For information about portfolio websites, jump to this thread.
For information about finding freelance clients, jump to this thread.
We see a lot of the same questions here on this sub, often from people who are new to Graphic Design. I've put together a list of some of the most common questions along with answers.
I've tried to keep the answers as objective as possible. My own thoughts are in there but they're based on direct experience and combined with the feedback those posts typically get from the more experienced designers here as well as people from outside the forum (those I know personally and others who write about design or talk about it in videos or podcasts).
If you're new to this sub and to Graphic Design, I hope you find this helpful.
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Do I need to know how to draw to be a designer?
No. Graphic Design isn't art/drawing/illustration. Both disciplines are related but the majority of designers are not especially skilled at drawing. However, many designers will do rough sketches to work out designs such as logos, brochures, and advertisements. Small, simple sketches are called thumbnails while more refined sketches are called comps (short for comprehensive). These are usually not shown to the client, though including some of these process pieces in a portfolio can be helpful in demonstrating a designer's work process.
I like to draw. Does that mean I'll be good at Graphic Design?
It's a common misconception for people developing a new interest in visual arts to think of design as they think of creating a drawing or illustration for themselves. This is not the case. While designers do employ creativity, they do it at the service of a strategic requirement and they often must design according to existing brand guidelines – a set of rules on how the brand can and can't be expressed. This is the difference between Fine Art and the Applied Arts.
Fine Art is creating a piece for oneself with no outside requirements or restrictions, with the intent to sell the finished piece to a customer. A painter who conceives of a painting, paints it, and then sells it through an art gallery, website, or at a craft fair is working as a Fine Artist.
Applied Arts like Graphic Design solve problems for clients (typically visual problems), making it less an art and more a craft. Consider the difference between a musician writing their own album vs. composing a commercial jingle or movie score, a filmmaker writing a script and shooting a short film vs. being hired to shoot an infomercial, or a writer composing a novel vs. being hired to write a company's ad or brochure. A Graphic Designer is similar to the latter in each case.
Am I suited to be a graphic designer?
It's difficult to answer this without knowing someone personally. However, if you're the kind of person who notices small details about visuals like the way a sign or flyer is printed, times when color combinations do and don't work well, or a small visual pun in a logo, you're more likely to be successful in a career like Graphic Design.
The ability to work alone for long periods of time, focusing on small elements or modifications that most others may not ever notice consciously, is another quality that's helpful to working as a designer.
Being critical of your work and growing the ability to evaluate it as objectively as possible is a necessary skill for someone working in this field. And the ability to listen to feedback and decide what changes to make to your work (if any) based on that feedback is another valuable skill for a designer, and one that grows by necessity as a person continues to work in the field.
What software do I need to be a designer?
Almost all working designers use Adobe products. Affinity, Canva, GiMP, Inkscape, and other free or low-cost design software is not commonly used by most working designers, especially those at agencies or in-house at companies. Adobe has over 95% market share in the field of Graphic Design. Non-Adobe software is mostly used by design students and hobbyists who do not need to regularly interface with other designers, vendors (like print shops), or clients. (One exception is Figma, a prototyping tool that many UI/UX Designers prefer over Adobe XD. Another is Apple Final Cut which competes with Adobe Premiere.) Learning to use free/low cost software is better than using nothing at all; however, those looking to get hired as designers will most likely need to learn to use Adobe software before being considered for full time design positions.
Current Adobe CC (Creative Cloud) pricing is currently $52.99/month which includes access to 20 applications. Discounts are available for students and teachers who can pay $19.99/month. Adobe no longer offers a one-time payment for any of its software and hasn't since 2013; it is only available through a subscription.
Freelancers are able to deduct the cost of an Adobe Creative Cloud subscription as a business expense while designers hired by an agency or company will have the software provided for them by their employer. This is why the cost of an Adobe CC subscription is less of a consideration for working designers than it is for others.
It is common for those developing a new interest design to give too much focus to software and not enough to learning the fundamentals of design. You can find more information on design principles at the link below:
https://www.invisionapp.com/design-defined/principles-of-design
What kind of work do designers do?
Most working designers don't spend the majority of their time creating logos and branding, album covers, posters, and t-shirts that are often showcased here. Companies who hire designers are often in need of marketing collateral – brochures, sell sheets, print mailers, and other pieces that sell their product or service. Print and online ads, social media posts, email newsletters, instructional videos, presentations, are other types of pieces that companies regularly require. Video editing and motion graphics (animated videos with less footage and more text and graphics) are now common requirements of design positions.
