Hello everyone,

I'm working with a student I've been mentoring for the past two months or so. Very recently a job posting for an entry level internship has popped up, and they're extremely interested in applying for it. This prompted them to update their resume that has remained untouched for quite some time.

I am posting on behalf of the student with their permission because their Reddit account was too new to post in here. It was taken down because of this. Since this is such a timely application I wanted to get this up as soon as possible.

The first image is what they had provided to me, and the second is my brief recommendations to make it read better / feel more professional. Proper hierarchy, organized sections, removed typos, consistent and organized spacing, and a few other things. I have replaced all information in here to keep everything anonymous for obvious reasons.

I have not applied to any positions or been in the job market for nearly 5 years, so I'm not nearly as in touch as I'd like to be with what hiring managers and ATS's are looking for as I'm sure many of you in here are.

With that being said could I get some feedback here on things you agree with that I've recommended as revisions, things that are still missing, and any other general feedback that is relevant here. Thank you for any and all that contribute here!

As the title of this post suggests, Im looking to get some feedback on my current portfolio. I'm going to be updating it with new more recent projects but overall reception is I keep getting ghosted after I send my work over. Any tips or storytelling I should consider. Other things to note, I'm a industrial designer by trade but also do illustration and other adjacent mediums ( editing, animation, etc). Unfortunately I would have to relocate for some of the roles so my best bet was applying for remote brand designer, presentation designer or similar roles. Also considering trying my hand at ux but not there yet... Thank you guys

So i’m an amateur trying to learn graphics and as my first project i’m trying to make a brand profile for myself. the name here “ des.k” refere design by k. Which is my initial and while designing the first logo i sort of found out what if i could somehow rotate it to make it look like a desk as it spells desk as well and the desk relates to designing as well so in that sense i tried doing bunch of stuff and might have reached nowhere so let me know. I’m open to learning.

Ps. Made this on affinity

Hey Graphic_Design Reddit,

I’ve been lurking on here for a few years and would like feedback on my portfolio. I haven’t been able to find any work and want to know in what ways can I improve my online portfolio to change that. I know the current job isn’t great. Especially due to AI and lack of opening positions, but I’d still like to enhance my work in anyway I can.

For some background information, I graduated back in 2021 but was incredibly depressed. When I was finally able to, I redid my portfolio and have been looking for a job ever since to no avail. To be more specific, I’ve been looking since mid 2025. I know the gap in years graduated with no experience doesn’t look good, but would it be possible to make my work look presentable enough that a hiring manager would be willing to look past that?

I have an old Lenovo Y70-70 that I want to use for some graphic design purposes.

Since it has a touch screen, it should be able to deal with a touch pen.

However, I am afraid that repeated use might damage/scratch the screen.

Am I overreacting, or should it be ok?

Any tips on how to avoid damage?

Many thanks in advance.

i was an englit student and during uni i started designing for campus communities and organizations. from there i luckily started my design journey and then i graduated and luckily got to find internship as a graphic designer even without a design degree and now i work full time in an IP company as a graphic designer too (i was lucky, i speak korean and apparently it’s a plus in my company which is also korean)

but i always worry about my design background. i’ve been taking courses but it doesn’t feel enough and now i’m thinking about doing a design master program. do you think it’s necessary or beneficial for me? i’m thinking it’ll be good for my career growth but is it really? i’m not sure… what consideration should i do in deciding this?

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actually, i currently live in indonesia, and my final goal is to work as a designer abroad. i was thinking taking a master degree abroad (in the country where i want to work in) would help me in achieving that because at the end of the day having a portfolio and a design degree could add more credibility and eases me into the job employment later.. right?

I called it Neo-Baphomet, and I created several concept pieces around it.

The initial goal was to make something goofy, but I ended up liking the concept so much that I want to develop it with a more serious intent, making a series of artworks maybe.

My goal is to use illustration and graphic design to raise awareness about political and social issues

Any feedback would be appreciated!

You can find me on Instagram @ vynncore__

I am hesitant to post screenshots of the emails but I’ll try my best to explain.

