Graphic design job market reddit I literally have 3 degrees in design and I haven't ever gotten a job in design. Straight up there are too many of us and not enough jobs. How much of a threat is chat gpt and what parts of the job are not replaceable by ai, if any? When you look at jobs for graphic design, a lot of them ask that you have digital marketing knowledge/experience. You have to give up your creative freedom for the majority of your jobs. I started out in '76 by designing and printing them as a volunteer at music clubs, and I kept on doing that as a side job while I was studying art and working, for about 30 years. From my experience a lot of graphic design job postings are ignorant about what real UX is and they just throw in "UX design" as a caveat for the job. They gave me a design test and I got the job in August 2023. No graphic design degree. Just because you use InDesign and Illustrator and make brochures or posters, doesn't mean that you are a graphic designer. Graphic design job pays $17. Enjoy the work you’re doing, not just another job because it was easier to get. Which probably also means that I’ve just been underpaid at every job. From there I took a shitty, part-time Graphic Designer in-house job (plastics company) at 21,000/yr. i’ve been searching like crazy for design jobs in canada ever since and applying to them at least twice a week. 62/hr (two months back on the job and I got a 0. Graphic design is incredibly broad and saturated. I moved into graphic design because I liked eating and paying bills. I'll then have my bachelor of arts in media design. UX is research, journey mapping, jobs to be done, information architecture. After trying freelance for two years, doing full in-house production, I applied to jobs and got the first thing that gave me an offer. 29 year old office manager with 5 years experience, plus graphic design, website management, statistical reporting, and other various experience here! I have been looking for a job for 6 months. But most openings are senior positions and companies seem to be easily filling those positions. Talk about tough competition! I also noticed that there's a growing list of requirements during the application process. It seems like each and every graphic designer on the planet has taken a bunch of school of motion courses, which means a ton of people with identical portfolios. One designer or marketer could probably do the job of a whole department/studio in half the time once ai is developed enough. I’m seeing two things - reduced client budgets and a really saturated market. From my point of view, the further along you are in your design career, the tougher it becomes to find full-time employment that aligns with your expectations regarding Left a pretty toxic work environment at the end of the year and am in a very brief break from design (managed to land an entry level STEM position through a friend of mine that overall is a solid job, just a bit boring) and I’ve been applying to jobs pretty vigorously since the new year started and have only gotten an interview or two. Went to junior College. If there are no jobs near you and if you aren’t willing to move then you’ll never get a design job. have to see how tech evolve, i have heard from another country where the company is already dumping all of graphic design work into ai and just generated from there, and firing most of the graphic designers. I switched to graphic design from animation/visual development because of this lmao. Dont want to shit on your parade but in italy everyone with a computer and a cracked version of photoshop is a self titled graphic designer so the market is oversaturated by wannabes and poor designer, competence and style are not rewarded in the slightest and the public perception of the job is mostly along the line of "if you like drawing Oftentimes you’ll see job ads for marketing execs even in medium sized orgs with required photoshop or graphic design experience because you’ll be creating all the content you put out as well as doing the strategy and measuring. I just graduated a few months ago from one of their hardest programs. The jobs here deal mostly with politics or government topics so it can be a bit boring but there were tons of jobs when I was last searching earlier this year. If you look at some motion design studios, the work they do can be done by 1 person. But for UI/UX, it’s very good once you are able to get into it. Dubai is over it’d finished dead already What remaining decent jobs left are few companies can be count on fingers and you must need Wasta Mostly depending on prostitution jobs, and it’s clearly showing the job offered above is for monkey business A lot of jobs offered requirements is to have sex first with owner then ( job + visa ) granted Mar 3, 2025 · Making use of various graphic design software applications; Presenting final designs to clients or managers; Making adjustments to finished work based on client or manager feedback; Related: Learn About Being a Graphic Designer Where do graphic designers work? Graphic designers can work in a few different locations. I maintained freelance work during this time. This may be due to the fact that I live in a sparsely