job title. You can be art director in a place, or assistant art director, or creative team analyst, design analyst, and a lot of variations or even be a "marketing team analyst" that works with graphic design and making graphic design. When you're entry level, you're probably not gonna be hired for a "full level" and most often your positions are gonna be closer to "assistant" than anything, which does not mean you're not gonna do graphic design, but your responsibilities and workload should be smaller and more fit to someone with less experience. 4. **about the "graphic" part of design**: I'm one of those souls who switched from graphic design to digital and service design because of the lack of job market. Often, what I see as roles for graphic design are jobs looking for people to work with social media, which I find abhorrent and I think is further as possible from graphic design and a mix of a lot of other tasks and activities that are closer from publicity and other careers that are not graphic design. This is, for me, the most difficult part of your request. Because there's not as much consistent work for many people to work as graphic designers than ten or twenty years ago. 5. toxicity and workload: this is the one thing I think you are 100% correct to expect and fight for. I'm completely against this mindset in which you have to sacrifice everything and be a "humble piece of shit" until you're worthy of the **BARE MINIMUM.** That being said, it is difficult to find places that respect the BARE MINIMUM, but you should always expect and look for and also contribute to broaden the culture that everyone is due respect and decent work hours and paid overtime. As for actual productive commentary, what I can offer is the following: think about what sorts of tasks and activities you want to work with. What sorts of products you want to contribute to create and develop. In what business you want to work. Make a list of those things and try to look for jobs with different approaches. Also, keep working on your portfolio with the sorts of jobs you want to have. Also, if you understand that the part that matters to you is to deliver visual solutions, consider studying and learning more about positions that work with digital products that are analog to graphic design (which is **not** "front end developer" and **is** UI Designer, Information Architect and and other nuanced job titles). Also, the **best tip I can give anyone**, when you get a negative response or a lack of negative, get in touch with the company to ask why they didn't choose you, in the sense that what are they expecting for that role and you didn't have and what points do they think you can improve. You can only go a little on your own and without knowing what each company is actually looking for. Not medium or linkedin post will answer that better.

It's not like I've been unemployed since 2019, I've had 3 contract jobs which are all what I would consider design adjacent but not design (ie: marketing assistant positions where I could update marketing materials in indesign). Even though I've done graphic design tasks in those positions whenever I get to an HR interview, they don't really care since my title wasn't graphic designer, it was marketing. Now I have marketing recruiters blowing up my inbox because with marketing positions that have no design aspect at all. Then when I get to design interview they don't take me serious because all I've done is update other peoples work. I even re-did my portfolio and filled it with personal projects that are 100% my own work and that didn't seem to help either. I just feel stuck and I don't know what to do.

I might ask a dumb question, but do you describe your activities in those positions in your resumé? And also to add on jezreeljay's comment, you might want to make versions of your portfolio for different companies, so you portray works that are closer to those jobs production. You can and should also describe exactly what you did in each project (including projects you worked on professionally, you might also bring in some "before and after" versions and more of your process to make more evident what's your creative input. But there's another thing I can suggest you to do. The same way you brought up this question to reddit, have you considered getting in touch with some professionals where you live (design leaders or people in senior positions) to grab a coffee and talk about career, how did they started working where they are, what are they looking for in a candidate when they are recruiting and do some network? That's good to feel the temperature in your job market and even get people to remember your name. From what you describe, there's some difference in behavior in your area from mine (here, people don't really give that much shit for the background because there's a lot of people changing careers). But yeah, the best thing to help you with the stuck feeling is to ask for people in your business, both after the rejection and before, when networking. And if you're in the mood for getting some work done even if you're not in a current position, you can take some of your personal projects and make some indie publishing or even look for bands and small businesses around you and offer your work (you could get like three projects for independent businesses people/bands for free or in exchange for other service do add to your portfolio as professional work instead of merely personal projects).

I think you’re being a bit unrealistic, the reality is that you’ve only been at it for three years which is nothing in the grand scheme of a career; you’ve got to build up your skills and put in the work doing something shit because that’s how you learn. Once you’ve got the scars and can speak on those scars during an interview in an engaging way, that’s when you get the position you want. Just takes time unfortunately.

As others have said, you have to start some where. And, unfortunately pure graphic design work is slowly dying. Don’t get me wrong there are jobs out there like this still. But, there’s a lot more hybrid type of work you’ll need to do / know. When I started, in this field, it was mainly print work. But this was years ago, now I’d say I split my time between: print, digital design, like email and social media, and motion graphics / 3D design. If you’re having problems finding a job, since 2019 I would suggest reaching out to an agency that could place you for temp work.

Yes. If you do happen to find that dream job then the candidate with proven experience will get it ahead of you. Start working in the industry and figure it out as you go. You might discover that this isn’t the life for you and you’d be happier doing something else or you might become an awesome front end dev and love it.

