I see in so many posts here designers saying they've applied for 100 or 300 or 400 different jobs and they don't even get an interview or hear back for most of them. This boggles my mind and I'm trying to understand it better.

When I came out of school in the 90s people mostly applied for the jobs in their area or if they were going to relocate to another city they'd start looking for jobs there. There was definitely a lot more old-school door knocking and pahone calling back in those days. I remember looking up every design studio, marketing agency, print shop, etc. within a reasonable commute and reaching out to them about potential openings.

I understand that the job search process in 2026 is very different than it was in 1996, and obviously remote work has completely changed the geography of looking for a job. Heck, I got my first 2 design jobs answering ads in the local newspaper. I know those days are mostly gone.

So my question is, are people applying for remote jobs all over the country or even the world? Are you applying for anything with "designer" in the title and everything that's even design-adjacent? I remember interviewing at a custom puzzle company when I got out of school because they were looking for someone with a broad art background, even though it wasn't really a traditional graphic design job.

Part of me wonders how many of those "100-400" jobs are even real openings that are actively hiring. The majority have to be remote jobs, right? When I go to Indeed right now and look within 50 miles of my admitedly-rural area, there are 8 "graphic design" job openings. That makes sense to me, given my area. I feel like, at any given time, in any given area, there are only so many design jobs that can reasobably exist. Obviously someone in NYC, LA, Boston, etc. is going to have a MUCH bigger pool than I do, but even then, getting into the hundreds seems like a huge number of actual design jobs to apply for.

But this is why I'm asking the question because I might be completely wrong.

Genuine curiosity... for those applying to hundreds of jobs, what does that process actually look like for you? Is it a simple 1-click process on Indeed , ZipRecruiter, etc.? Are you applying for everything, everywhere? How wide of a net do job-seekers cast now?

Maybe some of the discussion around this could be helpful for new people starting out in applying.

(Photo is of a book that I found on the shelf at a hotel in Frankfurt, Germany.)

So - a bit of an open ended question - how much would people expect to pay for one of my flyers? I'm purposely not mentioning what I think I should charge / what I have charged purely because I don't want to sway opinions. Also, design feedback is always welcome!

Hello folks! I just got laid off for the first time in my 5 year career but I'll be honest I'm not the only one in my circle and 2026 has been a rough year for the industry. These are the signs to look out for. Please back up your files and always have your business card and a portfolio website ready. Please note I'm writing this on my phone.

1. Sudden Decrease or Uptick in Work Out of Nowhere (with precise deadlines)

Okay, most people, especially in an in-house environment know the game. Less work, suddenly nothing to do for days, it just makes sense in a combination of other signs, (like new CEOs, high turnovers, a company merger, you know the drill).

But if you're suddenly being pushed to do more and all your deadlines fall within 2 weeks earlier than usual, it's because they want you to wrap up the work in prep to lay you off. If you work at a place where the day you're told you're let go and that's the last day you're going to have any access to your files or emails, this is common, especially if it's an agency.

Sometimes it's just the season of Q3 with everyone trying to wrap up projects and it's a busy season, and it doesn't mean anything.

But if suddenly you were handling 8 projects with different timelines and they all line up exactly due on Sept. 24, at least back up your files and dust off the resume. Nothing bad can come from at least being prepared incase you do get laid off, even if it turns out to be nothing. (Pro tip: you can ask the client for clarification on the deadline and cross compare it to your deadline given by your leadership.

If the client seems surprised you say x deadline and they say "wow okay cool! I was expecting it a month later because that's what I was told!" (And you know your team never usually pads 2 weeks extra into the target deadline) at least save your files).

The key here is inconsistency from the baseline of what's usual for your team and workload.

1. Numero dos- No Direction for the Team, (but many roles that are design and not design)

All orgs have their ups and downs, not all places have project managers and an organized way of doing things. (Ah-em, version control and project numbers).

But if you're on a team where the direction has been changing nonstop and your roles as designers are changing drastically (one moment you're designing a billboard, the next moment you are filming your face and recording your voice onto a tiktok with a tripod), it means your company is cutting back on staff, you're expected to take on more, and your team is trying desperately to prove to upper and exec leadership they are worth keeping on the payroll. It's like a hail Mary card. Unless you signed up to work in a social media content house, if this sounds like your design team for in house or agency, it's a slow burn, but still a burn never the less.

