I have my degree in general studies and I would love to go into graphic or website design, but I don't have the skills to do it and need to create a portfolio, but someone told me I would have to get a job doing something else until I have the opportunity to do graphic or website design. It sucks that you can't get a graphic or website design job where people can train you to have those skills. How long would it take for someone to get a graphic or website design once those skills are taken care of?

Yo guys, have you ever found some dope animations on websites that you just can’t reproduce?

And what a pity that your AI agent (whether it’s Claude Desktop, Codex, or anything else) can’t properly interpret video files. Sometimes an animation is so complex that you can’t even explain it verbally.

Would you pay for a tool that could cleanly extract an animation and recreate it in the technology it was originally built with - whether that’s CSS, GSAP, Framer Motion, or Lottie?

Or at least, would you include something like this in your design/web development toolkit?

Client keeps missing scheduled times and now guilt-tripping me about it, how would you handle this?

Any related stories or professional dos and don'ts for freelancers working with mid-sized companies are appreciated.

I'm a freelance designer working with a potential client on a new project. We were trying to schedule a call with their executive director to review my proposal. I sent over my calendar link with available times. Instead of using it, she asked if an 8 am call would work, without saying which timezone, we're in different ones, so I wasn't sure if she meant 8 am her time or mine. When I didn't hear back, I let her know I'd be logging off soon and if we didn't connect, we'd find another time.

Then at 4a-ish the next morning, she messages saying she's sorry she missed my message and asking if I could still make it work. A couple hours later she sends over a new brief to review. Then a few hours after that, before I'd even seen any of it, she sends another message saying she's giving this one more shot, like I'm the one who's been unresponsive. It's still early in the am.

I want to stay professional and not burn the lead, but the vague scheduling and the guilt-trippy tone are throwing me off. This is a bigger opportunity than my usual projects, I've invested hours for the first job brief; researching the company and writing the proposal. She'd already mentioned wanting me to meet with the executive director directly, whose contact info I can find on their website. Would it be reasonable to reach out to the ED (or their assistant) directly at this point, or is that overstepping since she's technically my main point of contact? How would you handle something like this?

Hi everyone! 👋
I recently received an email from Google regarding the UX Designer hiring assessment and will be taking the assessment as the next step in the hiring process.
I’m trying to understand what to expect and prepare appropriately before taking it. If anyone here has recently taken the Google UX Designer hiring assessment, I’d really appreciate your insights.

A few things I’d love to know:

-What is the assessment format like?
-What types of UX/design questions or scenarios should I expect?
-Are there any specific topics or skills I should focus on while preparing?
-Are there any official or unofficial practice/demo assessments available?
-How did you personally prepare for it?
-If you remember any sample questions or question types, could you share them? Even a general idea would be really helpful.
-Is there anything you wish you had known before taking the assessment?

I’m especially interested in hearing from people who have actually taken the assessment recently, rather than general Google interview advice.
Thanks in advance to anyone willing to share their experience! 🙏 It would really help me prepare with a better understanding of what to expect.

I have worked as a 360 design for over 15 years through a mixture of Agency and In-house corporate environments. I have come to the stage where I feel like I am done with it. The work is repetitively boring, and progression has come to a halt unless I want to get into a management role. I used to love the problem-solving element of design, and creating workflows which ran smoothly. I have explored the UX/UI side of design as a possibility (which seems like a natural transition), but I found I didn’t enjoy it, and have come to the conclusion it is not for me. I am not able to change roles for the next few years because of family reasons (steady, secure paycheck). But I need some advice on areas I can start looking at now / Start training in ahead of time for jobs I can pivot into from design.

Hi everyone,

I’m looking for a new (not used) laptop for around $800, mainly for computer graphics work — primarily Adobe Photoshop, possibly other Adobe apps as well.

Screen priorities (most important factor for me):

• Ideally OLED, but if that’s not realistic at this budget, I’ll settle for a good IPS panel with verified 100% sRGB coverage (not just marketing spec — happy to see independent/measured reviews if anyone has links)  
• Preferred size: 17.3”, minimum acceptable: 15.6”  
• Needs to comfortably run Adobe Creative Cloud apps (Photoshop mainly, possibly Illustrator/Lightroom)  
• Dedicated GPU would help (GPU-accelerated features, Generative Fill, etc.), but I’m open to trading GPU power for a better/more accurate screen if that’s the smarter call at this price point  
• At least 16GB RAM   
• SSD storage, 512GB minimum

Thank you in advance for your help — I really appreciate any recommendations or insight!