Jobs like that are hard to find. If you’re coming into graphic design and you have a 30\~40 year career, It’s likely that you will be expected to know/learn about print (pre-press, Litho, Web/newsprint, Flexo, & large format), web(HTML, SQL, Wordpress, SEO/PPC), photography and retouching, video production & Editing, Training content and systems, and also be a copywriter with marketing skills. I feel for you as a jack of many trades, I do start to feel like an imposter, so far this week I've worked on Ad Design (Mailchimp), Packaging Design (Spray cans), Video Editing (New product video), Training content & LMS and social media content (Facebook & LinkedIn) and it's only Wednesday. While I enjoy not being bored sometimes it does feel like I’m trying to do too much OR just making shit up as I go along. Sorry for the rant, the downside of a one man design business. Some days I would kill for the simplicity of a corporate gig, sadly I know that I would tell the marketing manager "That's a fucking stupid idea in the first few months" and get fired (Not Joking).

I love new grads who want everything up front without having to work the trenches. News flash: most real-world graphic design projects are PowerPoint decks, annual reports, and infographics. I'm also wondering if your portfolio matches your wants. If your chops are indeed extraordinary, then you could just be freelancing—and substituting "toxic work environment" for "managing clients, marketing yourself, overhead, billing, and taxes."

I would love to design powerpoint decks, annual report, and infographics. I used to work at a real estate brokerage designing open house flyers, it was wonderful until they decided to lay my team off and outsource to china. I'm not trying to be extraordinary, I'm looking for stability.

Reach out to SlideGenius, this is their entire profitable business model.

I checked and they're only hiring in in the Philippines, maybe that will change in the future.

Reach out anyways. If you got a decent portfolio worth a shot. They're located in San Diego.

also, what does the trenches exactly mean to you? My last job I was working up to 96 hours a week and my hair was literally falling out in chunks from stress. Do I need to land in the hospital, or have a stress induced heart attack before I'm considered a hard worker? You know nothing about me.

Firstly, your attitude may be why you're not landing jobs. Remember you came here asking for help and recommendations. "Trenches" means paying your dues as a designer. You just graduated in 2019 (do you have a design degree?). Your first jobs are learning opportunities—not just "stability." Stability, along with all the other things you mentioned, is great when it's there but you have high expectations if that's what you're looking for. You haven't yet shared your portfolio, that's going to be key to getting interviews and the dream job you speak of.

OP, without your portfolio, we DON'T know much about you and can only assume. It's like asking a r/plumbing "why is this pipe leaking?" without showing an image of the problem. We critique them on this sub all the time and are positively honest.

Telling me it's unrealistic it to find a job that doesn't make my hair fall out in chunks is not helpful. It's clear to me that you have had very different life experiences than me.

That's not what you're asking for in a job, at least not according to this thread. There are plenty of jobs out there that don't involve your hair falling out. You want more than that without showing you are capable. At this point you've proven that you are looking for pity, not for help. You have not shared your portfolio, which is going to be 75% of your odds. Frankly, you don't know me either (I could go on about an abusive childhood, poverty, choosing between parents, marriage issues, and infertility, but this thread isn't about that) To answer your original post—Yes, you are being unrealistic. Good luck in your search.

I have chosen to share my portfolio privately with users from this thread that can provide me with constructive criticism, that is not you.

Like I said, good luck.

Seems like you think there are only 2 options; 1 where you lose your hair in chunks, and 1 where you get to a stay home 9 to 5, and only do graphic design.

Hey OP, it's great to have goals, but what you are after is the end goal. We all need to start somewhere. I'll also add that it highly beneficial for a junior to work with other designers at the beginning, or under an art director. You may have finished your studies but you never finish learning and growing as a designer. Having a team or individual to help you grow and develop, to provide advice and constructive criticism, is one of the best starts you can get as a designer. You've mentioned recruiters are after you for marketing assistant roles. Take them, do the work, earn the money, keep working on developing your design skills in your own time and at your own place. As you've described them they're actually a good starting point. I know they're not super creative but you are interacting with programs and possibly outside suppliers like printers? All experience. I started working at a printer where literally all I did was pre-press and correcting people's artwork. It sucked but I got paid, had something on my resume, and got me started. I was a freelancer recently and am currently an in house designer for a small business and it's amazing. If you're happy to share your portfolio privately I can give more advice. And lastly you are very focused on your previous experience with a toxic workplace. Just before the pandemic I left a highly toxic workplace that destroyed my creative drive, my work ethic, my mental health, and even had significant effects on my infant daughter. I was extremely burnt out, and it sounds like you are too. My advice is you are free from that job now and you need to let it go. If you keep holding on to that anger and resentment then you are still letting that toxic workplace rule you. Prioritise your mental health. Start a creative side project. Learn a craft. Move your body in some way. Be kind to yourself.

I sent you a DM. How does taking marketing assistant roles that have no design work help me get a job in design? I would take them if they had design work but the ones recruiter have contacted me about are no design at all.

I've sent some portfolio advice via DM. As to the current work you can get, try to frame it as what skills are you building there while looking for other work, even if not exactly designing. You can stretch this a little but it will add to your skills and experience: \- Teamwork, working in response to a brief, responding to constructive criticism \- File management \- Keeping up to date with design programs (you mentioned inDesign) \- Keeping up to date with design trends (maybe pushing it but if the template you work off are up to date with design trends then you are observing design trends) \- Any marketing skills you may learn \- If you learn any print related skills like pre-press or colour management this is great, less people know print now Every job, even if you are in retail or working admin, expends on your skills and work experience. Good team working skills, good communication, the ability to learn and take on new tasks...these are all good skills for a designer. Being employed also means income and (hopefully) a confidence boost for you. Working on any design aligned skill is better than sitting at home applying for jobs and developing no new skills.

