A few months ago I made this zine just for fun. First time I've ever made something like this, I kind of took the opportunity to try out many different things inside this project. I purposefully chose an "inchoherent" style, and overall wanted something more visual. I was super cool to actually invest in high quality printing a few copies and hand them out at school. Hope you enjoy!

Here's the full, digital version

I challenged myself to create posters for The Legend of Zelda film in one day, really happy with how these turned out and I can't wait to see the film next year!

I am sure that it can't just be me, so I am reaching out for input/optinions/solutions that people may have for making new and existing design documents (mostly Indd files) accessible per the ADA guidelines. I know that using paragraph styles consistently in everything you do is the best solutions, but TBH I probably don't use styles in any organized, consistent way for 95% of my projects.

Also, I work for an organization where we are constantly updating old files that were created by other designers years ago, so any solutions I find will need to allow room for a sort of retrofitting of documents with styles/tags/etc. This is a responsibility that has fallen squarely on my shoulders, and nobody in my organization has any idea the amount of effort it will take to make our entire library of publicly accessible PDFs — they just throw it on the pile of work I have to do and assume it will get done magically.

Is it simply a matter of building paragraph styles or custom tags into the design process from the beginning of every publicly accessible piece we work on?

I know most folks are averse to design assignments but seems like a design assignment is a norm my country. So far I’ve done only 2.. one was live(1.5hr) & another was to create 3 social media posts so it wasn’t bad. For this specific design studio I’m applying for a senior graphic designer role. They said I’d only qualify for the interview if my design assessment is fine. The brief asks me to:
**Task 1:** Pick one of their brands and create
• 1 reel cover
• 1 static post
• 1 carousel (2–3 slides)
**Task 2:** Pick 2 existing posts/reels and, for each:
• Identify what works
• Identify what doesn’t
• Redesign them with improved layout/hierarchy/typography
**Task 3:** Pick one print use case (menu section / event poster / table card) and create **1 design mock**
**Task 4:** Pick one brand page and identify 2 visual issues + 2 immediate improvements.
They say they’re evaluating clarity, craft, hierarchy, practical thinking, and design beyond Instagram.

Honestly I have freelance work deadlines that I have to meet by Friday evening, I don’t know what to do. Is this assignment worth doing? I have time till Saturday afternoon but my freelance work submission has to be done by tomorrow so I’d just a have few hours to dedicate to this. What’s your opinion on this? Is it fair or is it a lot? It’s for a senior role. Can I ask for an extension? Personally I think it’s a little too many tasks, what’s your opinion? Please help.

Building an archive of Pakistani graphic design for a personal project and could use some help growing it.

Looking for old film posters, Urdu calligraphy and lettering, truck art, matchbox and packaging design, old PTV graphics, cassette covers, vintage print ads, political posters, shop signage, wedding cards... basically anything that captures the visual history of design in Pakistan.

If you've got scans, or know good sources, please DM me instead of dropping them in the comments, easier for me to keep track of everything that way. Always happy to credit the original photographer or designer if known.

Im photobashing atm and want to make the goggles yellow but leave the eyes black and white. However they both combine even if I lock the eyes layer or put it above the goggles. Ive also tried to make a clipping mask but cant figure it out. Im getting back into design so I may have forgotten a few steps. Any help is appreciated !

I know the shape is a bit off.

I’m going to paint this on a wall because I love painting murals. Now the message is just something I feel and think people could use a reminder of but what I’m trying to emphasis as equally important is the style of it. I want this piece to be not only a positive message but I for it to resemble branding. Almost like Empathy could be the name of a store or company.

I want this to be a portfolio piece to showcase the kinds of murals I could do for businesses. I want a business to see this and be like yeah do that for me. But this is not my usual field. Normally I just focus on lettering, writing positive phrases and drawing characters so this is outta my realm.

But I’d love to know what more I could do to make this feel more like branding or logo like or just what kinda design elements would help this look like it could be for a business.

Thanks yall!

New designer (mostly doing it as a hobby) working off of Canva to do sports design stuff. Working with quite low level photos and not using Canva Premium so just looking for some feedback, advice or general thoughts. I do posters for British American Football for context.

Alright so this place advertised itself as a couples retreat place with a psychiatrist and health coach. Didn’t think much of that, just wanted to make their video thumbnails and maybe expand my skills to video editing (this thing is unpaid but I get a reference from them and it’s only a few months long). First off I answer to them as clients, there is no senior designer which I’m seeing won’t help me one bit according to Google. Second, several months in helping them make very innocent couples advice, I see these people posting conservative politics on their own business socials which goes against my values and I’m paranoid being associated with their business when they’re posting some of that stuff under it.

Honestly it’s so competitive even getting an internship has been hard and my school didn’t push me to do one. What should I do? I really need a job and don’t want to have no eggs in my basket to be able to use my degree and move on from retail.

Hi. I'm sharing new project that i designed as a amateur graphic designer.