There are design studios, agencies, and freelancers that focus on one specific skill such as Branding, Packaging, or Video, but the majority offer a more comprehensive set of services.
What is a graphic designer's typical day like?
There is no typical day for graphic designers since the type and size of workplace, the industry, size of department that the designer works in, the designer's specific role, and other factors play into this.
However, most designers do less actual design work than those not yet working in the field might imagine. In-house teams will meet to discuss projects and other items, smaller groups or individuals may meet with internal stakeholders (those who require the designer's work), agencies will meet with clients, and administrative work like project tracking, file transfer or organization, and other non-design-related tasks will need to be accomplished.
Some days may be spent doing purely creative work (often when a deadline is looming) though this can be rare. More often a designer will switch between working on concepts for a new project, making revisions and sending out completed projects, meeting with their team, tracking and organizing projects, and researching solutions to problems or learning new skills and techniques.
Do I need to use a Mac to design?
No. Macs were dominant when digital design started in the late 80s/early 90s as design software was sometimes only made for MacIntosh computers. Because of this, schools at that time primarily used Macs to teach design, which led to an early wave of Mac dominance in the field that carried on for decades.
These days design software is mostly available for either platform – Mac or PC (and sometimes UNIX as well). When looking for a computer to use for Graphic Design, focus on your processor power, RAM, amount of storage (disk space), and screen size.
What kind of tablet should I get for design?
Most designers don't use tablets as their primary design tool. Laptops are by far the #1 tool of designers, often connected to additional monitors for increased screen real estate. Desktop computers are used for design as well. The use of tablets is growing, though at this point they are much more commonly used for sketching, illustration, and for displaying work to clients than for actual doing actual design. Animators, hand letterers, and photo retouchers are likely to use tablets for their work as well.
Do I need a degree to be a designer?
Having a degree in design isn't necessary in order to get a job as a designer, but it is often required for specific jobs – especially in-house (corporate ) jobs. Bachelor's Degrees are the most common type of degree for working designers to have, but it's not uncommon for a designer to have an Associate's Degree or some type of certificate. Master's Degrees in design are rare. More than 70% of job listings for Graphic Design positions require a degree of some sort. However, nothing is required to work as a freelance designer.
Those without degrees who wish to work in-house or for a creative agency will often work as freelancers for a number of years before applying for design positions. This allows them to build up skills, experience, and their network in order to be in a better position to be considered for a full time design position. Jobs in print shops, t-shirt shops, and small companies or startups are a common entry points for those entering the design field without a degree.
Can I teach myself Graphic Design?
It's possible but very difficult as most people exploring design for the first time have no idea as to where to start and what to search for. While there are many successful self-taught designers, they sometimes focus on a certain style or area of design. Self-taught designers may start out with limited knowledge of fundamentals like typography, color theory, printing techniques and other areas of design that colleges and universities include as part of their curriculum, though many will explore these areas more as they continue to work in the field.
Udemy, Skillshare, Coursera, and LinkedIn Learning (formerly Lynda.com) often recommended here for their online courses on Graphic Design as well as other disciplines.
Do I need to develop my own style?
No. Most working designers don't have a consistent, identifiable style that they use for each project. There are a handful of "name" designers who do work this way, though they may be better thought of as Graphic Artists who are hired, similar to illustrators, specifically to employ their style on projects.
The overwhelming majority of designers have no set style and adapt as needed to the requirements of each new project.
What's the difference between working in-house for a company and working at a creative agency?
In general, agencies are more fast-paced and require designers to work more hours (which may include weekends) in order to meet their clients' needs, but there is often more prestige associated with working for an agency – especially those with well known clients on their roster. Designers at agencies usually value the ability to work with a variety of clients rather than working for a single client. One risk of working for an agency is the contraction that happens when a large client is lost, which often leads to laying off designers as well as other agency staff. Agencies expand and contract based on their client roster.
Working as an in-house designer means working for a company or other organization, often (but not always) working on a single brand according to brand guidelines. In-house jobs typically provide stability, more regular hours (as companies often depend on agencies to hit deadlines), and other benefits associated with a "9 to 5" type corporate job. Often projects that are considered more exciting (such as branding/rebranding) and that require strategic plans to be developed along with customer research are given to agencies while in-house designers handle more mundane or self-contained projects. In-house designers will often be asked to develop internal pieces directed at the company's employees, which usually have less stringent rules than designs being seen by the public and which may offer some additional variety.