populated country, but roughly 8 out of 10 job postings I’ve seen the last few years have combined marketing and graphic design or social media and graphic design very much like this. Show your work, be able to go deeper on explanation for in- In my local job market there are plenty of open positions, companies are definitely still hiring. The graphic design skills have been essential to every job that I’ve had, even though none of them were “graphic designer” in the traditional sense. If I could hire a mid-level motion designer who could design low lift static graphics when I needed, I'd be thrilled. I got a few jobs and interviews fairly easily as compared to when I was applying for animation jobs. I'm a teenager whose making 7,000-4,000 Pesos a month on Fiverr through Graphic Designing with an approximate hourly wage of 250-1,500 pesos and I see it's kind of lucrative and nice without actually spending huge amount of time or effort thus leaving me time for my schoolworks. On the flip side unfortunately the industry is also (or seems) oversubscribed and consequently very competitive. Design powers everything in the world and if your good at it you'll always be in demand. I went from finally hitting a really great job with amazing coworkers, a generous salary, and felt great about the work I was doing. If you just want to make pretty things, graphic design isn’t it. I make 70k gross in a freelancing agency. Seems like there is a back fill of graduates and entry level designers and researchers who can't get positions to gain valuable on the job experience. Both jobs evolve around the same kind of content, but a GD would often get the task to design a logo or visual identity - so that is overall still Graphics with focus on many details as it’s the foundation for any further variations in the total communication output - in that aspect the Motion Graphic job would often come in - like when a Graphic design and marketing are kind of intrinsically linked, as any designer working alone or in a smaller context will be doing some marketing, but as you scale up these do become more distinct roles but will likely be working together more than most other pairings. I was a graphic designer/art director for over 45 years. My personal art and characters are all I've ever had as a coping mechanism, and making it my career very rapidly made me hate art entirely. You have to stick to a brand guideline and let clients “ruin” your work. The job market has gotten so bad that I’ve been interviewing outside of the creative industry, and a recent shift at a bakery gave me more of a feeling of fulfillment than nearly a decade of agency work. To now, having to look at jobs that pay up to 38k a year for senior and lead experience. And given your background in graphic design it probably will seem quite simple. A lot of companies overhired their creative teams during the pandemic, only to start laying people off around early 2023. Dec 17, 2024 · But to be honest, many of them are quite underwhelming—especially from people who’ve been searching for a job for a long time. Well, really the only one. I was wondering if a bachelor's degree is really required to obtain a graphic design job in Vancouver as many job postings state that it is required, however I can't find a suitable place to go to obtain a BA specifically for graphic design but I was wanting to go to BCIT for graphic design although they only offer an associate's certificate there. Recently laid off UX designer here - the job market is just as shit as the graphic design market. The low end of the market is what is being actively gutted but a combination of AI (stock photos, illustration), Canva (graphic design), and Squarespace (web design). Some of them assert that "UX is not UI and visual design is a graphic designer's job" or that UX is just about mastering Figma, and nothing else. The job market is especially bad right now, I know people who've been out of work for an entire year. Essentially, you as a Motion Designer could learn graphic design, video editing, storytelling, directing/cinematography etc while doing Motion Design and that is a powerful set of skills to have and I doubt you will have hard time finding jobs with those skills. Anyways, I feel like I’d be missing a limb if I did not have those skills Software and AI is democratizing graphic design. Hi I'm 14 years old and I'm currently thinking if I should take Multimedia Arts or Business Management. Focus on the non-rote aspects of graphic design, the higher order functions only skilled humans can do, and you should do well for the foreseeable future, IMO. 5 years trying to get into the program, got in. While there are people who get by on JUST design, the job market does not exist to serve you, you exist to serve the job market. Hope for the best, expect the worst! Even before it was really bad, you should expect at least 1-2 months before landing an interview. Based in: California, working remotely from Missouri. I worked 15 hours a week next to full time uni. They had around 7 years of experience. Ultimately, if graphic design is your passion, pursuing it as a career can be incredibly rewarding. Leading to less need for a sole graphic