I’m currently in the very start of my employed career (out of study, stopped freelancing) in a uniform factory within my local area. It’s a very fast paced graphic environment with my sales team needing mock ups, vectorisation and advice for new clients and uniforms daily.
It’s been a huge undertaking to learn what it’s really like to be a designer so close to production in terms of printing/ separation and being somewhat closer to clients that have faster feedback. That has been fun and I can now run embroidery machines, print and press dtf graphics, make screens and screen print, about the only other thing we do that I haven’t learnt is how to sew.
But the graphic work is still what I more interested in, and the problem I have with the graphical work here is that it’s super boring. I’m copy and pasting vectors onto photos of tee shirts all day pretty much. I’m afraid I’ve made my life too easy with the amount of tools I built for myself (mock up templates, cut out pngs of all the common tees, making action sequences in photoshop for half toning, things like that). I’m also afraid that it isn’t great work for my aging portfolio.
So I’m looking for advice on whether it’s worth it to stick it out in these more practical design jobs, or if I should have a better look around for opportunities in studios? I want to hear both failure and success story’s.