After a year and a half of rejection and rejection and more rejection! I am so happy and so relieved. I was getting close to giving up 🥲 and the role doesn’t force me to use AI! Woooo! Never give up friends!

It bothers me when you complain about Adobe and people say that "just use Affinity instead" or something. Adobe sucks for so many reasons. But "use Affinity" will never be a solution.

Adobe is the industry standard.

That doesn't mean you can't choose to use Affinity (or another free program) in your own time or for your own personal business. But most of us don't work for ourselves. We work for a business... That uses Adobe. Corporate uses it, agencies use it. You can't just show up to work and use something else.

It's like saying "just bring your personal MacBook to work instead of using your company-issued HP."

First thing in the morning, I need to quickly expand an image that isn't quite wide enough. Nope, you can't do that in our horrendously expensive software, slow down, you're using our service too much.

Like the title says, I finally received real AI work that they expected us to print.

Technically, it wasn't really my first. I've had a few here and there and I've always mentioned "hey, because this was AI generated, we will need you to prepare the file so it fits our guidelines correctly". Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't. Usually we just do whatever cause I don't get paid enough to argue about these things.

But yesterday my boss sent me a "print ready file" that our client wants on a 10ft x 7.5 ft display. I opened it and just about died. It's so insanely AI. The layout on it wasn't awful, but the client was concerned it was "too busy".

I can't share the image directly at this time, but I can explain it. All the lettering and such is fine. I believe someone put in the words and logos after the fact. But the main image has three of their product lines. The third Product line is a collection of many different items. So ultimately there are 7 different product images. The first two look ok. They don't look messed with too much, but they definitely have that GPT shine. The third section that has the other 5 images is absolute garbage.

I thought this thing was an electrical box and the AI just couldn't figure out where all the wires could go. But then today I found out what the product actually was. And they look nothing alike. I don't know what the prompter put in to get it so messed up. But what's really wild to me is that this was "PRINT-READY". I don't know who goes over their graphics and decides yes or no, but if I were on their team, someone would have been fired.

So anyways, after a lot of back and forth with my boss, he finally convinced them they can't use it. I think it helped that it wasn't even designed to the correct dimensions. So I gave him a list of things I need from them to do it properly. They are gathering everything but in the meantime, they sent over the three main categories / images they want featured. I thought, "finally! real pictures."

Nope. Someone definitely said "Hey ChatGPT, can you send me each of the products as their own image?"

Now I have the generated images at a bigger scale and it was so much more fucked up than I thought. The image that is really bad (the one I thought had an electrical box in it) has other products in front of it that are similar to Routers and such (same size and basic look, but they aren't routers). And if you actually look at them, their logo isn't correct, the cords make NO sense. One of the boxes just stops existing on the back side.

It just blows my mind that people are so ok with this.

And they want this as a large display... to convince people to buy their stuff. Anyone who knows anything about their type of products will look at that backdrop and be like "what the actual fuck".

In the last year specifically, I have seen a huge surge of AI created Flyers, commercials, displays and such. And I don't understand it. Like sure, it's "faster" and "cheaper" and "easier" or whatever. But don't companies want people to know what their products actually look like.

I feel like I'm losing my mind trying to convince people that this isn't ok.

Anyways. RANT OVER.

TLDR: A client sent us AI-generated images they called “print-ready” for a large display. The products looked nothing like the real thing. I convinced them not to use it, and they’re gathering "real product photos" now so we can do it properly. Ultimately though, it’s frustrating how many companies use AI images to advertise products that customers need to recognize and trust.

I’m an art director, and since 2001 I’ve screenshotted every website whose design caught my eye: layouts, typography, color, the way a homepage introduced a brand. The folder quietly grew to almost 4,000 images, so I turned it into a browsable archive sorted by date:

https://dmdev.it/webscreens

Scrolling through it chronologically is like watching graphic design trends move onto the screen:

• early 2000s: pixel fonts, Flash splash pages, tiny fixed-width compositions designed for 800×600 and 1024×768
• mid 2000s: glossy buttons, reflections, gradients everywhere, the “web 2.0” palette
• around 2010: big editorial layouts, oversized hero photography, the first real web fonts
• 2013 onwards: flat design, generous white space, huge type and minimal navigation

Each screenshot is dated to the day I saved it. Use the year timeline at the top to jump to a specific era, or hit “Random” and see what comes up.

Curious what you think: which era aged best, and which one would you never go back to?

I’m an illustrator working primarily as a brand graphic designer with ~15 years of experience, 10 of those spent at global F500 companies that are, let’s say, somewhat chaotic and tech company adjacent. As reflected by many of the posts here, AI has seeped into all our workflows. (Personally? I detest AI and will never use it for my personal creative work, but am, like many, forced to use it at work in exchange for a stable salary). Curious about how it’s impacting creatives in larger corporate environments either developing or working within illustration systems. Have there been any AI applications for tooling, asset development, repetitive finalization tasks, etc that have benefitted your teams and actually saved time? Leaders, how have you made your case for or against AI implementation in illustration/design, and how did it pan out?