designer. I had 1. First job out of school was a graphic designer for Ad Agency. Focusing on one thing doesn't mean you forget how to do the other. Get a job doing something boring so you have some income. I loved it, but I recently retired and I think it was the best decision I could make. is it always like this If you're talking about traditional ID jobs, maybe. In my previous company, a BPO, Graphic Designer III made low 6-figures. This year, I'll have graduated from design school a year ago: I feel like our teachers didn't prepare us efficiently for applying to jobs, and I never thought that finding an entry-level position would be so difficult. I currently work as the lead UX/UI designer for a local telecom company, however I hate my job. With design being so broad, learning graphic design is essential to becoming a digital animator, motion graphics artist, UI designer, product designer, and much much more. i have a pretty good portfolio and an etsy shop as well so i don’t think the problem is the portfolio. I kind of see graphic design as an entry-level job to a much larger career spectrum after working with this industry for some years now. After that I started re-branding myself as a motion designer despite being very average at it. there are few junior/intermediate openings- this has always been a trend to be fair, but my gut feeling is there used to be more junior/intermediate positions. Currently, the job market for graphic designers seems quite challenging. Ah okay, well I'm a designer In the UK! Design-wise the industry is large and we have a lot of very good designers and agencies in Britain. Fuck. Everyone who doesn't like their job decides they want to be a designer now. Ent- Design. I'd much rather design logos n shit for a job, and save the The issue is, graphic design jobs that regularly need illustration are in a tiny minority – and yet when you tell young designers looking for their first design job that "some design jobs do actually need illustration", each and everyone one of them will jump onto it and fill their portfolio with whatever art they've already done, in the A celebrity or professional pretending to be amateur usually under disguise. Went from graphic design to creative services. Marami rin akong skills like motion design, video edit, graphic design, and more. So many senior level talented digital designers can't find any work right now, too much hiring in previous years with the UX boom and now layoffs has made for an incredibly rough/competitive market. I am an aspiring graphic designer and I wanted to know what is the current state of affairs about the market. They were all graduates I would consider strong and very competitive. It’s just a bunch of typography sat on top of a background. But if entry level jobs get reduced to even 50% of what exists today. I've had 3 graphic design jobs, and I can't see myself being happy with any of them. This is the worst job market in the history of graphic design as a profession and it probably won't be better in 4-5 years if you were to graduate with a degree in graphic design around that time. Put a portfolio together and currently UI/UX is hot so don’t look for graphic designer positions, they pay much less. Situation A: If you're looking to get a job as a graphic designer at a company that is not graphic design based, chances are they already have a logo, they already have a website, they already have a brand, so what they see isn't anything new/interesting to them. I just moved up the Washington D. not so sure about art job in singapore currently but there is a big company called Ifun that used to hire a lot of people to make video i graduated a design program from a well known school over a year ago. Jobs are extremely competitive and yes, they are getting hundreds of applicants. I see so many similarities bw UX and marketing. o. For example, a professional tennis player pretending to be an amateur tennis player or a famous singer smurfing as an unknown singer. Graphic Designers do not maintain social media accounts - Social Media Account Managers do Graphic Designers do not do market research for product sales - Marketing Teams do Graphic Designers do not do event and product photography - Photographers do Graphic Designers do not source and write copy for their work - Copywriters do background: i'm not a senior designer, but i run a small job board for ui/ux designers where i manually curate the jobs posted. Have little to no skill in motion graphic (istg, I see motion graphic skill required in a lot of job posting I wanted to apply) We would like to show you a description here but the site won’t allow us. The undisputed is over saturated with people who learned UX but have zero visual design sensibility. The graphic design is very limited at this current gig but I have made some UI components and contributed to the large design system we have. UX is oversaturated with average/low skills designers with not a lot of in depth qualifications or experience. Literally anyone with a computer can try their hand at it, like you. I had to add graphic design to my wheelhouse and that’s my main income but I do some low budget film poster art and merchandise. Brand and logo