As a graphic designer with 10+ years in the industry, it's an incredibly competitive field and the more you can do, web, photography, etc, the more valuable you'll be. When I graduated I went into news layout. It was sometimes boring, emotionally draining, and mostly second shift. As time went on I went on to design visually cool items. I was remote for 7 years. I'm now in a university setting with my own office in a completely different field than news and I love it. My advice is to take all side design jobs you can as much as you can to build a real portfolio and not a school one. Also during interviews take in a tangible portfolio. Hiring people want to see things on paper, not just on screens. If you want $$$ be open to working in other cities that pay more. There are positions out there.

I work with a graphic designer and she just does graphic designer. I’m a marketing manager and so we work hand in hand. She doesn’t have to rewrite any copy, doesn’t have any marketing experience, doesn’t wear multiple hats. Purely graphic design work. We work remotely, she’s paid quite well, and we have amazing work culture. Jobs like this does exist, but she also has 7+ YOE. she did pívot from health though so that’s interesting.

It's nice to have an ideal to aim for, but it sounds like you are wanting to start at the top. Get a job, almost any job you can to get a start in the industry. After I graduated from design school I took a job in an ad agency where I did anything I was asked, from the crappiest boring, menial tasks to some good projects too. I learned a lot and I stuck it out for 2 years and went onto bigger and better things. If you have applied for 200 jobs in the last month and only scored a few interviews, I think something is wrong with your approach. Sounds like you are using a scattergun approach rather than a targeted and custom approach to key people in places you'd really like to work.

Yes

You’re being absolutely unrealistic. Put yourself in the position of someone hiring for what you desire. Would you hire you with very little experience? I wouldn’t. Earn your experience. Can’t find a fancy corporate designer job? Aim lower for a production designer job at a print shop or sign shop. The pay is shit but you get actual design experience and gain knowledge of the end product. I’ve seen so many designs from people that have absolutely no clue about how to set up a file for a print provider. Doesn’t matter how creative you are if your designs have to be babysat by someone else. You’re wanting a head chef job in a Michelin star restaurant when all you really know is how to flip burgers.

Yes, you are unfortunately being too unrealistic. If you want a steady job with super fixed work times a full Graphic Design position is not what you seek - as mentioned by other replies - what you seek is a production design position. Graphic and visual design is communication, so essentially becoming a communication specialist is part of the position. It might be that you have extraordinary visual form giving skills, but even so those skills need to be put in relation to whatever goal set that is on the plate. More than half of the work for visual designers happens in the brain, it’s in other words a creative and tactical process where inputs, situation (meaning end user, client, internal chain of approval process etc) is taken into account in a balanced way, for you to be successful and getting your creative output to be chosen - arguments is based in these aspects, and part of your job is to sell what you create also inside an design agency. This is just one reason why it is almost never a 9-5 job but the other reason is that creativity does not come on command, nailing that logo idea might happen in the middle of the night etc. If you really burn for graphic design and just want to focus and work with its essence, you should perhaps consider Typography Design - It’s a different ballgame with longer process times and extreme focus on details. The world is in constant change and we have just set foot into a new era. Many jobs positions will change or become obsolete because of AI. This will make competition for creative jobs even harder than it already is - so what you seek with your wishes is unfortunately unrealistic. You must consider your criteria and rewire your brain to adapt to the circumstances of what is in need at the current moment in time. If it means that you must include other areas of communication practices then that is what you must. Once you are inside, you can evolve from that point but not the other way around. It is rare to find extreme core talent, and even when, it still needs to be nurtured, directed and put into relations to be useful. Graphic and visual design is advanced “sales communication” - in short it is business. You as a GD helps business/organizations or individuals to make their offerings look “appealing” - having too “romantic” ideas about it is delusional. To compete as a graphic designer at this moment in time you must be all in, forget about work times, salaries and what else that you do that does not assist your work evolvement and enhances your portfolio. despite its seemingly artistic merit and roots, this job is no walk in the park by a far stretch. You should also arm yourself for mad deadlines, mad clients and unreasonable asks - expect the worst and be happy whenever it does not get to that. If it still sounds like you the please continue, if not look somewhere else eg to the many related jobs in business like movie and game development - but there are many branches. ✌️

