Submission Policy

I was informed by some former hiring managers that putting freelance experience on a resume is a red flag as it shows you have one foot out the door... but I can't help but wonder if this is generally inaccurate advice, especially while applying to design-focused jobs? Any thoughts on this?

I wanted to reach out and see if I could get some guidance from other graphic designers, illustrators, or freelancers regarding my future options as a designer.

I currently have a full time graphic design position with a company that I have been with for a couple years now. Over the past few years my skills have come around which has allowed me to take on bigger projects at my company, which is very cool. Work there has been going well but I am super busy all the time, leaving me pretty drained at the end of most work days.

Around the same time I started my full time graphic design job, I started freelancing / taking on small projects that would come in from friends, family and their friends to make some extra money as well as use those projects to help build my portfolio and as more practice / repetition for my 9-5.

Lately work has kept busy per usual, but my freelance gig has started to pick up a ton. These past few weeks especially I have found myself absolutely drained trying to stay on top of my day job while having the energy left over to crank out my freelance projects.

I just don’t know what to do at this point. I can’t afford to leave my full time job, but it’s not a job I want to be at forever. Don’t get me wrong, it’s been great experience and I have learned a ton, but I feel like I’m not growing much anymore as an artist and the pay ceiling isn’t all that high. Also, the freelance work I have been completing is for an industry that is essentially my dream field; That’s a large part of why I’ve been taking on as much freelance work as I have. This way I can build my portfolio with my freelance work and give myself an opportunity to get a job in said dream industry.

Do/can I ask to cut back on my hours at my full time job? How do I get to the point, if I wanted to, where I can make the leap from a full time design job to a freelance career (not that a full time freelance career is my end goal, just curious ) Any tips and advice you all have would be much appreciated.

I frequent Creative Review and Design Week, but they are both UK based sites and lean heavily on UK based agencies, rebrands, etc. I can’t seem to find anything similar that has more of a US focus or global in general. I subscribe to AdAge as well but the design related material is few and far between. Anyone have any recommendations?

Hi ! First of all, this is my first time interacting with this subreddit so i'm sorry in advance if this is inapropriate but here's my question.

For the longest time I've really liked designs such as this one 'izzulakromi' on fiverr, whether it was just for looking or to use as a wallpaper. I've even already commissioned people to create some for me but even though I fully respect artists, the time and effort they put into it I find myself not being able to get as many as I'd like to because of the financial cost of paying someone to do it for me. So I would like to know if this kind of design is hard to make?
(I just got myself a licence of photoshop) and what would be the process behind it? Thanks in advance ! (Sorry for the formatting, I litteraly never post on reddit D: )

Hello everyone, I'm hoping to get some feedback on my portfolio.

I worked in-house for about 3 years after college, but was laid off in January. Ideally, I'd love to transition to a studio/agency, but I'm having trouble getting my foot in the door and finding openings at these types of places. I've also been applying/interviewing for in-house positions, but I find the interview process seems to stop after the stage of presenting my portfolio.

Any feedback is welcome—from the work itself to the way I have it laid out. Thank you so much!