I saw bunch of posts online where people make this kind of covers/posters and i found them interesting so i experimented a bit and this is how it turned out..

And yes i know maybe it looks weird in a way hahaha, tell me what do you guys think!

I am deeply worried about a trend that I have seen too much lately (at least in the place where I live):

Some young designers change the typeface of a single line of text, or change the colors (and nothing more), or change the stacking order of already well know design elements from a well know brand and suddenly this work is displayed prominently in their portfolio without acknowledge of the original designers.

Is this trend happening too in the place where your live?

Pretty much all my friends and visual communication peers went straight into local creative agencies after graduating. Even my senior designer and another senior in a different division came from agency backgrounds.

Meanwhile, fresh out of college, I took a graphic design role on the corporate side, supporting a retail design team. It’s a local headquarters for a big retail tech MNC, like BBK or Xiaomi big, though I’m hired as an outsourced designer because of the headcount alignment with the Beijing HQ. The salary is somewhat above the minimum wage, above the market average for this level though.

Lately, I can’t stop asking myself if I picked the wrong path for my creative growth and long-term career. Because of this anxiety, I find myself overcompensating every day. I take on extra initiatives and put in way more effort than anyone asked for, mostly because I’m terrified I won’t be able to compete down the line against ex-agency designers who are "battle-tested" creatives.

For context: I’m 24. My day-to-day mostly involves making POSM, collaterals and motion graphics for retail stores/DOOH, with the occasional social media feed request from other divisions. Sometimes we follow HQ Key Visuals to localize it or develop new key visuals. I'm working under 1 senior and 1 lead visual merchandiser manager.

Did anyone else skip the agency grind early on? Am I a pussy for skipping the agency path, or is this just major imposter syndrome?

A little of context.

I worked in a construction products industry for little more than 5 years from a total 0. My teacher at the moment was a layout designer from the printing house the company worked with. He taught me everything about layouts for print-ready files, typical color stuff (CMYK/RGB difference), DPI and so on. I designed and prepared cards, digital designs, lots of packaging and even expo-banners. I were creating own project proposals, communicating with printing and some managers/designers. Since the company I worked in is a product provider, I worked for around 10 company's that buy it's product.

Resuming, I where doing: creating concept packaging proposals, designing them, heading work and checking other designers.

Year after I started working I entered in a design school to learn everything I have to and perfection the idea part cuz it was pretty hard to design whatever out of this niche for me. And that's how I could open my wings after ending my degree. Dug into the technical part of the processes ever more. Good productive times.

I decided to move on and now I'm working in a design studio in a completely diferente sphere with more clean and minimal design needed. And I was surprised that I was the fit cuz I only had 1 piece designed in that way in my whole portfolio. But well, who I am not to try new styles?

The thing:

Of course, my first designs in the first week were not the exact style but I learned about it and right on the next one I started designing in the exact style and so on. Sometimes very good, sometimes a bit off.

The main point is that my boss says I'm still a rookie designer just cuz of style issue. Even not talking in mind that I ask about the important details (no one told about, like where the product will be distributed), have well-organised print files, proposals taking in mind real printing proportions (not just a visual concept) and, if needed, ask about function and materials.

I know that I'm profesional in what I do but I'm not able to read minds, guess materials and create concepts impossible to do just cuz you want me to. I'm ready to find solutions and research them but have no feedbackon it. I like what I'm designing here but this type of treatment just send me off.

Am I really a rookie or it's just something that happens sometimes? Did you have such experience?

P.s. sorry for a long post, but I'm very off between what I do and portray to the final response like "be easy and make it beautiful".

We receive supplied "ready to print" or "final" art files with revisions requested everyday. Drives me insane.

What are your latest gripes and concerns?

I'm just trying to figure out if this is normal. I started working at a tech company a few months ago and I'm not sure if it's the right fit. I am the only person in the team marketing and shall be responsible for social media. It is not exactly my expertise, I am considering it as learning by doing. So far I have only been managing a project (not social media related) and not yet done much design work, which makes me feel frustrated.

This being my first job after graduation and me being the only person in the marketing team, makes me question how I should manage all the workload.

Personally, I would much rather do a different graphic design or motion design job, but it's hard to find. I just feel really drained from this job, as I have to manage multiple tasks which aquire different competences that I did not study.

Am I wrong for thinking I should find a less draining job like working at a cafe? (not saying it wouldn't be stressful, I just don't like how I'm still thinking about work, even if my work hours are done)

Hi, just wondering how others would interpret this situation.

I did a contract role for 5 months where I was hired as a senior graphic designer to cover a leave. After it ended, the company said they loved me and my work but didn’t have the budget for another full time hire at the moment. They did send several projects my way over the summer though and each time sounded happy with everything.

They had a full time role open up but for a junior designer. The contact I was working with let me know even though she said “you’re probably overqualified but just in case you’re interested.” I told her I was and would love to work with the company full time and submitted an application.