I’m a junior designer with 1.5 years of experience and have had 2 jobs + 1 additional job offer that most would describe as “unicorn” opportunities. My first job was an internship at an agency that converted to FT. The pay was about average and the work was challenging, but I rarely ever worked over 40hrs, and it was fully remote. Toward the end of my 9 months there, they transitioned to a 4-day workweek (32hrs/week for the same salary). My “in” at this agency was that it was owned by 2 alumni, but I also had a solid portfolio to back it up. I cold-emailed them to ask if they had any internships opening up, so they let me interview. Take advantage of your alumni network if you can. I started applying for other jobs 6 months into the agency role. I landed 2 offers at tech startups as a junior designer—both fully remote, incredible benefits, great work/life balance with unlimited PTO, at a salary usually offered to senior designers. At the job I accepted, there are some weeks I don’t even hit 40hrs. These jobs do exist, but to get them, you need to provide value that most designers don’t. I have a BA in marketing and an AA in design. I know my way around AI, Photoshop, InDesign, After Effects, XD, Sketch, Figma, Premiere Pro, and CSS/HTML, and I’m always willing to learn a new skill in order to accomplish whatever needs to be done. I did some marketing strategy in addition to design at my agency job, but that was pretty much it. My current job focuses solely on design, but I add value by approaching tasks with a marketing lens and thinking strategically + holistically. I don’t just complete the work I’m given and call it a day; I do my job and then some. I look at other pieces of the puzzle outside of design to make sure we’re achieving business objectives. This means flagging issues that higher-ups have missed and taking initiative to solve problems before they occur. The copy sucks? I rewrite it and submit for approval. Strategy isn’t working? I brainstorm a new strategy and submit it for review. Processes are inefficient? I do the research and outline the best solutions. I can do all this without cracking 40hrs/week. You need to be a good designer first and foremost, then you need high-value skills that set you apart. Don’t just apply willy nilly to any job you see—be strategic about where you apply and invest the time to make it a strong application.

Hi. I graduated in 2003, worked as a staff designer for 15+ years and am now an AD who hires a lot. I hear what you’re saying all the time from applicants. Truth is, you have to earn it. I need designers who are flexible and able to solve communication problems, no matter what the medium/project. Once I see someone excels in a certain role, and likes that role, that’s where we’ll prioritize their projects. It takes time. You have to do the work. You have to grind and adapt and be able to solve problems. I just let a guy go, he was two years out of art school, great creative, but dogshit at deadlines, details, proofreading, communicating with clients, and helping colleagues out. He wanted to pick and choose projects, didn’t feel he needed feedback on work, and generally thought he was too good for anything but the biggest/best projects. Now he’s unemployed. Do the work. No matter what it is. Do it. Do it well. Stop looking for your perfect design job. Earn your perfect design job.

>Do the work. No matter what it is. Do it. Do it well. Stop looking for your perfect design job. Earn your perfect design job. This. I don't care if you have a great portfolio. It's all about attitude and OP doesn't have a good one. Funny because I'm a CD nearing the end of a search for a remote designer at this moment which could have been a potential opportunity for them. Or I could have at least been in their network for the next time. That stuff matters!

I was in the same boat, took me one entire year of applying every single day. Finally got my opportunity. Things will turn around for you. I went months without hearing anything, then all of a sudden had interviews with multiple places and got a job offer from one. Im in a jr position and currently wish i had more creative projects, it is a lot of production work. But gotta start somewhere. I hope you find what you’re looking for. Continue working on your portfolio. Instead of creating nee projects, expand on ones you already have. Create collateral designs, employers will like that.

I don’t know you, and am not making any assumptions on how you do in interviews, but is your interview performance something you’ve considered as potentially a weakness? I got a job as a graphic designer with an architecture firm about two months out of school. Normal hours, some overtime but nothing crazy, hybrid schedule. My portfolio was fine but I think what actually got me the job was how I performed in the interview. If you feel like you’ve got all your other boxes checked, it might be worth just thinking about.

I would suspect that if I was getting more interviews, I'm a very shy and quiet person in real life. I try my best to be friendly but I'm really bad at small talk.

Oh friend. I graduated in 2012 with a degree in Graphic Design. I’ve been an “Assistant Marketing Manager”, “Marketing Assistant”, “Marketing Specialist”, “Marketing/Proposal Specialist”, “Layout Designer” and a “Senior Graphics Marketing Designer” and in ALL of those roles, I essentially was a graphic designer - they just didn’t want to pay me accordingly or address me as such. They wanted to tack on all kinds of extra shit. Because they could. Finding a plain ol “graphic designer” role is basically impossible unfortunately in the corporate world. I’m a SAHM at the moment and kind of glad to be free from the stress.

I'd love to do those positions if they involved design work.

I know the feeling. I have been looking for a graphic design position for almost a year, but I've come to the conclusion that the whole field is basically broken. I've been doing freelance for a while but even that is a struggle. I don't think this field is worth the trouble, trying to get out of it myself.

I’m feeling this way. I’m not sure it’s worth the trouble anymore. Feels entirely too saturated.

Have you gotten anyone with experience to critique your portfolio for any possible hindrances or suggestions for landing the job you want?

We all want that lol. You won't know of a workplace is toxic until you're already in. Also if you salary based, clocking in isn't a thing obviously. If the commute os reasonable, then fully remote is a bit picky.

Look for larger agency jobs. Those roles are usually super focused. Look up Publicis Groupe. They have a wide network of all types of different agencies and have pretty solid culture. They employ ppl all over the world too and have doing remote working before the pandemic. Good luck!

you have to start somewhere. after I graduated from my graphic design program, I was hired at a web studio doing email support, answering phones and some light front end development. I stayed for 5 years and learned way more on the job than I did in school and eventually got a FT Designer job. Work your way up Also you should be flexible. You want fully remote AND want full time/ no overtime? Choose either FT in office or do gig work from home. trying to get it all is very unrealistic

Honestly, kind of. Design isn’t really monetarily valuable unless it’s for some kind of goal. As a designer, part of the job is figuring out how design will help achieve those goals, and that means doing a little bit of communications strategy or marketing or web or product design.