It's more common for designers to start by working at an agency and move in-house later in their career rather than the other way around. Often agencies will require previous experience at an agency before they consider hiring a job candidate.
How much do graphic designers make?
In the U.S., the average salary for a designer in 2020 has been reported at around $50,000 or $25/hour. This varies greatly by the type of workplace (in-house/corporate, agency, etc.), region, education, and experience level. It's uncommon to make more than $130,000 USD as a Graphic Designer. To go beyond that salary level, designers often step up to become Art Directors or Creative Directors, where they do less or no design themselves and instead are responsible for leading a team of designers and staff in other roles to complete projects as well as interfacing with clients (internal and external) and the senior staff they report to.
Is it easy to find work as a freelance designer?
Only a small percent of designers make their full time living by freelancing. The vast majority of people who do freelance design are doing it as a supplement to another job – a full time design job or otherwise. Less than 10% of individual working designers make their living primarily from freelance work. Those who are successful as an individual freelance designer often join or hire others to form a creative agency, making them no longer freelancers.
Going "full time freelance" is a challenge for many and those who are successful at it often build up a steady roster of clients as well as a solid network before quitting their full time jobs. Saving a year's worth of salary or more before resigning is usually recommended.
Those who consider working as a freelance designer with little or no previous design experience often underestimate how much effort, time, and cost is required to get new clients, how much time they need devote to learning how to operate a business, and how many hours they will need to spend each week doing non-billable tasks. It would not be unusual for a freelance designer working 50 hours per week to only have 20-25 hours they can bill for. State, Federal, and sometimes City Wage Taxes will also need to be considered.
Another challenge as a full time freelancer is obtaining medical insurance which is a not included as a government service in the U.S. Younger designers will often stay on their parents' insurance, but after a certain age this isn't possible. Independently paying for healthcare is expensive and often provides a major challenge for those hoping to freelance full time. Married freelancers in the U.S. will often go on their spouses' medical insurance if it's available.
Starting out as a freelancer with no real world experience is generally not advised as the designer has no opportunity to work in an existing company or agency, seeing how they operate as well as learning to interface with clients and developing their design skills with the help of more senior designers and art directors.
How much should I charge as a freelancer?
In very broad terms, experienced freelance designers in the U.S. charge:
• $10-$30/hour for a design student
• $30-$50/hour for a designer with several years' experience
• $50-$100/hour for a designer with more experience as well as a broader range of skills, including developing strategy (rather than doing only design)
• $100+/hour for freelancers with a high level of skills and experience, often with industry-specific knowledge like pharmaceutical, real estate, or financial industries
Agencies in the U.S. often charge $300/$500/hour for their services.
However, many freelancers don't provide clients with their hourly rates and will instead talk through the project with the client, estimate how long the project will take them, and present a final amount to the client. This is called a flat fee.
It is strongly advised not to begin work on a project until the fee has been discussed and approved by the client. Most clients don't want to be surprised by fees that are higher than they were anticipating, and doing so will lead to problems. This is a common mistake of people doing freelance work for the first time.
The vast majority of freelancers starting out undercharge for their work, often charging 10%–20% of what would be recommended for their skill and experience level.
It is common practice for full-time freelancers to require a client to sign a contract as well as to pay a percentage (often 50%) of the project fee before beginning work. Doing this without exception has the added benefit of warding off would-be scammers or clients who may not have ultimately paid the project fee.
Linked from the article below is the AIGA's Standard Form of Agreement for Design Services which contains modules that designers can customize and use for their own freelance work:
https://www.aiga.org/resources/business-freelance-resources
Many freelancers will include a watermark saying "DRAFT" or "PRELIMINARY" on their designs as they present them to clients, only removing the watermark and sending final designs after the final payment has been made.
This minimum price guide created by Hadeel Sayed Ahmad may also be helpful:
https://www.behance.net/gallery/67384009/Official-DU-Design-Minimum-Price-List
Where can I find freelance clients?
Finding clients is a challenge for any freelancer, but moreso for those who are just starting out. Tapping into family, friends, classmates and co-workers by letting them know that you're looking for design work is a good way to start. Often local organizations like religious institutions, schools, and non-profits that a designer is already connected to are a way get work experience and portfolio pieces as those organizations typically have small (if any) budgets allocated for design and marketing and are willing to go with someone with little design experience who charges accordingly.