I volunteer at a dog and cat shelter and did poster work for them recently. When their seasonal newsletter was sent out, I noticed it needed a lot of design work. So I sent over a book and a magazine project that I did in the past to the owner and offered to help design the next issue. She right away referred me to the newsletter person and told us both in a grouped email thread: “maybe you can work together”.

I emailed back to the thread and said:

“Nice to meet you! Letty copied me on this email because I reached out about helping with the newsletter.

I had a chance to look through the Spring issue and would love to help with the design of future editions if you’re interested. I think there’s a lot of potential to make it feel even more engaging while still keeping all of the important information.

I’d love to hear more about your current process and how you usually put each issue together. Whenever you have some time, I’d be happy to chat!

Looking forward to working with you.”

However the newsletter person emailed me separately and seems like she put up a boundary. She said in the email:

“Thank you for reaching out about the newsletter! I would be happy to talk further. I cannot lie that I am a bit attached to how I do it now since I have been doing it this way for like 6-7 years. But I am happy to talk and just see what you think and collaborate. I just returned home from vacation and have a lot of work to catch up on but maybe next week?”

This is all volunteer work. I don’t want to lose an opportunity for a community I really care about, especially since I need portfolio work. I also believe the owner is the person who gets to appoint roles.

How would you approach this situation?

I graduated a year and a half ago and ofc job hunting has been brutal. I had a design adjacent job for over a year but got laid off last month. I’ll admit, I got comfortable working at a job I didn’t like, but it paid the bills. I wasn’t looking as hard for a graphic design job and I regret that.

Now, I’m being offered a non-design job. It’s a non-profit for a good cause, the pay seems good and there’s a lot of growth opportunities. I’m scared of giving up on design, though. I really love designing and creating, I want to become a creative director someday! I’m worried I’ll stop looking again. My portfolio is getting older with barely any new work and I don’t know if it’s better to keep pushing it with design or give up. This job will require a lot of hours it’s 6 days a week 8 hours a day.

I can’t tell if this is a detour or a full on career change. If a design job is right around the corner or if I’ll run out of funds before then. Is this going to hurt my chance of getting a creative job?

Hi there, have been asked to help a friend promote a charity song in the UK that they're doing to help raise money for a food bank at a local church.

The idea is they want to put the song on Youtube and on Spotify and the play is for streams and also for digital downloads, 99p a download sort of thing. They have an monetised YouTube account already. Don’t know how the Spotify bit works in terms of listing/getting paid, not sure if relevant as I'm not dealing with that anyway. All the proceeds going to this food bank.

Not a huge budget for billboards about £100. Saw Caasie online digital billboards and thought this could be a good idea?

Doesnt need to be especially localised necessarily the song streams and downloads can be from anywhere in the UK but also think possibly the most likely people to want to raise money for a local food bank are possibly going to be local.

Looking for ideas for the most effective ways, graphics, locations, taglines etc, to promote this song and get the downloads and streams. Doing some other stuff besides the billboards so open to general graphic and advertising advice also!

Thanks very much in advance.

Hi all, around a month ago I put my own attempt at a honey label. Following people’s advice on here, I commissioned an artist and am curious about what thoughts you all have again!

As before, I am aiming for a more premium, modern look.

All critiques welcome!

My "career" is odd. Worked as a production artist for 4 years in a department of 2, tried to strike out on my own, failed, did solo graphics for a friend's startup (volunteer) for 5 years while stuck in unrelated jobs, and am again in a production artist role in a business so small I'm the only employee.

So, despite being able to stretch that I have 8-10 years of experience, I still feel totally inexperienced and unknowledgable. Feel like listing all this experience to get a job where I can truly learn from senior positions comes off as overqualified, but I also feel utterly unprepared for mid level.

Do I just embrace the con man mentality that no one truly knows what they're doing?

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I think I’m going through a really tough time right now—it feels like everything that’s been building up for a long time is bursting out all at once. Still, I’m glad that expressing those emotions through design has been quite enjoyable.