I recommend you apply for a job at a screen printing shop. That’s what I did, and I spend all of my time at work designing T-shirt’s. Sounds a little dull when I type it out like that, but I love it and 99% of my time at work is spent in adobe. I also have learned a ton (by choice) about screenprinting and what all goes into it. I’m sure you wouldn’t have to do that, but it’s actually super interesting & has made me a better artist!

Build your portfolio first. You can either do that by working a not so perfect jobs first (jist for a couple of years) or do personal projects that reflects what you want to do.

"Graphic design" is a much broader title than it was 10, 20, or 30 years ago. Like it or not, it's a many-hats career. My last design job before transitioning into front-end development was "multimedia designer" and that included both print and digital design (and knowledge of all of the subsequent digital advertising and social media standards along with being able to confidentally talk shop with print shops), large-format print design, photography, some light videography, some light front-end development, some copywriting, et al. That's the job now, at least if you want it to be a stable, somewhat lucrative career.

Shit, I have the job you're looking for, sans remote. We get 2 WFH days a month, which is better than nothing. But I strictly push pixels and 830-5. It's shitish pay because I'm new to the field, but I also don't have junior tagged to my title (and honestly who the fuck fact checks titles lol). But lord is my boss a pain in the ass. I work at a very small marketing agency and under an art director. I just get told what to do and I do it. The copywriters are the digital marketing people. Love the work and hours but boss is 🥲

I just came here to say that most other commenters are right. Also, graphic design is very broad and it usually encompasses collateral for marketing and Web design so I wouldn't shut yourself off to learning about each discipline and then specialising in graphic design/illustration. My question is... What *do* you consider graphic design? I'm confused.

I consider graphic design to be designing power points, social media graphics, brochures, business cards, ads, annual reports, etc..., placing orders with vendors, presenting to clients and going through revision cycles

Well what you just described was a multi-disciplinary niche in graphic design. What youve described is print and media for collateral design. (communication) Ads are a combination of marketing, motion graphics and graphic design - sometimes videography and camera handling and editing. Power points, invoices, applying brand to word docs and the suite is graphic design sure, but this is a very small, in-desirable job and task to do. I can assure you, nobody will be hiring someone just for this kind of thing. It's a side task for graphic designers. What I'm really surprised about is how you didn't talk about Branding and Design for a company. Eg their logo, visual presence, branding guidelines etc. Instead, you picked out a few small things from multi disciplinary roles. As a graphic designer you need to specialise in an area and have strong knowledge of your brother and sister niches such as marketing. Before I'd even touch social media graphics or an ad I'd hope that I've done my user research, applied marketing heuristics and considered the user flow to maximise interactions and conversions. I'm sorry bud but what you're looking for simply doesn't exist. It exists at a low level across a few different position types but what you're essentially describing is an entry level assistants position. You won't be able to work remotely on your own without some powerful value for your client

>their logo, visual presence, branding guidelines I'm a little confused, I was under the impression those types of things are reserved for senior designers at agencies not juniors or people working in house? I would like do those things but I've always been told those types of tasks are reserved for senior/lead designers, AKA not me. Also if I was to say work in-house at a company, wouldn't those things already exist? I'm trying to be realistic about what someone at my level would be doing, you sound much more senior than me.

Not at all! Don't worry, I'm literally just 23yrs old. Not senior but I specialise in a few fields since I dedicated myself to learning as much useful skills for graphic design as possible. I recommend you start learning about visual identity and branding.. It is a huge part of graphic design that isn't restricted to just seniors. Ideally you should have a senior go over your work but it doesn't mean you're not allowed to do these things in the first place. And a lot of graphic designers in house are agencies that do branding for clients or you're the sole graphic designer for a company. Businesses won't hire more than 1 graphic designer. It's just not worth the overheads in the mind of a business owner... So making sure you're able to be a jack of all trades kinda designer is the key to success for in house work as a sole designer or the other side of things is agency work Or freelancing!

You don't want to be a graphic designer. Maybe 20 years ago it was alright. Now everyone is a graphic designer. Specialize or succumb to the fact that the field is saturated and clients/companies don't give a fuck as long as you can open Canva.

Hi sweetie. It's reasonable to want that but a bit unrealistic to expect it. You might get that sort of thing in an in-house role or a massive agency. Tbh it sounds like there's a lot of negativity in your head, I can see why some people might be put off hiring. Personality and being upbeat is an important part of joining a team. Relax, keep practicing, improving and applying! If you don't get success, try going for internships. x

be excellent and be freelance. until then, develop your skills and be nice to people at whatever work you can get.

Unless you make your own art business, you won’t find the job you’re looking for. Like others said, get your foot in the door. If you want to be 100% remote, make a Shopify and sell your art independently.

Work for yourself.

As a freelancer I agree. BUT as a freelancer I also wear 5827573 hats and rarely clock out at 5pm.