design as well as marketing, social media presence, recruiting material, body copy layout, some web design, photography and photo editing, product design/apparel uniform mock-ups, video shooting and editing, blitz employee incentive programs and program marketing/design is all being labeled as the role of a “graphic designer”. Additionally, you might want to research the job market and salary expectations in your desired location to make an informed decision. I'm a graphic designer making the switch to UX and this is the one thing I'm trying very hard not to be. I accepted a full-time Graphic Designer job and doubled my salary. You should have a balance of design for manufacturing, design research, graphic design, UI/ux, business, marketing, project management, and a variety of other highly marketable skills after a few years in industry. Only have been with the company for 8 months. Brush up on some graphic design basics, get the basics of figma, and go at it again. It’s the most I have ever earned in my life at age 43. Now here's the big problem, Many people in the comments adviced me to network and speak to local businesses, I live in a third world country (Tunisia), people here don't give two shits about anything related to graphic design, business cards are made with Microsoft word (I'm not kidding), social media is just a bunch of pictures whether it's It's just Graphic Designer internally, but VISUAL/DIGITAL DIRECTOR is the official state title. My first job was as an in-house graphic designer for a national restaurant chain. The other 75% struggled to find design It is not impossible, but was a good boost for me that I valued because I started graphic design studies when I was already 22 y. I was from a fine art background, 4 year degree in painting and printmaking. C. I got hired as a Videographer / Designer The pay isn’t great. And on LinkedIn, a legit design position can attract hundreds of applicants within an hour. You’re not in graphic design to “make art” You’re in graphic design to provide solutions to problems. Anecdotal, but I both hire and manage motion designers. Tho mababa for me yung sahod ko. Good luck! EDIT: forgot to add IMO web design jobs pay less, and are easier to find. Even unpaid internships were incredibly competitive with how few available there were. I get like 300+ applicants from a post online, but with portfolios that are just so amateur or completely irrelevant in terms of field. As someone who learned graphic design before aldus pagemaker existed let me assure you, if AI is half as useful as Microsoft Paint the life-sustainable employment prospects for today's graphic designers in ten years will be near zero. So, I’d probably start with a book on graphic design principles, typography and color theory. In the UK the job market isn't great certainly outside a few of the main cities, and some of the wages are absolutely horrendous, on a par with retail. I’m a design director and in my experience 90% of applicants I get are self taught with a low level of design output. I've been working in the field since the early 90s and it's never been like this. The market is fine for creatives. I worked some random jobs here Since it's relevant sa topic na to, gusto ko rin mag ask sa mga tao dito. I think- art education is too expensive- these days- its just not worth it. Build out some design mock ups for websites, landing pages, mobile apps, web apps, software, etc Just look up other designers portfolios and you can see what I’m talking about. *For context : I worked in a start up for 1,5 year, mostly doing social media, ads, web banners. I have 2 friends that are storyboard artists, a friend that does middle grade book covers, 2 friends that do video game art, and some friends that do a bit more variety (music festivals, conventions, etc). There’s a good beginner book called Graphic Design School that looks like a good place to start. I recently graduated and landed a full-time gig with great benefits 3 months out of a 4-year degree. I ended up in web & it was really frustrating working with designers who ARE hired, while knowing I could do better than them. Still, I feel like with UX design and graphic design in general, the days of UX designers proclaiming they shouldn't have to do graphic design, or designers in general saying they shouldn't have to know how to do any coding is going to the past. Graphic design is problem solving through visuals, if you can get passionate about that then through some hard work, you’ll have a satisfying career. I guess there will always be jobs, but every job listing we put out there are 500+ applications within 2-3 days. Low pay for designers has always been a thing. 2 years in the program to graduate. I started as a graphic designer, I then moved to marketing because of necessity, only to get a new job and primarily only do graphic design. Motion designers are always in higher demand. I’m curious how the job market has been for other graphic designers recently. It was a young, fun and creative environment to be in but a lot of the Diversify, ux is a costly and specialised position. 