One risk of working very cheap or free is that the client may place little value on the work and may not even use it in the end, especially if multiple cheap/free solutions are available to them. Cheap/free clients will rarely become clients who pay well – even if their budgets greatly increase in the future, these clients will often think of the designer as "the cheap designer" and will move on to designers or agencies they see as more prestigious once opportunity allows. The promise of more and highly paid work from a client after doing cheap/free work for them is common but rarely comes to fruition.
If a designer is working at a discount or at no cost to an organization in order to get early real world work samples, it can be helpful to send an invoice for the full amount that would have been charged, calling out the discount as well as the $0 final invoice amount. This educates the client on the value of the work they're receiving and can benefit both parties.
Once a designer has work they can promote on their website and social media, freelance work often builds organically. Satisfied clients will come back to the designer for future work and are likely to recommend their services to others.
Another way to find work as a freelancer is to contact agencies and offer to work with them when they may be beyond capacity with their own staff or skills. This often works better with small agencies local to the designer. It also helps if the designer has specific skills that are less common such as video shooting/editing, programming, hand lettering, or motion graphics capabilities, which a smaller agency's staff are less likely to be able to do themselves.
One benefit that happens naturally over time is a designer's friends and classmates will be hired into jobs or create companies that need design work, and they will look for people they know to fill those roles.
While many freelance designers sign up for sites like Fiverr, 99designs, Design Pickle, Penji, and other online marketplaces that connect clients to creatives, this is a very difficult and rarely sustainable method of working as pay is often extremely low. For contest sites like 99designs, payment is not guaranteed as dozens or more designers complete work in the hopes of being paid. Because of this system, designers often submit the same designs with slight customizations to multiple contests, causing low quality overall. Logos stolen from existing companies have also been seen on these marketplaces, which creates risk for the client.
Should I create a name for my freelance company/website or should I use my own name?
Either is fine but it has become more common over time for freelance designers to use their name as their domain or some combination of their name and the service they offer, like katsmythcreative.com. Freelance designers in the early days of the Internet were more likely to create a company name, often to give the impression that they are more than a lone designer. This can become problematic once the client contacts the design studio and realizes it is a single person. The idea of the independent creative has become more accepted over time, and it's not unusual even for large companies to work with solo designers or other creatives who have distinguished themselves.
Are design contests worth entering?
If your hope is that a company will see your contest entry and decide to hire you, probably not. Contests may be helpful, though more for developing a designer's skills and giving them a winning or placing entry that they can use to promote as opposed to gaining organic notoriety from the contest itself. It is true, though, that being able to promote oneself as an "award-winning designer" can have some value in legitimizing the designer in the eyes of prospective clients.
It may be better to develop design skills using challenges or sites that generate fictional briefs. Here are a few:
You may also want to seek out design competitions, which (when the term is used correctly) indicates that past real world work will be reviewed as opposed to designers creating new work, often around a specific theme, that design contests request. When looking for design competitions as a new designer, be aware that many entrants are seasoned design veterans or creative agencies whose work quality and resources are likely to be far more developed than a new designer.
What is this style called?
Not all styles have names and many pieces use a combination of existing styles (often with varying names for the same style) or create a unique style of their own, so a piece you're interested in may not be easy or possible to connect to a named style.
However, it's good to familiarize yourself with styles and trends, even if only to know what has been done in the past and what is currently being created. Below are a handful of sites with lists of movements, styles, and trends. Note that there is much crossover between design styles and fine art movements:
https://fhcigraphicdesign.weebly.com/graphic-design-movements.html
https://www.shillingtoneducation.com/blog/graphic-design-styles
https://www.superside.com/blog/guide-to-design-styles
https://www.infographicdesignteam.com/blog/guide-to-graphic-design-styles
https://www.manypixels.co/blog/post/graphic-design-styles
What's the best place to sell my designs online?
There are many online marketplaces as well as stock sites and new ones are always appearing, but most have become saturated to the point where few if any sales will come organically and will instead require steady marketing on the designer's part to see results. Instagram is often used as a platform to promote designers' wares like t-shirts, posters, and other designs to be printed on demand. Posting your designs and hoping they will sell themselves will almost certainly lead to disappointment.
Knowing this, here are some online marketplaces to consider selling your work:
Where can I find free photos and fonts to use?