Hi everyone! I’m a recent graphic design graduate and would love some feedback on my portfolio. This is my first time building a portfolio website with framer. I’m currently looking for design opportunities, so I’d appreciate any constructive criticism on the overall website, project presentations, or areas I could improve.

Portfolio: https://zariayancy.framer.website/

Thanks!

So i have a graphic design & video editing studio, we based in third world country but we have worldwide client especially aus, europe, and usa. I always make my business stay low and avoid any unnecassary cost.

But i feel this past 3 month is very very rough, early this year there is a lot of client and potential client, but now i feel that it the potential client has decreased by 50%. I think it is because the current economic global and also my old client in design already use AI for their work. and now Calude able to do motion graphics as well, which is our main niche at the moment.

i plan to shut my business while i still have fund rather than waiting my business goes bankrupt. do you guys feel the same? do you have any recommendation on what should i do?

I did this one a little while ago for a class. The assignment was to make a sports poster. It was good practice for me. I’m just a student but I tried to make it visually appealing and make the composition clear. I also tried to make the colors cohesive.

This was just made for practice but let me know what you think and how I can improve!

I am looking for feedbacks on some fan arts I did for the newly announced HIDEO KOJIMA GAME. THE main theme is about the trinity of special ops and how covert operations is like Snakes devouring snakes ( obvious inspirations. like yes the operative with the proper support, and training is more likely to succeed however sometimes you just die. It’s just a matter of reaching your life span. And then the others HUMINT, SIGNINT have risks but they are indirect Danger and you are not too exposed To being on that timer.

Saw an old Modiano 1928 poster which had the smoke text similar to that so I tried to recreate it my own way. Also tried to do some "T-shirt" -plastisol texture on the cat. Let me know what you guys think. Feedback and suggestions are welcome.

The cat is my friends'.

Hi everyone, I'm not sure how to deal with this, so I'd appreciate some advice.

When I was new to design, I made quite a few mistakes in my projects. For example, when I started designing books, I missed some basic things like the half-title page and the full title page.

Now, I'm working with one of those clients again, designing another book for them. Sometimes I worry that they'll look at the previous book and ask me, "Why didn't you include this in our earlier book?" Honestly, I don't know how I'd respond.

I've learned a lot since then and now have at least a basic understanding of many things I wasn't aware of back then.

But the thought of being questioned about my previous work still bothers me. I know it's normal to make mistakes when you're learning, but how do you handle it when you're working with the same client again and realise you missed some fundamental things in your earlier projects?

Have any of you been in a similar situation? How did you handle it?

I've been playing the Warcraft games since their first release, and the wordmark always stood out to me. As the games are entering an exciting time, I thought it was time for a challenge and design a full typeface around it. With a big attention spike soon, I thought it was time for the first release. From 6 letters to over 500 characters: It has been the start of a journey.

Download the font here from my Github, and it comes with some simple rules: Create anything you want, personal, commercial, in any shape or form, from video to website. But please don't make changes to the font files themselves, or try to sell the font files.

The font comes with:

• Around 500 characters
• 30 emoji (which I still hope to expand quite a bit)
• Support for Basic Latin, Latin-1 Supplement and Latin Extended A & B
• Opentype features for old-style numerals (onum), fractions (numr, dnom, frac), case-sensitive forms (case) and finally a single stylistic set for the infinity symbol.

I had a lot of fun working on it: I never made type inspired by a limited wordmark before and it was interesting to extrapolate how to make it work, especially the lower case and symbols. It's still far from done, hence I made a public folder/Github repo. Perhaps I'll turn it into OFL somewhere in the future. There is a lot to explore. Still, some of its shortcomings are also its charm.

For the future: I hope to add more stuff (at least more emoji!) and refine it further. So this should be the start, not the end of line. If you are missing characters or have other requests, feel free to drop a line on Reddit, mail or through Github Issues or discussions.

Give it a try and hope you like it!

I’ve been using illustrator for the past 15 years to design the print files for control panels, works fine no real issues but also I don’t drive it that hard either. I’ve just had my annual renewal email come through and I can’t help but wonder if I could just shift to Affinity and save the cash.

Sure there’ll be a learning curve but it can’t be that bad?

Am I nuts?

Did a poster for a movie that doesn't exist. 1st time doing ornament stuff.

Found the "CHANGE" font on Adobe fonts and it made me feel stuff so I made this poster. Kinda has "BUGONIA" vibe which I like.

The amber and mosquitos are both from Adobe Stock. No AI was used.

Suggestions are also very welcome.

In my team, all my work always have to go through my senior approval. However, almost all the time, i need to change majority of the artwork according to his order. Its extend the time needed and i just feel like why even bother putting effort if i know he is going to reject it. Even small detail i need to consult with him.