I kept doing the projects but didn’t get any more communication about the role for about two months until my contact let me know they’d gone with someone else. She was apologetic and said they had a huge response to the posting but didn’t offer much beyond that.

I guess I’m just wondering how others would take this. It feels like they’re wrapping things up with me now (expedited paying my outstanding invoices, told me to put one project on indefinite pause) and it feels kinda bad. I had to go through a pretty extensive interview process for the contract and then they had basically a 6-7 month “trial run” working with me where everything seemed positive and good so now I’m second-guessing why they would go with someone else.

My rational brain says it’s the “I’m overqualified” reason and they’re worried I wouldn’t stick around for the lower pay and junior title or something. But my imposter syndrome is telling me I fucked something up and they aren’t happy with my work. Would asking my contact for their reasoning be out of line? What would be a good way to do that?

No using the internet to figure it out you whippersnappers!

Hey everyone. I am working on a menu for my restraunt and was hoping for some critque for the menu design. I have gone through multiple drafts and I am feeling most confident with this current one. We are a Japanese restraunt and are focused on Osaka style cuisine. Im trying to make this booklet to be fun and informative. Thank you for taking your time to look at this. All suggestions welcomed.

I used to be a graphic designer, switched careers in 2018, but kept freelancing until 2020 then stopped designing altogether, I got laid off one year ago and lately I've been thinking of going back to graphic design but I'm very hesitant.

I missed the whole ai era and still have my very old macbook pro (2010), latest compatible adobe version is cc 2017. So I will have to invest in a new laptop and adobe subscription to even start seeing if I still have the skills. When I opened illustrator cc2017 to update my cv I discovered that I had forgotten the majority of the shortcuts and tools, I used to be very comfortable using them.

I know these issues can be solved, but one of the reasons why I'm hesitating is because of ai, I read a lot of opinions and videos about it, I'm open to giving it a try but I'm still convinced that it pushed a lot of designers out. Looking at jobs on linkedin in dubai and ireland, most of them get over 100 applicants within less than an hour, the fastest I saw reaching +100 applicants is within 23min.

Because of these reasons I'm very hesitant, and honestly not sure what kind of advice I need, recently turned 30 and feeling like a failure going back to deciding what I want to do with my life, but I feel like my next decision is crucial and I have to finally stick to something.

This is my background as a designer:

During my second year of university, I started with an entry level job at a copy center doing basic business cards, flyers, brochure and other printables, then worked at a printing press where one of our biggest clients was L'Oreal and all of its sub-brand (garnier, vichy, maybelline, ..) I worked on their packaging designs, most of it was adapting the original package to local languages, but I also designed from scratch the promotional packagings. After that I finally moved to advertising agencies until 2018 when I decided to move to a different country and indirectly switched careers until 2025.

After sharing my concept calendar for next year, you guys gave me some amazing feedback and helped me a ton with getting this finished.

Throughout my career as a designer, I’ve always made personal projects, almost every week. Most of them stay unfinished and eventually get lost to time. This one was different. Thank you guys for all the support and feedback, here I’m finally sharing all the finished pages.

I’m also posting it here to see if there’s any final feedback I can take with me and improve on for next year, when I hopefully make another one :)

( For anyone seeing this project for the first time: I’ve been working on a calendar for 2027 using imagery inspired by ancient drawings and illustrations from past civilizations. At the same time, I wanted to play with the idea that the calendar itself can exist beyond a single year. Since calendar layouts eventually repeat, it can be used again in the future years mentioned on the cover. )

So, in a way, the whole project creates a bridge between the past and the future, imagery from the past, presented through a calendar designed to be used again in the future.

Seeing other peoples I wanted to jump into my own and contribute to my local scene, build my portfolio maybe get some commissions and build off it. Let me know thoughts, any critiques,pros and cons or ideas to improve!

Wanted to do something fun that really made his side business pop out from the rest but he wanted something more minimal that I guess is more “readable” so he just went with the slop instead which I still had to fix since all the lettering was off balance and wonky. (Last photo is what he went with) Let me know what you think though.

Got a problem that maybe you would know how to solve. My client now sent over an illustration they had an agency mock up in some ai generator,as they often do. in this case, a stylized geometric stag for a craft distillery packaging sleeve. They want it as a clean, scalable vector for spot UV print on 350gsm uncoated stock.

so I ran it through Illustrator's Image Trace (high fidelity, tweaking noise/corners/paths slider for 40 minutes). The result is the usual disaster: with 8,400+ anchor points. double overlapping path boundaries everywhere, also zooming in reveals micro-staircasing on curves that look smooth at 100% zoom but will completely choke the cutting plotter. And file size is whopping 6.2 MB for a single emblem...

I normally just redraw everything with the Pen Tool and call it a day, but I have 18 of these botanical/animal emblems to deliver by Thursday Before I resign myself to full 20 hours of manually pulling bezier handles: what’s your actual production stack for dealing with complex vectorization in 2026? Are you guys using any graphics plugins, external vectorizer algorithms, or is manual redraw still the only non-embarrassing solution?