2nd job was graphic designer at a trading card company. As the title says - what are some graphic design jobs/positions that are deemed boring and monotonous but actually pay decently? A little background about myself: I graduated college in 2013 with a BFA in Communication Design (Graphic Design). A good industrial designer isn't limited to those jobs, though. In my country (the Netherlands) we have a tradition of making silk screened posters for concerts. If you're happy doing 3 month contracts there are always junior positions like that going, and if you're good they usually develop into a full time job. I don’t do graphic design often (at my previous job as a graphic designer I actually didn’t do design 100% of the time) but I’ve learned a lot more. Position: Graphic Designer (I also do motion graphic design) Industry: Social Media Rank: N/A. I'd recommend a bootcamp or training course like the interaction foundation has, IF you aren't finding jobs that will accept a lack of direct experience. It will be imperative for those entering the industry to have above average talent and Also anecdotally, I've noticed especially on this sub, and it may not even be specific to design, that some people seem to consider changing careers entirely over one bad job, rather than just changing jobs within the field/industry. You have to solve problems in uncertain or constricting situations. Like half the people who apply for a senior position have never even had a job in graphic design or a paying client, they just ding around in photoshop and copy stuff they see on behance. i'd say about 80% of the quality listings are for senior designers. There isn’t any evidence of print, motion, product design anywhere to attract employers. Graphic design is visual problem solving and communication. I'm not exactly a designer but 80% of my time at work consists of creating graphics for social media - images, carousels, reels. Companies want more for their money. area, the job market seems pretty stable. There is a huge disconnect between how design sees itself and how companies see it, there is a bigger push for generalists, pure UX roles or pure research roles are pretty much gone or A few months back an old employer invited me back so I work as a graphic designer 40 hours a week and switched to part time at Walmart OPD roughly 25 hours a week. I’m in a medium size city in the Midwest and honestly, it’s super difficult to land any job that pays more than $50-$60k here unless you’re in jobs like engineering, nursing RN & up, director level roles and a lot of trades jobs, etc. Strong designers will always be in demand no matter the job market. While I studied I did an part time internship as a graphic designer in a huge company for 7 months. My question is: do I have any chances in getting a graphic design job as fresh graduate and with just 7 months work experience? For anyone looking to enter the product design space coming from a graphic design background, note that you’re very much needed. 62 cent raise). The video has to be an activity that the person is known for. Currently kase I am doing lots of work sa company ko. You'll get there The digital design market (unless you work in video games) has crashed, starting last year and still continues up to this point. Salary: 65k Starting Salary: also 65k. That’s a great byproduct of graphic design. The same goes for those who criticize others with high opinions of themselves. Tools that would never replace a professional, but are "good enough" for the companies that don't want to pay for a professional. At least graphic design is somewhat removed from all that. More roles are asking for unrealistic skills, which we know about, but they ask for 2 jobs in one, such as 'social media coordinator & graphic designer' or 'marketing officer and graphic designer'. Design challenges, video uploads—you name it. Although my title is marketing, the marketing director takes a leave of absence, and they hire a new director. Those who are able to run with both are few and far between and there are certain orgs that can really use these It's not like ALL entry level jobs will be taken, there will always be some—and probably adjusted to a different skillset. Got my GED. The thing is, you've probably never had a real graphic design job. So, here I am, a senior designer with 10 years experience in market that looks bleak. The graphic design market is hiring, your portfolio is just too vague and doesn’t really show anything of your skill sets. I blame hiring managers. I’m a designer of 8 years experience. Entry-level (junior) designer jobs may start a bit low, around $35-45k, but you can fairly reliably reach $60-100k depending on where you are, what choices you make, how good you are. Having marketing and business understanding will help with you UX too. and by the time I graduated I was already at my 25s and had to lose another couple of years to go through my conscript for the army so more or less I was very very late to the market. Full on wireframing, interaction design and UI design. Graphic Design as a whole is an extremely saturated and competitive field. Your portfolio looks boring without any variety. 