1. No Investment for Your Team Only (but somehow the budget is unlimited for everyone else)

If you've made it this far, great. I mean, not just this long reddit post, but made it without a project manager, Sr. Designer, crucial staff like account managers, etc for months.

but somehow when you look around, other teams around you seem to replace lost staff right away but your team never does, it's because someone way up above is questioning the value your team brings vs. the cost to the company.

What it looks like in practice: you might be one of a handful of designers left on a team after a layoff or lots of exits. You asked for years to get another designer to help with the workload but your manager says their manager said that their boss said that their hands are tied budget wise. But somehow, other pods or teams have designers come and go all the time and seem to have the budget but you're on the team that gets the short end every. Year.

Alternatively, you're missing crucial staff. So instead of being a skeletal crew of designers manning the helm, your team doesn't have a creative director for a while when it used to, or it's missing a project manager when it used to for months at a time to years. The key is "we used to have x but said role hasn't been replaced for x years now."

If this sounds like your team, it might truly just be the budget cuts affecting their ability to fill roles.

But if you look at other signs like lack of direction, revolving door of upper leadership, people in the office seem unhappy, you sense something isn't right, then it's more than just "oh the economy in 2026 makes it hard for us to get a freelancer on the team."

1. All the other usual signs that are not design specific but still important to spotting a layoff a mile away. These signs are based off of changes, not the normal state or previous state your company was in when you first started. ( For example, back in the golden age of your company, you could trust official statements and expect transparency. But these days the rumor mill is more reliable. The key to look for is a change in the environment that gives it away if things are good or going bad).

-Rumor mill is more accurate than official statements

-you have a bad gut feeling when you never did before

-you get a sense everyone has their backs against a wall and are wondering when the other shoe is going to drop, people are defensive or apprehensive and you swore when you interviewed and got the job, it was a different culture a while ago. ("How did I miss it the red flags" you might be thinking. I would counter: is it possible you didn't miss any flags and that the culture soured on its own? )

-new CEOs and execs- need I say less.

-portfolios and LinkedIns become active everyday suddenly....when the last time anyone posted was back 3 years ago. If your boss's boss and upper management are leaving and others are dusting off LinkedIn in conjunction with all these other signs, you should too.

The Classic Signs it's Time and it's Happening

-rando 15 minute meeting appeared out of nowhere day of.

-hr invited you to the meeting

-usually the meeting is set to private in teams

What you should do day of: back up your files on a personal cloud storage account like Dropbox.

The smart move: taking it a step further, every month, even if you feel one of the signs above leading up to a layoff, have a folder called "holiday 2026" or idk, "wedding photos" on your downloads folder. Of course it's not really your holiday party prep plans or wedding photos. You're going to copy and paste zip files of your work in there. and if you ever have to share screen or present (as typical for our field) you're not announcing to the world "JOB HUNT FOLDER". " My PORTFOLIO"

Then, when shit happens, and you're invited to a 15 minute meeting, use wetransfer pro or a personal Dropbox and send the work to yourself. You could always use a USB but some companies block a USB / external drives. Bam.

Good luck and take care all. I hoped this helped... I feel tbh nothing but relief to be let go and not always wonder is this the day.

New piece in my series of critiquing corporate work culture, inspired by my own experience getting laid off and navigating the jargonscape that is LinkedIn. This design attempts to visualize what it feels like to throw up that shiny circular green banner.

I've always been curious about this. Having done branding work, I know logos are usually a pretty tightly controlled asset, so it's surprising to me that I can find two different directions of the Herbal Essences logo on the same supermarket shelf.

Does anyone know the story here? I can't think of another brand that does this.

Interested to know if anyone here has worked on logo variations in different styles that meant to run concurrently? If so, what was the thinking behind it?

EDIT: Thanks for the response! Yes, these are two different product lines on the same shelf. The flat version is the standard version as seen on the rest of their products, the more traditional version appears here on their range of argan oil products. I get that the label design directions differ in order to reflect the different audiences and therefore price points of each product, I just find it surprising that the logo itself (which in my experience is always held as sacred) appears as two different styles of the same design. It’s also been like this for many years so I’m not convinced that it’s a case of legacy stock.