Some common sites that offer free images are pexels.com, morguefile.com, and unsplash.com.
Note that some of these sites will show a limited number of free image options combined with a selection from a paid service (their own or another), so be careful when searching for these assets.
Also be sure to read the site's terms and conditions carefully. Some images may be used without restrictions while others may require that the image creator receive attribution, notification, or other requirement may need to be met. Many sites that offer free or even paid vector elements will prohibit those elements from being used in logo designs, or as product designs where the image is the main selling point – for example, t-shirt designs with one large, featured image.
Three well known sites that offer free fonts are dafont.com, fontspace.com, and fontsquirrel.com. As with the above, be sure to read the terms for each font downloaded. Many fonts are free for personal use while a license must be purchased when using those fonts commercially.
Do I need a portfolio site to find a job?
Almost certainly. Most companies will want to view a website with your work. 7-10 pieces is often more than enough to include. Writing at least a short amount of text about each project is recommended, focusing on the challenge, designer's process, and the final outcome (if it's a real-world project). Modern portfolios are more often organized by project (one client or campaign showing multiple pieces – logo, website, ad, etc.) rather than grouping all logos together, all videos together, etc.
Though some companies offer free hosting, they often include those plans on their own domain, which creates a URL similar to this: www.designername.host-company.com
This is not ideal as it highlights the fact that the designer has not paid for their own domain. Purchasing designername.com and pointing it to the hosting site is seen as more professional.
More information on portfolio advice for new designers.
Should my resume be "designed"?
Opinions vary. Some experienced designers recommend a standard resume format in order to get past companies' and recruiters' ATS (Applicant Tracking System) resume-reading software. Others recommend using the piece to show your design skills and standing out from more standardly-formatted resumes.
A reasonably accepted compromise is to keep the resume black and white, avoid large filled-in areas (especially around page borders) which can cause problems with resume-reading software, and to focus on solid typography and layout with minimal graphical elements (bullets, lines, simple logo/wordmark).
Graphs showing software ability or other skills came in fashion in the 2010s, but are widely considered to not be helpful to include on a resume.
Should I complete a design test for a job I've applied for?
Design tests are becoming more common for design jobs. Some consider these type of tests to be Spec Work – work done speculatively, in the hopes of some type of compensation (typically payment or a job). The AIGA (The American Institute of Graphic Arts) is opposed to spec work in general. Read more here:
https://www.aiga.org/resources/aiga-position-on-spec-work
Some companies hiring designers genuinely want to see how they work through a project brief as well as how they communicate with a client (in this case, the company requesting the test). Often these tests only require a few hours' worth of work. However, other companies will use job tests as a way to get free work from designers. In some cases there is not even an open design position available. Do careful research on companies requesting job tests and consider adding watermarks to any work you may complete as a way to dissuade the company from using them for their own or their clients' purposes.
Is it hard to get a job as a graphic designer?
It often is. However, there is heavier competition for entry level positions than there is for those with more experience. The design field has become saturated since the growth of the internet in the early 2000s and that, combined with competition from online marketplaces, design contest sites, and other factors, has made finding work as a designer more competitive by turning design from a service to a commodity. However, some areas of design such as UX/UI Design, Web Design, and Multimedia Design continue to grow in demand and offer higher salaries than other forms of design.
Who are some well-known graphic designers I can learn from?
Aaron Draplin
Alan Fletcher
Alexey Brodovitch
April Greiman
Bob Gill (type)
Carolyn Davidson (Nike logo)
Chip Kidd (book covers)
David Carson (magazine)
Debbie Millman (author/educator)
Erik Spiekermann (type)
Fred Woodward
Gail Anderson
Herb Lubalin (type)
Hermann Zapf (type)
House Industries
Jessica Hische (lettering)
Jessica Walsh
Jonathan Barnbrook
Jonathan Hoefler (type)
Aries Moross
Lindon Leader (FedEx logo)
Massimo Vignelli (NY subway map)
Michael Bierut
Milton Glaser (I heart NY logo)
Neville Brody
Paul Rand (IBM, ABC, UPS logos)
Paula Scher
Peter Saville
Rob Janoff (Apple logo)
Saul Bass (movie posters/titles)
Seymour Chwast
Stefan Sagmeister
Steven Heller (author)
Storm Thorgerson (album covers)
Susan Kare (original Mac OS icons)
Tibor Kalman (magazine)
Timothy Goodman