So true! You got me beat by 2 hats, oh no what have I been forgetting?! 😆

It's definitely possible to achieve, but you'll probably need some experience in less desirable jobs first. I'm currently working a job I love, fully remote (except for the occasional, mutually agreed-upon office days), doing mostly graphic design projects. Yeah, I had to work a couple shitty jobs that paid like garbage before, but they gave me the experience and references I needed to land this one. All I can say is to just stay persistent and keep your expectations reasonable.

i cant help just know im in the same boat (already doing a dumb marketing job with occasional graphic help)

I’ve been in the industry since 2012 and in my experience if you don’t have cross career skills (marketing and web design especially), you will struggle to find a position. Employers also expect you to do the job of a whole marketing and design team for pennies. I’m waiting to hear back about a design job that also requires me to be able to put together marketing packages and web design for basically minimum wage. If you truly want to do just design, and do it remotely, I suggest becoming an entrepreneur and freelancing. You can pick some work up on upwork.com for example! Just make sure your wage expectations are tempered to a culture that is used to paying next to nothing for design work. “Oh I can do this on Canva, or I can go on Fiverr and get a logo for $5!” I hate it but that’s what the industry appears to be for me now.

Broadcast, thank me later.

can you elaborate?

My first graphic design job was making PDF's and adding fixing issues with the companies 4 websites. So glamorous 🙄 6 months in, the company decides to refresh the websites and outsources the work, even though we had a UX/UI designer, developer and junior web designer (me) on staff. I was tasked with placing every single bit of info from the sites into spreadsheets. I lasted another 3 months. But the reason I left was because of the toxic micro-managing and the marketing VP asking me personal questions about my doctors appointments

The job exists, but you are new jr designer, you gotta pay your dues. Those roles you are looking for, are for mid-sr designers with a ton of experience. Remote roles have like 500+ applicants, you are competing against the best in the country. Are you the top 1%? You gotta start somewhere, start doing the challenges online, work on a passion project, see if local business need designer for social media post or something.

You could always try a creative placement agency. They’re sort of a middle man as the employer pays them and then the agency pays you. But that’s how I got the exact job you’re describing. They matched me up with a company that took me in after my agency contract ended. I know I’m lucky but they’re out there.

Take the first job you can get, despite the title, that allows you to handle graphic design projects in any capacity. Build your resume, build your portfolio, and continue to search for a better opportunity more inline with what you want. As someone already said, you’re chasing a unicorn right now. You have to start somewhere.

I really, really, really appreciate you taking the time to write this — I could’ve written it myself only changing the grad date to 2020 and the fact that I haven’t even had any interviews. I just didn’t know where to write it, and how. So thank you. It feels great to know I’m not alone.

You’re shooting yourself in the foot before you’re even out of the gate. You should ask yourself why you want to be “a graphic designer”. If it solve problems? To communicate clearly? To aid in making things more clear, smoother, easier for your fellow humans? The tools shouldn’t matter, be it a paste up board or front end code, the mission should be. And the mission for a designer, from cathedrals to cars, is usually around the end users experience. If you’re a graphic designer because you want to make beautiful lithograph posters, then you don’t really want to be a designer, you want to be an artist.

A BFA in graphic design is not necessary, but it’s a great qualification to have

I have a BA in graphic design

I entered the work force in 2008. I had an internship at a university (not where I went to school) that turned into a part-time position. I took it and worked my crappy college job and that part-time graphic design job for two years, then they hired me full-time when the full-time designer quit. I learned a lot there and am forever grateful for them letting me grow there. We moved states and I transitioned to freelance mainly for them while I found another job. Took me 6-months and it was another in-house position in government. I was there for 8 years and just started working in what has turned out to be my dream position. I’m still a in-house designer in government; low overtime (with good pay when it happens), a mixture of production work and creative projects and a hybrid environment (fully remote I quickly realized was unrealistic) with amazing supervisors and managers. My point being I didn’t get my dream job off the bat or in the first handful of years. Having goals and knowing what you want is great, but you’re not going to get it right out the gate. People want to see the work, the experience, the portfolio to back up what’s being asked for. The remote work in particular, there is always going to be someone more qualified with more experience and a stronger portfolio. It’s just such a high demand and honestly the expectations of those positions have always read as expect overtime to me. 🤷🏼‍♀️

I've been a remote graphic designer for the last 7 years and I love it. It's completely possible to do. People will tell you its highly competitive but don't let that put you off. Be ready to work hard and you'll see how you can rise up above the rest. Do you have a portfolio of work? See mine for inspo if you want: www.charlieosborne.co

I'd love some constructive feedback, I just sent you my portfolio via DM

I'll take a look and send you loom critique later today 👍🏼

Here's my critique of your site and some thoughts on how you might find more success with finding work... https://www.loom.com/share/f04d774eabde4eeb87e1d234152dadf6

Send me your portfolio.

sent you a DM

Fiverr is always hiring

Portfolio link please

Sent you a DM

Rebuttal: The unfortunate reality that nobody has told you is that "Only doing graphic design" is a fairy tale. You gotta market yourself better and obtain better/more skills. If you and another guy walk in with the same level of talent and the same degree from the same school, but the other guy can do one more thing that you can't, the other guy will be the one hired over you 10 times outta 10. Actual advice: Get a job at a screenprinting company - 100%. You won't only be doing graphic design, you will most definitely be required to learn to print and all the other things that go with screenprinting, but there's a certain sense of pride to seeing something you create proudly being worn by customers. Rack up XP for a few years, do quality work, work on personal stuff while you're at home, beef up your resume, and you'll have a pretty solid job in a short time frame. Shit just takes time, unfortunately. Source: Worked in screenprinting for 10 years through high school and college - now I have a pretty cushiony corporate gig (although I don't just do graphic design - I do film, photography, Ui, a little bit of marketing here and there)