5 YOE before I got into this job. Personally I find it frustrating. Design as a job is changing, there was an interesting post on LinkedIn, about how design has lost its seat at the table, and a lot of it through its own fault. I think you're describing UI deisgn. Given that AI has started playing a significant role in graphic designing jobs, what is the immediate effect? In general you can be fine. 5 days ago · Designers are currently debating the impact of AI on graphic design jobs in more than one thread over on Reddit. . It worked out well and I’m compensated better for what I do. Finally and this only my personal perspective here (and it's biased as I run a video production company now), but I'm generally much more interested in candidates these days with more well rounded design skillsets, as we, like many modern businesses, have little use for print focused designers, but a voracious desire for people who can do I studied graphic design in Portland and had an excellent portfolio at towards the end, but the actual number of jobs in the city was essentially non existent. 55K a year. Right now it seems like there are loads of positions offering great rates – talking $100–150k perm, $800/day contractor. Pero mostly naka focus ako ngayon as graphic designer. Make a portfolio of work that shows you can execute on ideas, and explain the why behind each exploration and design solution. Let’s be real here, the design job market is extremely competitive, and nothing is more subjective than design. It may hurt production artists, but it should empower graphic design. If you like graphic design better, don’t switch. Graphic design, while harder to find will usually pay better and warn you more respect. At least that's my perspective, locale and job market data is going to influence your earning potential, but I wouldn't say graphic design or marketing is going to make you earn more one way or the other, but bits of both might make you a desirable unicorn of sorts. Transferred to a state college with a storied graphic design department, spent 3. My kid is a graphic design major in college now, so I'm putting my money where my mouth is on this. Walmart pays $14/hr. I am on indeed daily and apply for every job that I am even half qualified for. I'm senior graphic designer + mid-level digital designer and yes, UX/UI is beyond over-saturated. That might scare you off, and that wouldn't be unreasonable. After a week that saw Bill Gates' unsettling premonition that only three jobs are safe from AI (note: graphic design wasn't one of them), a timely discussion was started by a designer new to the industry – and many professionals . I work as a UI/UX designer at a big corp, so can’t speak directly to the graphic design job market. Having several skills that demonstrate how you APPLY graphic design is more important than only having graphic design skills. Shoot for art director, creative director, senior designer, etc. I graduate in 5 months, with a graphic design degree. 30k tapos almost lahat yan ginagawa ko for them. I'm just a plain old graphic designer, I'll do some photography too, easy web CMS stuff, hopefully this year we'll start a podcast (which I'll record, edit and upload to wherever they go). Looking at instructional design at university and am worried that the time I’m finished chatgpt will replace all of most jobs making the market way too competitive. I'm the sole graphic designer in team of video editors & content creators. I kept my eye on positions and applied to those I liked. Skill level: My personal experience after graduating was that about 25% of my cohort found a design job within a year of graduating. the market will be crazy competitive, more so than now. I personally got laid off over a year ago and have been doing consulting work just to make ends meet. I manage creative teams. To make a long story short; the CEO is a total jerk who enjoys berating and bullying his employees, the hours are long and the commute a nightmare, half the employees are toxic and start drama where as the other half don’t last long. First of all, the job market for graphic designers is very overcrowded. I don't think you're describing UX design. You'll have much more luck as a UXui designer. Aim for small to medium agencies. I think graphic design and design falls under marketing. UX can get really hard, and many of those who entered the field on a whim expecting large salaries are just being hit with reality. Through courses and mere curiosity, I managed to segue into Design and Motion Design. And in the interview be overly enthusiastic about design, mention books, news, and new styles. Seriously, where I live(big city), there's maybe one or two new offers a day, and it's pretty much always for a senior position! Don't base your entire life around being a graphic designer - shoot higher. nobody has gotten back to me yet, and every design job i was offered fell through. The internet, especially Reddit, often breeds only negativity and people seem to only post their negative experiences rather than the good ones. IDK why my boss decided on that. Nope its not. I actually received a promotion in 2022. Easy to see that graphic design will become more accessible to more people. This guy gets it. ilt sufvod rbffu ihp htpav eptrl pycsfy atftlt jmyxyld mzfp qxpk thexoi kjtyopyi jtxb qgw