Hi guys, I'm a third year graphic designer in London Ontario taking the fanshawe college graphic design program. I specialize in illustration and web design.
I've been doing pretty well in the program, I got honors last semester and I mostly get very high grades. But this third year has been starting to freak me out.
There's a lot of fear being thrown around from the teachers to the students. I have an anxiety disorder, so it's easy for me to take it to the extreme.
My one teacher, who teaches print, has made me scared of working in that field. The technical requirements get very stacked, and while most of them make sense, such as 300 DPI images and bleed, if they aren't perfect, you will get punished. If your bleed is a mm off of the document you'll lose marks. If you do your text boxes manually and not with a grid you'll lose marks. I tried using a grid in indesign the way he described it, I couldn't get it to look good, and I got punished for that too. It's incredibly stressful and makes me feel incompetent because I can't do it exactly his way. I want to do it correctly, but there's something about that teacher that freaks me out. He's directly called on me having OCD and said "I know you have OCD and want this to be perfect, but this is not perfect" which hurt me a lot because it felt like he was using it against me. There's also the term "if you do this you'll lose money" he throws around a lot about print specifications. I'm worried I'm going to get a job in freelance, make a mistake, and it'll cost me most of my paycheck.
There's also another teacher who showed us the pitch from AMC and told us it is what industry life is actually like. One of the people in the show said " you can do everything right and make one mistake and the client will only remember you that" and to the quote, my professor just kept nodding, which is even scarier. We watched the entire episode and it just felt so fake and horrible, but I need to know for sure. The way these teachers talk and what they show us, it makes me feel like no matter if I did freelance or industry work, I'm going to fail and disappoint everyone.
It feels like fear mongering to get the students to give up, but it could also just be me taking it the wrong way. Maybe what they're saying is normal and standard and isn't as bad as it sounds. Maybe I'm just being a big baby. But I wanted to ask people who have worked in the industry what their life is actually like. Are you under constant, overwhelming stress that never goes away? Do you do nothing but work? Are you scared to go to work? Do you have time for anything else?
I've only ever had one job and it was customer service. The boss was abusive and yelled at everyone, all of the time. I had to leave for bathroom breaks to calm down constantly. The work culture was entirely hating the boss. This being my only impression of the working field is... not helping, to say the least.
Thank you for reading this. If you'd like to see some of my work, I'd be more than happy to show it.
Have a wonderful day.

(regarding logos and small print work like business cards)
I've had clients ask for redesigns/changes to pervious work I've done for them which should be easy peasy but it often takes a little longer than planned because I work in illustrator and convert my text to objects.
I don't want to have to do the same later on so what are some of the ways you all keep track of the fonts used in your works??

I have been teaching myself graphic design for 5-6 years now... I just wanted to know your opinions on what qualifies someone professional enough to sell their work? Is there any certifications I should try and get to show off? Thanks in advance, Caine.

What is the history of Editorial Design and how is it defined nowadays?

I work for a non-profit and currently do all of our social media marketing using Canva. We’ve been using someone who was doing our graphic designed items (brochures, posters, flyers that kind of stuff). She had to “fire” us because she’s taking on different work and doesn’t have the time, which we get. While I love me some Canva, I can’t convert all our files over to Canva designs, and I like to think I’m pretty self-sufficient with how well I can figure something out. However, I don’t want to struggle through the Adobe Creative platform.

Are there any decent online classes that can teach me different aspects? I know some of y’all will probably cringe at my ask, but when we got our latest design it was $87 to change dates on a card we’ve used for years with a new company…my boss wasn’t in love with it either.

Say I am a freelance graphic designer. I have a client that found a royalty free Logo and they want almost exactly that but with some modifications and obviously their company name. They wanted it slightly customized so they would be the owner of their own logo and they tried purchasing the rights to the logo but the creator never got back to them. Could I charge for the changes I made to the logo? Would that be stealing? I know I am not allowed to make money from "selling" the logo but if they downloaded it themselves they could use it as theirs freely. Does this make sense?

I'm building a new pc and I'm unsure if I should go with windows 10 or 11 (mainly because it finally has tabs in file explorer). I use both mac and pc and I have to divide my job between both systems — file explorer is really far behind finder and I hate having to install different third party file managers for windows.

Has any of you encountered major drawbacks on adobe applications / or even other graphic design applications on windows 11? This is the main reason I may have to stick to windows 10 for now.

I’ve gotten my associates degree in graphic communications and recently transferred to a four year school to get my bachelors. It’s the only school in the area I can somewhat afford, but the money I’m spending on student loans is making me really nervous and the program is not at all what I expected. Main few professors are very disorganized and unprofessional and the feedback given isn’t helpful. I just feel like I’m not learning what I need to and I’m losing thousands for nothing but stress.

I don’t really even want to be in a big design firm or anything, I just want to work a simple 9-5 job that pays a living wage. Preferably in-house. Is it possible that I could get some certifications in the adobe creative suite and build up my portfolio with self made projects instead of getting my bachelors?

Let me know! I used to get a lot more inquiries and recruiters reaching out but I’ve had very few recently, not sure why

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Hi I was wondering what would be the best way to learn the classic swiss design. I'm trying to do it through photoshop but I'm more of a hands-on person and I want to try the printing press. What would be the best way to learn the classic method? Thanks!