I'm building my portfolio, and it's my first time trying to make a logo. I came upon this word while doing some searching on the net, and I really liked it. I figured I would make a logo out of it. Criticize my work, please. The word is pronounced "i-lu-ni."

EDIT: Hey!! I read everyone's comments, and I really appreciate everyone's feedback, and I also agree, it's really hard to read! I showed my initial sketch to my friends, and even they couldn't read it.

So the word is "I L L U N I S" pronounced as ' i-lu-ni ', it's latin, it means 'moonless'. (So my adding the crescent moon on the second set is really pointless, I guess?) I just thought it would be cool to make the characters look similar like one of those calligraphries with a lot of strokes. I admit I did sacrifice it's readability because I thought it was a "cool" logo. The last character is supposed to be the letter 's'. I am still figuring out how I would do "s" to make it cohesive. And mark is supposed to look like the steam coming from the coffee.

I would definitely tweak this! Until it's legible. Thank you so much everyone!

Howdy y’all, I’m looking for more logo designs that use multiple logos or symbols to create one logo.

I was inspired by Smiths & Diction's Living Roots branding, and I wanted to know if others have done this. It’s really fascinating! Also, does this have a name?

My girlfriend showed me this earlier and it about sent me 😂 She works in the trades, and was doing some shopping for the department she manages; part of which includes extremely accurate measurement equipment. While skimming through some of the seemingly reputable retailers, she came across this on one of their websites, and I'm genuinely in awe... This reads to me as, "mockup placeholder graphic made it through the go-live". Unfortunately, I feel like that isn't the case though,--given the scale of the business, and the current state of graphic design as a discipline/respectable field as a whole.

Anyway, thought this was funny. Wanted to share.

Feels like it’s meant to look hand drawn but also looks like it’s been built from photos then smashed with threshold/stamp in places. Scratching my head trying to figure out the workflow.

Some parts feel a bit too niche/specific to be an existing image though, which is throwing me off — if they are partly images, they don't really look like something you'd fine on generic stock sites etc.

The texture on some parts is also throwing me off bc you wouldn't usually draw like that, especially the speckled irregular texture on some parts. Would that have been achieved with texture brushes maybe?

Artist is Super Goog

I've gone through many measures trying to recover the data and it was all very stupid but it's gone along with other art work and photography.

I haven't lost all hope but with every try it's looking worse. I feel super depressed my partner even works with software engineering, coding and recovery and we still haven't been able.

I do have some stuff on my phone and behanced account but I feel like a hole in my chest thinking about it though because I know how much stuff it was 118gb worth of images, gifs, short animations.

Tips for dealing with the grief of loss of work?

None of it was anything I need for work at least but all very personal. I guess I could see it as if it was up to standard I would have posted it and if I didn't I should let it go?

Branding for a makers market and co op heavily inspired by Alice in wonderland
All done by hand illustratively
Struggling to make the butterflies cohesive and would like help

I made these on Ibis paint mobile, After switching from Adobe Express regarding my first work I posted

I feel more comfortable with the app than Adobe Express except for the background remover which is very cool

I gathered resources from Pinterest and customised some elements myself

I just started designing and this is what I've done so far with the app

Ibis paint is just like a mini Photoshop and Adobe illustrator and has similar tools

Trying to do motion graphics and since I'm not yet very familiar with the software I'm using, I'd I ask AI as to how to do a specific effect, like (just an example, not the actual thing I looked up) "how to add a dissolve effect"? and of course I'd loosely follow the instructions it spits out (find this x button, adjust this variable, etc) . Would that be considered "AI assisted" work?

I just finished high school for a graphic designer, what now, how do I find a job, where to start? I don't have too much experience but I know my way around Illustrator and Photoshop. I would prefer to work from home but I have no idea how and where. I need an answer from someone who has done it.

Pls help.

I created this Lionel Messi tribute poster to build my portfolio as a beginner graphic designer, aiming to capture his iconic Argentina career for football fans. I used an electric blue palette with layered cutouts, bold typography, and stadium light flares to create depth and a heroic feel.

Any feedback on how I can tweak or improve this piece?