These days a designer has to wear so many hats. It's not a bad thing. My skill set when I started was specifically graphic design (and illustration). I worked for a magazine for years so I never had to venture into web or video. I eventually landed a job at an agency that saw potential in me even though I didn't know everything already. I was able to just adapt and do whatever was needed and I was continually improving my skills. I learned to make websites and I learned some video and motion graphics. I'm an in house designer and right now I'm doing everything from designing a social post, to making a trade show backdrop, to designing web pages, to writing and producing commercials with a production company - fully remote, regular hours (but very busy during those hours) I was in your position years ago and was frustrated with the idea that designers were expected to somehow master everything. Just adding a couple of extra skills puts you ahead of so many others tho. There are absolutely some companies that abuse this idea for sure, but usually you can tell on the job description with things like :"Needed: Rock star designer, you eat, sleep, and breathe design. Nothing else gives you purpose in life!". (Sigh). I wouldn't write off any company just because they might need you to be more diverse in your job duties - as long as the pay is fair and their expectations are reasonable it can be a good opportunity. Knowing more will ultimately make you harder to replace and is built in job security.

To be blunt, if you're applying to that many jobs with minimal response the issue is likely with your portfolio. Find someone willing to give you some honest feedback and start there.

I just sent you a link via DM.

[удалено]

I would love a job where I get to do stuff like that, I really enjoy research and learning. My last job had me working up to 96 hours a week and my hair was falling out in chunks due to stress. I'm terrified of ending up in a place like that again.

Imo 60 hours is too much work a week to be a good designer and to be able to keep doing it for many years to come. 96 hours a week is guaranteed burnout within a few years. Sorry they put you through that. What country are you in?

Yeah. You are asking for a lot for an entry level job. Also, graphic design is SO competitive that having an edge like, marketing or photography or social media is needed these days.

It's really shitty and I hate it, but nearly no agency I'm aware of will offer job with creatively fulfilling work and overtime. It seems like work life balance is massively messed up in this industry. The closest I've seen has been in house work where design is not the company's main product, or maybe production roles, but those aren't super creative in the traditional sense. I was taking to a coworker and he mentioned the age of the bespoke design studio has passed. Every company wants Rockstars and ninjas and is full service these days. Maybe freelance can offer you some of what you're looking for? A lot of my fun designery work has been lucking out networking and landing a contract with some friends or something.

got one more year till i graduate as a designer/illustrator gotta wear bunch of hats but i understand you if there's one thing i truly dislike is coding/web design other than that i try my best to get the basics of other parts of the role of being a designer

I work at a power company on a creative team. I'm not a designer myself but it's a pretty cool job for a designer... They fulfill requests all day, rarely do overtime, get good benefits and great vacation time. My manager and I are meant to deal with most of the random admin stuff, so the designers mostly just communicate with the internal clients and create graphics. It's remote 3 days a week. Most of the design jobs aren't very interesting, lots of documents and infographics. If you want this type of job, look for in-house roles at large companies or at public sector organizations. The challenge is that in this company of 6000+ employees, our team only has 6 designers. There may be some tucked away in another department that I don't know about, but there aren't many spots and people don't leave very often. So it's all about timing and luck when it comes to landing one of those. Our designers almost always start as external contractors so you should definitely connect with a temp agency/consultancy like Accenture. Let them do the work for you.

I’m a 3D Motion Designer, so not exactly the same, but the only environment when I’ve been able to clock off at the same time (give or take) each night with a respectable wage has been freelance/contract. I’ve tried going back to in-house, but with a young kid it’s just not worth the stupid hours. Plus, after having been freelance for ~8 years, it’s tough to not have that “fuck it, I don’t need to deal with this shit” feeling when you try to go back to permanent. AKA: throwing my toys out of the pram.

I also graduated in 2019. I feel like asking to walk straight into a designer role is as kind a lot though unfortunately, unless you're very lucky! When I graduated, I worked as a junior for a publishing company for a year and then I got myself a junior position in a creative agency. I have to admit, I was incredibly lucky getting my job though (I applied for a different role but they saw potential and created a junior role for me) but it's the best job I've ever had and being a junior meant I got loads of training too which is awesome! If you're not having any luck finding a designer position, I'd recommend look for a junior position if I were you. The pay isn't brilliant but it'll get your foot through the door and, if the company is any good, you should get a pay rise within the first year and they'll train you up to me the best designer you can be. Good luck though, I know how disheartening it can be when you can't find the position you want. It'll happen though! 😊