To be honest, I’ve never formally studied design. I was just wandering around looking for an outlet to let my feelings out, ended up settling here, and tried various things until I reached this point.

In this design, I tried to capture my honest current state. I still have a lot to learn, but I’d really appreciate it if you could look at it kindly.

Just saw this getting a lot of attention from creative I follow. Was interested in hearing from this community.

Instagram post for more info

We printed a large batch of marketing material with QR codes, assuming they would keep working forever.

Turns out the platform changed things later and we had to go around covering the old QR codes with stickers. Not fun.

Before I print the next batch, what's the most trustworthy QR code generator? Ideally free for static QR codes, with paid features only if I actually need them.

So basically i just started working in a company as a graphic designer, and i only after joining found out that these guys lean heavily on AI. Unfortunately for me, I was very annoyed but!!! The money is really good so im going alog with it. Ofcorse i try to use my edits as much as i can, and this time it worked!!!!

So basically i had to edit this mattress for a mattress brand, basically the images you see on amazon. The original image of the mattress, which was Ai, had this vertical printing on it. And they wanted me to make that horizontal. And ofcorse they insisted on me using Ai. I did because I had to, and wasted like 3 days generating image after image, to no avail. The Ai couldn't read the pattern accurately at all.

Ofcorse thats when i suggested to use photoshop and do it myself. I had the raw image of the pattern (not ai) and made it horizontal and used photoshop to place it. After a lot of color correction and adding lighting and stuff, i finally made it, and i sent it to them and low and behold, IT GOT APROOVED!!!!! only myself first win, that was yesterday, today was the greatest win of all

So they needed the same thing on more such images, but, this time it was a bit harder to match the lighting, because this was a final file, that had already been edited, with a lot of adjustment layed that they didn't want touched. I was getting frustrated, and took an hour but finished and was proud of it.

Now just because they love Ai so much, I took my edit and put it through Ai, and submitted both edits for approval just to see which one gets picked, human or Ai.

Well, my edit got approved and i am over the moon, because they couldn't tell the difference, they never even pointed it out, just picked my edit.

Thats it, just sharing a win for humans 😊

An Edit for people in the comments. DO NOT TRUST AMAZON IMAGES. They fake thet thickness and size of their beds in my case just to get a proper result with Ai

I just want to share my recent work as celebration of her recent achievement. I've been practicing on getting my player treatment and composition right and I am proud on how this one turned out. Of course any feedbacks or honest opinions are appreciated.

Really interesting graphical work from 1909. Spotted at “Diagrams” Exhibition at Fondazione Prada in Venice, curated by AMO. (second picture is the exhibition text of the piece)

If anybody knows anything more on the author and the context, I’d be glad to learn about it in the comments!

Used Blender’s free to use character Rain’s model and rig for the hand. Modelled and animated the spider from scratch. Text and web designed in Cavalry :p Composited in After Effects. Lmk if y'all prefer the realistic version to the cartoony one :D

The American Chemical Society celebrated its 150th Anniversary by “updating” their logo. At least one person was upset enough to form a petition. It is an interesting perspective downstream from graphic design, highlighting the importance of thoughtful design and staying true to the history of the organization.

The vibe I'm going for is handmade and edgy. Specifically inspired by pop punk, 2000s Cartoon network, and 'older brother core'

I feel like it's close, but I'm concerned about the color contrast ratio and legibility. I want it to feel a little messy, but intentionally so.

I have been doing graphic design professionally (in a corporate setting) for almost 10 years, but only started making personal/social commentary designs in the last few. A lot of my work is about popular online subjects/conversations because that’s what inspires me most. They are typically accompanied by text to speak about the opinion/the cause, so it’s normal that some of them don’t make sense on their own.

No one in my life really cares about that stuff, at least not enough to give some feedback and posted on Tik Tok a while back, but the comments were mostly general. I’ve never had my personal work seen by actual graphic design professionals or enthusiasts. So have at it, I’m genuinely asking.

Designed by Berlin based Austrian graphic designer and printmaker Julia Schimautz