r/graphic_design

Hey everyone!

I‘ve noticed an extreme decline in graphic design job listings. At the end of 2025 I lost my job at a digital advertising agency and started sending out applications. To my surprise there were quite a lot of job listings in december.

(I actually got a job pretty quickly and ended up not even being unemployed between jobs, however since this job isn’t what I want to be doing with my life I‘ve continued searching.)

Ever since 2026 started the amount of job listings decreased rapidly. There are little to no new jobs each week and the ones that show up often aren’t actually graphic design jobs. Most people are looking for someone to do their video content…which is what I‘m doing right now and actively trying to get away from.

Has anybody else noticed this? What‘s the situation like in other countries? (i‘m from Austria)
Obviously the country going through…a bit of an economic crisis is a big contributing factor, however there are plenty of job listings for other creative fields such as copy writing/ concepts.

Do you think AI plays a big factor in this? What do you think the future looks like? Will you try to pivot away from graphic design?

(Honestly as for me…right now would be a bad time to switch careers since I want to buy a house and have a child within the next 5-6 years so I can’t afford not to have a stable full time income…however once my life has calmed down a bit I might try to learn something entirely different.)

I'm a UX/product designer and software engineer, I'm the only "design" person in my entire org and I frequently have to also support marketing for example, every single time without fail I have to manually adjust layouts, create or find matching visuals and graphics, and sometimes create custom icons etc. While I have been able to utilise AI in some of UX and UI work as well as some software engineering I just don't see anything that can generate an editable graphic representation of what I need. Is there some secret product that's doing it?

I used it once to mockup a website for a friend as a means of testing it out, and it was fine but I didn’t go back. However, I see so many job postings asking for Figma knowledge or even a Figma-heavy portfolio, it’s becoming clear I need to give it another shot. 😬😫 I’m curious though if there are any other holdouts or those who used it but don’t care for it here? 👀 What are your feelings on it becoming an industry go-to? And then with not just Figma but software/tech in general, what can we do to get over this anxiety of having to keep up and adapt with the times?

So I’m knee-deep in my graphic design degree, and by knee-deep I mean, I graduate next semester. And I’ve been having some doubts. Well really I’ve been doubting for a while but I think it’s really starting to set in.

My problem is I don’t I enjoy this as much as I thought I would. Pretty much everything that’s hiring around me for internships or just regular jobs is a marketing kind of deal with logos and stuff and I do not enjoy doing logos. When I chose graphic design I wanted to do book covers and I can’t find anyone near me hiring for that. And I know obviously my very first graphic design job is not going to probably be what I want to do in the end. I just need my foot in the door somewhere.

Anyways, what I want out of a job is I wanna feel fulfilled, I don’t wanna be stuck behind a desk all day, and I want to feel like I’m making a difference. I really do not want to move away because my whole family is around here, and I want stability. Freelance stuff sounds really cool, but it’s just not for me I don’t think. It seems very unstable. And I feel like AI is such a prevalent thing nowadays, I mean it’s definitely cheaper than a graphic designer and if I was a business owner, I would probably pick the cheaper option honestly. And in my classes, my professors are telling me that I should just use AI, (I literally had a whole project where I wasn’t even allowed to design anything by myself. I had to prompt an AI). And it’s not just the AI that’s bothering me. I feel like I don’t enjoy this path as much as my classmates do. They’ve all got their shit together it feels like, well better than I do at least.

So I’ve been really considering going and doing something else, maybe medical related? Like dentistry or or maybe x-rays or something like that instead. Plus whenever I talk to my parents about it, they don’t have any idea what graphic designers do or how it works so they try their best with the advice but they don’t really get it and I’m super conflicted which does not help. My dad says I should try out fiver and try to sell my work, but I just can’t see that supporting me reliably.

So what do you guys think? As people who have been designing for a while I assume. Should I stick with it and just hope for the best? Or should I switch paths?

Mine is emotional intelligence and resilience.

Hi everyone!

I am completely self-taught and currently putting together my first portfolio to apply for a Junior Graphic Design or Marketing role! So, because I only have basic software knowledge so far (photoshop, illustrator, premiere pro, and photography), my portfolio is mostly made up of spec projects (social media ads, banners, logo variations, and apparel mockups) that I built to practice my layouts, typography, and visual strategy. Before I post my work here for critique, I have two quick questions about how I should present myself / portfolio to recruiters:

1. Behance Portfolio Question: Because I don't have a massive amount of assets for each individual project (total of 5 projects and 3-4 assets per project), making a separate Behance post for each one would make them super short. To make it as easy as possible for hiring managers, should I group all of my projects into ONE big "Design Portfolio" post so it's all on one scrolling page? Or is it better to separate them by project with a short description of what the goal was, even if each post is really brief?
2. The Resume Question: My past work history is completely unrelated to design or marketing (I worked as a Behavior Technician and a Veterinary Tech for years). Should I include this past work history on my resume to prove that I am a reliable employee who can handle high-pressure environments? Or will showing unrelated jobs just confuse hiring managers and get my resume thrown out? I know I have a lot to learn (and I'm excited for it), and I would love to know what art directors or recruiters actually prefer to see from someone transitioning into the industry.

Thank you so much for your time and advice!

Hi, I am trying to get back into graphic design after a long break and would really love to hear how others practice and learn new features.

I used to illustrate and edit like crazy when my school gave me free access to Adobe but stopped when I didn't have access to it. But programs like Affinity, Blender, and DiVinci Resolve inspired me to give it another try and honestly I really missed editing. For now I want to really learn the tools I have and have fun. Affinity feels super different to how ps felt back in the day.

I want to relearn seriously and have a proper project-based plan this time around. For those of you who had to learn or relearn design, how would you approach it now? Like do you learn best from finding inspo and recreating it? Use something to generate prompts/assignments? I’d really appreciate examples of what worked for you, resources you found useful, or things you wish you had done earlier.

For the seniors/creative directors in this sub or those who look at portfolios and such for hiring candidates. What kind of projects do you specifically look for? What about their portfolio makes you judge whether someone is fit to be hired based on their work? What is an example of an amazing portfolio that says you’d hire this person immediately? Do you look for more full fledged brand identity projects, or are you looking to see more specific individual things like print/layout, social post designs, billboards etc? More safe, corporate styled work, or more artsy high risk type of work?

I am working on redoing my portfolio website. I currently have a mix of different projects. Web design, print work, brand identities, product packaging, motion graphics, etc. (sorted by client/brand).

I’ve been having trouble having my portfolio appeal to the companies I apply to.

I’m looking for an in-house design role or an agency. But i have no idea what types of things to feature in my redone portfolio. I’m so burnt out at my current role and I feel that I’ve become very subpar at graphic design and I need to do a refresh.

For extra context, I am currently employed as a web designer for a local agency and the work here is very stagnant/dead end jobish - and what also sucks is I am not allowed to show any of my work done at the agency on my portfolio. So most of my stuff is from past roles that’s now somewhat outdated, or fake spec branding work.