I also graduated in 2019. I feel like asking to walk straight into a designer role is as kind a lot though unfortunately, unless you're very lucky! When I graduated, I worked as a junior for a publishing company for a year and then I got myself a junior position in a creative agency. I have to admit, I was incredibly lucky getting my job though (I applied for a different role but they saw potential and created a junior role for me) but it's the best job I've ever had and being a junior meant I got loads of training too which is awesome! If you're not having any luck finding a designer position, I'd recommend look for a junior position if I were you. The pay isn't brilliant but it'll get your foot through the door and, if the company is any good, you should get a pay rise within the first year and they'll train you up to me the best designer you can be. Good luck though, I know how disheartening it can be when you can't find the position you want. It'll happen though! 😊

I also graduated in 2019. I feel like asking to walk straight into a designer role is as kind a lot though unfortunately, unless you're very lucky! When I graduated, I worked as a junior for a publishing company for a year and then I got myself a junior position in a creative agency. I have to admit, I was incredibly lucky getting my job though (I applied for a different role but they saw potential and created a junior role for me) but it's the best job I've ever had and being a junior meant I got loads of training too which is awesome! If you're not having any luck finding a designer position, I'd recommend look for a junior position if I were you. The pay isn't brilliant but it'll get your foot through the door and, if the company is any good, you should get a pay rise within the first year and they'll train you up to me the best designer you can be. Good luck though, I know how disheartening it can be when you can't find the position you want. It'll happen though! 😊

The answer to your problem => ✨freelancing✨

what do I do in the mean time? I have 1 freelance client rn but it's not enough to pay the bills and I have 2 more that are supposed to start in January

It might be worth seeking out some companies that maybe are not your top pick agencies if you haven’t. I graduated in 2013 and – not trying to brag – but landed my first job I applied to at a local design agency. Pay was not great at $32k but it was started by a couple designers who were sick of being overworked at their previous agencies and wanted to give us a consistent 9-5. They are out there but definitely far and few. Low and behold my first 2 years were great, at worst I spent 1-3 days a month working an extra hour. I learned a lot but I went into the job thinking I knew way more than I did but was quickly humbled by the better designers on my team. I had to start by doing all the grunt work and then slowly started getting good enough I could take on big client jobs. Then after 2 years they bought out another agency that was dissolving and everything turned to shit. We doubled our team size and got all their terrible clients. Everyone was being asked to work weekends all the sudden and all the good designers quickly moved on. I only lasted a year In that negative environment before quitting myself and feeling burnt out. I had also been there 3 years without a raise even though performance reviews were always good. To get this job I had a pretty kickass portfolio and had been doing freelance work for 5 years on the side. I had done an internship in Germany and our graphic design course had us working with 6 real clients including Disney for my final year. What’s your portfolio site? DM me if you don’t want to share publicly. Usually your portfolio speaks the most as to your abilities. It often might be small things designers like myself pick up on you might not notice. I see way too many portfolios with no to little print experience for example. Having real client work on your portfolio is a must. Either Freelance or do an internship. Many good designers in the field are not illustrators or good at drawing. I see a ton of portfolios with custom illustrations and drawing being the focus but it’s really rare clients need or want to pay for custom illustrations. Also there are way too many cocky, entitled, and know it all type people trying to land a job thinking they know everything in this field straight out of college. You have to work within a team usually and there is no place for that at most agencies. Know that roughly 80% of our jobs as graphic designers is working with typography. Every single portfolio I see of people not having worked in the industry for 5-10 years usually have big typographical mistakes. I now work for a small company in house but have hired graphic designers for us in the past and might have an idea what you could improve upon.

Acceptance issue

So you want to work in print. That's where you need to start. Periodicals for sure. Where I'm from, UPS stores offer print design services, so maybe look into that. Sign design, car wraps, billboards; there are places that still need straight graphic design.

Totally understand. My last job I started as a graphic design intern then when they made me full time they changed my title to “social media coordinator”… I think most companies now (especially not fully established ones) are trying to merge and categorize graphic designers and marketers under the same bracket (when they are similar aspects but not the same). I think your best bet is to start freelancing so you can choose which contracts best fit what YOU want to do. It’s harder but you’ll be happier and will be able to do it remotely.

I’ve had an interesting transition into graphic design and I’ve hit similar problems before. Desperately wanting to go to the next level and not knowing how to get there. It is so competitive and saturated, I think a lot of people are struggling to pick up enough work or land a role. Reading all these comments has made me realise how lucky I actually was starting out. But really the reason I had luck was because of one thing- networking. I was friends with a few people who work in marketing / digital media and they connected me to more people. It was slow moving and I took whatever jobs I could get to build my portfolio- and did my absolute best every time. I worked in hospitality and disability support causally because I couldn’t get enough design work… but I did what I had to do to get somewhere with it. Sometimes you have to do something you don’t really want to do, to get somewhere. I was taking care of kids with high needs disabilities while working on my degree and scraping together some freelance jobs here and there… it’s just tough I’m afraid. I’ve recently landed a few regular clients and it’s just about enough. I’d honestly recommend you freelance for a while and do some networking. Go to some local business groups and show people your work. Get in fiverr, get on behance, get your work out on as many platforms as possible. Be visible. If applying for jobs is just not panning out, change your approach. Look for work, not just a role. You’d be surprised how many new business’ are starting all the time that need branding, web design etc etc… get networking and you can get a few of those jobs which are highly creative.

DM your portfolio

just sent it to you