I am aware that my senior is better than me in graphic design. However, i already work with him for almost 3 years and i feel like i am not improving at all. I try to implement my critical thinking and my understanding of graphic design in my work but it feels futile.

I feel like i am not owning my work that i am doing. How do i deal with this frustration and if its my fault, how do i fix it.

Edit: Thank you so much for all the feedback. The reasons i did not push further this problem to my senior is because I thought this would eventually become better with time. That is what he told me but it seems like we were both wrong. I think i will have a proper discussion with him and come up with a measurable plan regarding the critique, time frame and deliverables. I also will start writing all the critique he gave to me and make a proper book note for all the discussion we have. I hope this will turn out better.

Label design by me in affinity designer on iPad. 3D mockup rendered in Blender with AI-assisted modeling.

This was a parody on a popular video game from the 80s. See if you can guess where it’s from

So AI did not contribute to the label design just the bottle mockup with the gold shine. Since I don’t have 3-D rendering skills. But I can illustrate myself.

Everything was hand lettered except the top tag line.

For those who remember, Death to Stock used to send out free photo packs by email before moving to a paid subscription model.

I just received an email announcing that they’re bringing back free drops, this time through something they’re calling “Booster Packs.” Apparently, they’ll include a mix of creative assets, insider knowledge and exclusive rewards, with different rarity levels.

I have no idea what the actual content or limitations will look like yet, but I’m curious to see what they come up with.

Anyone else remember the original free photo drops? Curious to see if this will be anything like the old days.

I am 5 years in at my in-house design job. It’s a franchise brand, but young so definitely has a startup vibe. I started as a junior working directly under the co-founder and CBO, and have since been promoted to drop the junior now working under a marketing director. I am still the only designer, which is beginning to worry me.

I am still doing all the tasks I did as a junior, along with bigger more complicated projects. I handle everything design - all graphics, print, and signage for inside the actual stores, internal presentations and documents, and provide custom design support for the locations when needed. I also do email design, assist with the app and website, and various marketing tasks. I feel like the responsibilities keep growing, but my career growth (and pay) have not really kept up. I generally like the job and company, but I’m not really sure what my growth here looks like. There are no plans to hire a junior and very little visibility into what my growth could look like here. I’ve asked for more training to expand my skills, to take smaller tasks off my plate, but I’m not really getting anywhere.

I have a good relationship with my direct manager and still work very closely with the co-founder, but any advice on how to bring up this feeling of stagnation and frustration with the lack of growth? Thanks all!

Curious to hear what wisdom other experienced professionals in our field value most.

I expect much of it will be about business and client relationships, but I'm eager to also hear some about the craft itself.

Any experiential designers here? I recently found out about experiential design/marketing and it sounds like something that combines all of my interests- creating/designing real world experiences and visuals for events.

I have a BFA in graphic design and 7 years of experience, and 3 years of experience as a social media manager. I’ve mainly focused on branding & brand identities, layout design, packaging, audience engagement and product launch campaigns (social media side), & photography.

I’m seeing a lot of different info on what experiential marketing/design is and how to get there. I’m most interested in the type where you are part of the process for creating pop ups & brand activations, festivals, product launches etc, whether it’s the marketing side or design side.

Does it make sense to try to get a certificate or take some courses that relate to experiential/spatial design? Or also some more marketing courses? It looks like the design route would need more knowledge on 3D design and use softwares such as sketchup.

Any info would be so helpful!

Just for context: It's not the first time I used AI in general, I used it quite often when I am working on a Mockup in Photoshop. Like removing something in the background, or providing a different angle from a tshirt or product I designed.

And I want to be completely honest: The instagram fear got to me. I see all the crazy stuff people create using AI in a short amount of time and I fear that I fall behind if I don't start learning the AI stuff.

I watched a Higgsfield tutorial and created some stuff with it. And oh boy did it feel horrible, like instead of cooking a healthy meal I ate some deepfried garbage.

Why are some "designers" so proud on Instagram when they show the websites (or just the ux design) the AI made for them? There is almost zero effort you put into it. Even the prompting what objectively needs some amount of knowledge, can also do a chatbot/AI agent for you.

I also have a question how you all deal with this situation in general. Do you just do your regular design work and occasionally use some AI as a tool? Or do you think you have to futureproof yourself in some other way with the AI?

I've started to lose motivation to practice design, Ive started to feel like I'm not built for the industry as a recent graduate, multiple of my former classmates have gotten interviews and jobs but I haven't gotten a single response in double the amount of applications. That has led me to loose motivation to practice design and build my portfolio. I'm just wondering if anyone has any advice to help, I do love graphic design but my imposter syndrome makes me feel like it's a waste for me to try cause there's always someone better. I don't think I'm bad at design, just not good enough, but that feeling has been preventing me from even practicing my skills.