Just wondering how the reason rise of AI art is affecting all my designer friends? I do freelance work and had a Fiverr account for a while. Had to ditch it due to all the AI artists undercutting.

I made this cover using PicsArt on my phone. Can you recognise the image?

https://open.spotify.com/album/4eWDKY4bra5lYmEheY1lVF?si=_F9rUDvsQOCx9GGW1Tkg1g&utm_source=copy-link

(Reposted this because reddit somehow didn't add the most important thing in any post)(info)

So i watched this packaging design in TikTok and liked it but my idea is to add a cup in the bottom of the packaging so you can put it in your car cup i

have drawed the idea and (it's actually a bad draw)so what i need is if someone that's experienced in packaging design and can give me some insight

will it work or not and if it will work is there's any

other way than wasting lot of materials

For those of you freelancing solo: how do you actually track your time, manage client projects, and handle invoices? Are you using dedicated software or have you put something together in Notion/Excel?

I keep hearing designers say the tools built for this (HoneyBook, Dubsado, etc.) feel bloated and built for photographers not designers. Is that your experience too or am I wrong?

I have a degree in graphic design and I have roughly a year and a half of experience. My goal is to get a full time job with a livable wage. I am having issue getting hired and I need advice on what I should be focusing on to increase my chances.

My current experience is:
- Two internships.
- One part-time social media management job.
- One full time marketing job, (that I did for about a year where I got laid off because it wasn't cost effective to keep me. It was a start-up company burning money that liked to take shortcuts with AI.)
- Currently doing freelance social media and marketing 1099 contracts.

My portfolio consists of infographics I did for these jobs, Advertisement Flyers, social media banners, InDesign college projects, mediocre social media short vertical videos. Screenshots of social media analytics. A logo and some illustrations I did for some small clients. Website design changes I did for client's different websites.

I'm doing the best I can what I have available. That's why I have such a jack of all traits multi-media resume/portfolio. I'm not sure what to do. I thought about trying to get certified in Ux-Ui design or getting a certificate in a website builder like WordPress or Webflow, but then there's the question of which specific course to take and if it will even be worth my time and money.

I thought about maybe creating some "fake" projects for my portfolio that would make me more hire-friendly like perhaps some RFPs. Brand package concepts etc.

I think I've applied for over 200 jobs at this point since being laid off. I just don't have the 2-3 years experience.

If anyone has gone through something similar or have some advice for me I would love to hear it.

Hello everyone,

I'm Ayesha, creator of Avexia Studio.

Over the past year I've been learning CLO3D, pattern making, grading, tech packs, factory requirements, garment construction and 3D visualization. I started building a portfolio and began looking for freelance work.

That experience gave me a reality check. I spent a lot of time trying to make my work fit what I thought clients wanted, while simultaneously realizing that I hadn't yet pushed my own design ability nearly as far as I thought I had. Some feedback made that painfully obvious.

So instead of continuing to make work just to get a job, I decided to do something I've wanted to do for a while. Build something of my own. I've also been learning Blender, and that opened another door for me. Suddenly I could think beyond simply making a garment and start thinking about the entire world surrounding it. Materials, environments, visualization, presentation and the product.

That led me to CALIBER.

The word has always carried the idea of a standard, quality and measure of excellence. For me, CALIBER is becoming an experiment in exactly that. What happens when I stop designing for a brief and start building according to my own taste? I want to explore luxury, craftsmanship, identity and the feeling of belonging to a world that isn't designed for everyone.

It's still early.

There are only a few of pieces I'm genuinely proud of, and there is a huge amount I still need to learn. I'm not presenting CALIBER as a finished brand or pretending I have everything figured out. I'm building it to find out. I'm going to document the process publicly. The designs, failures, experiments, technical problems, visualization, research and eventually whether people actually want the things I'm making.

And that's where I'd really like your criticism. What do you think? Would you follow development of something like this? And once the collection becomes more developed, would you be interested in joining the waitlist to see it potentially become a real product?

I'm particularly interested in criticism at this stage because that is what pushed me to this.