2 answers
Ryan
Student
Roseau, Minnesota
3
Questions
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How has your career been as a Graphic Designer so far?
I am in 10th grade at Roseau High School, and I am seriously considering a career in graphic design. I haven't looked into the timeline as to how you move through the years as a Graphic Designer, but I want to hear from people who have experience in the field. Thank you!
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Rafael Diaz Montelongo
Consultant
563
Answers
Raleigh, North Carolina
Updated
Rafael’s Answer
Hi Ryan! I'm not actually a graphic designer, so I can't speak to the daily life of one from personal experience. My background is in engineering, consulting, and business, so my career path has looked pretty different from what yours might. That said, I can still share a few things that I think are helpful no matter what field you go into. Throughout my career, I've had to create presentations, design sales demos for clients, and put together visual documentation, and those experiences taught me that strong visual communication skills are valuable in literally every industry. For graphic design specifically, the typical timeline looks something like this: you'd start by learning the fundamentals (tools like Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, InDesign, and Figma), then build a portfolio through school projects, freelance work, or internships, and after that you'd usually start as a junior designer before working your way up to mid-level, senior, art director, or even creative director roles. My biggest piece of advice, which applies to any career, is to start building your portfolio now. Even at 16, you can design things for fun, take on small projects for friends or local businesses, and experiment with different styles. The people who stand out in any field are the ones who started early and kept creating. I'd also recommend reaching out to actual graphic designers on platforms like LinkedIn or Behance, because hearing directly from someone living that day-to-day life will give you the best picture of what to expect. I hope this helps!
Andrew Preble
Associate Director of User Experience Design
5
Answers
Denver, Colorado
Updated
Andrew’s Answer
Hi Ryan!
Being a graphic designer can take so many fun, interesting, and challenging turns throughout your career. I started my career while I was in college as a freelance designer, I needed to build out my portfolio and I didn't know what I wanted to focus on - was it branding, print, digital, web, etc... I didn't know. Being a freelance designer gave me the chance to do a bit of it all and find where my passions were. I ended up joining a small digital agency that built mobile software and website. I quickly aligned my passion for design into building designing useful, user focused software and I haven't looked back! I spent well over 10 years in the consulting/agency world working with a wide variety of interesting brands, many global and wide reaching (it was exciting and challenging). After that I had the chance to jump into a start-up and form a design team and drive everything design, it was a new set of challenges and opportunities to learn and stretch my abilities as a designer. Today I lead a group of experience designers and researchers working on employee software. The evolution and career path for each designer is unique and honestly can take some pretty wild turns, I think that's what makes it such a fun career path. Now while now I lead designers, I still find ways to design myself. Outside of my day job I do brand design and print materials for local non-profits and schools. At this point I've been doing this all for well over 17 years. One of the things that I find most enjoyable about design is it's always changing but it's grounded in it being an art of solving problems. I could go on and on sharing my path and passion for design, I love design, I hope this helps!
Being a graphic designer can take so many fun, interesting, and challenging turns throughout your career. I started my career while I was in college as a freelance designer, I needed to build out my portfolio and I didn't know what I wanted to focus on - was it branding, print, digital, web, etc... I didn't know. Being a freelance designer gave me the chance to do a bit of it all and find where my passions were. I ended up joining a small digital agency that built mobile software and website. I quickly aligned my passion for design into building designing useful, user focused software and I haven't looked back! I spent well over 10 years in the consulting/agency world working with a wide variety of interesting brands, many global and wide reaching (it was exciting and challenging). After that I had the chance to jump into a start-up and form a design team and drive everything design, it was a new set of challenges and opportunities to learn and stretch my abilities as a designer. Today I lead a group of experience designers and researchers working on employee software. The evolution and career path for each designer is unique and honestly can take some pretty wild turns, I think that's what makes it such a fun career path. Now while now I lead designers, I still find ways to design myself. Outside of my day job I do brand design and print materials for local non-profits and schools. At this point I've been doing this all for well over 17 years. One of the things that I find most enjoyable about design is it's always changing but it's grounded in it being an art of solving problems. I could go on and on sharing my path and passion for design, I love design, I hope this helps!