Hello! I have been in a wonderful marketing company job for a few months now. I love my co-workers and the work I get to do. I feel confident that what I make is both practical and visually strong.

The one problem is, basically I have a massive issue of change-blindness; when I look something over, my brain is filling in what's not there, like when you read only half a word before guessing what it is. I'm missing a lot of details in final proofs when it comes to spelling errors. I accidently switch items if I fix them on the paste board and then move them back to the artboard. I have someone to help me proof read, but the volume and types of proofing issues making it to the drafts that my supervisor views - sometimes even clients- isn't really appropriate. To top all of this off, the auto spellcheck in Illustrator with the squiggly lines is buggy and doesn't always catch words that it should.

This isn't a lack of effort, I have been putting time into this. I think it's just another symptom of my ADHD rearing its ugly head again. I've been able to learn habits and strategies for other symptoms, like time-blindness, punctuality, and late assignments. I also take medication to manage some symptoms. The problem is I can't find any literature on how to attack this particular issue from the perspective of a graphic designer with ADHD/dyslexia/any other learning disorder. The only articles I can find are generic and say things like "Spelling should be less important in the workplace," and that's not really an option for this industry.

Does anyone have a resource they could point me to, or personal experiences on what workflows help? Is there a plugin that makes spellcheck squiggly lines in illustrator suck less? I might try cross posting in ADD/ADHD subreddits.

What are some of your “pre- questionnaire” questions or apps that you send your clients before taking them as a client?

Are there any issues with UPS, USPS, and FedEx when it comes to senders designing their own return and shipping labels, as long as the addresses are still visible?

I work for a company that is a franchise system. So when I design social media posts, it is for the system as a whole. Everyone uses my artwork to post. Except one location. The owner has decided if he doesn't like my artwork, he posts his own. At one point he told my boss he just doesn't like my artwork period. Each location has their own Instagram profiles. Which in his case his posts are fine, because he takes pix of his staff to add to the posts he makes. I'm ok with that. However, today, he decided he didn't like the picture I chose for my artwork and wanted to use posts from a couple years back, (not even my artwork) because he liked the pictures (2 different posts, but for same promotion) better, whereas my boss really liked what I had made (pic included) for the post. But, my boss said give him what he wants.

This wasn't the first time that location has done this. Usually, they don't even ask me for an alternative and just post something else OR they take the artwork I made and manipulate it to suit their taste. This makes me feel very disrespected and beyond frustrated. Maybe I need to chill and not let it bother me, but right now I am overly sensitive to it. Looking for opinions on the matter.

So, I'm into this whole aethetic of abstract / surreal 90s or Y2K visuals that are found in ambient DnB compilations on YouTube and I have no idea what software to use to create similar artwork.
examples of what I mean:
(14) Modern Ambient Jungle Mix [3] (Intelligent DnB) - YouTube
psiX - Room99 Mix (2020 - 2022) - YouTube

Thanks in advance for any help!

Currently redeveloping my portfolio website to be more effective. I have multiple editorial projects that I would like to show, for example, so should I put all of them under a section of my website called "Editorial Design" or list them individually with their respective project titles? I also have more than one project I'd like to show for other types of design so it's not an isolated issue. I know it's not smart to overload your website with projects so I want to approach this as effectively as I can.

Thanks!

I am using DisplayCaL with the X-Rite colormunki Display for my calibration.

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My monitor: Dell 32 4K UHD Gaming Monitor G3223Q that should be able to achieve 99.9% Srgb & 95.2% dci-p3 gamut coverage after calibration. I tried multiple different calibration, but the result is almost always the same.

Additionally, Yellow tint appearing every time after calibration, Displaycal seems to not be able to accurately handle temperature calibration.

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I am using DisplayCaL with the X-Rite colormunki Display for my calibration.

Correction used for calibration: WLED family.

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Can fonts that are licensed under the Open Font License be modified and/or used for logos?

I'm in the process of a designing a logo and found that the fonts listed in Google Fonts are licensed under the Open Font License. I wanted to know if these fonts can be used and modified for logo design?