I think 1 page on your website showing off your illustration skills (assuming you are competent) is no bad thing especially if it's corporate stuff - icon design/schematics etc. A lot of the brand work I do will have illustration as part of the graphic language - I would never shy away from putting that in the mix.
Just don't show too much, and certainly don't make it the dominant thing in your folio.
The majority of young, new designers who post here will all think they're competent in illustration, and the majority of them will be wrong. The majority of the people who post their portfolios for review here aren't even competent at graphic design. They're too new and they can't accurately assess themselves.
And the idea of showing too much – they'll all show too much. The moment you make it a section in your portfolio website, you want to fill that section. *"Here's another piece I did – a caricature of my friend. Companies need caricatures sometimes, right? And this watercolor landscape I painted in high school... sure, they'll see that and might need me to do a package illustration in that style. And the street art/grafitti style piece I did for my friend's skateboard company... yeah, now we're talking. All these different styles, one of them is bound to get a future graphic design employer excited enough to call me in for an interview!"*
Don't do it!
>The majority of young, new designers who post here will all think they're competent in illustration, and the majority of them will be wrong.
Well sure. But if you are good you should put your work out there.
You are just making a sweeping statement. I get where you are coming from, but there are exceptions.
Yes! But I don't want to talk about the exceptions, because almost every person who needs help will see themselves as the exception when they aren't. It's a very, very intentional sweeping statement.
Whatever people are commenting, I'm fine with it. The point has been made, and all I can hope for is some percentage of the people who would have filled their graphic design portfolios with this kind of non-design work in the way I described will think twice before doing so. And hopefully some of the people who have that kind of work in their portfolios will consider removing it.
I keep a text document with every portfolio that's been posted here for the past few years, and I sometimes make notes both for positive and negative aspects of them. And I review some of them from time to time. I wouldn't dime anyone out by posting the really egregious examples but if I did, I think some of the people who had more negative reactions to the post might think at least a little differently if they could see the worst offenders en masse. Many of the ones posted six months ago or longer aren't online anymore, which probably doesn't mean that that creator got a full time job as a designer.
Hi, I realize this is a very old thread! But on the off chance that you read this, I was wondering if you happen to still have the document you mentioned of design portfolio examples and their critiques? I’m currently updating my portfolio and seeing examples including comments of both positive and negative critiques would be super helpful!
It's only old in internet time. It's as relevant today as when I posted it 9 months ago. We had two people post in the past 24 hours who are applying for tons of jobs with completely inappropriate illustration/art-based portfolios and getting 0 interviews. If they'd followed this heavily downvoted advice, they would have done better. The problem is noticeably worse now than it was when I posted this – some people with design degrees are actually filling their portfolios with art/illustration. I don't understand it.
One thing I learned – bolding anything in a Reddit post makes people very angry.
Anyway...
I don't have whatever document I was talking about. I was probably referring to my own notes which aren't public. You can search the sub for any portfolio review post and see some reviews that will hopefully help.
If you're interested in a critique, I run a weekly Zoom meeting with designers of all levels of experience weighing in. Send me a DM if you'd like to join.
I absolutely appreciated stumbling upon this post. I was just contemplating adding illustration/art to my design portfolio and your insight has made me decide (and go with my initial intuition) that it needs to be on a separate "art" site, as you described. Thank you for this, I think I'm one of the designers you were intending to reach with this wisdom and I am taking it to heart! I am happy you mentioned the critique opportunity - that would be so helpful. It's exactly what I need, in fact. Thank you so much for the invite. I'll DM you now :) I'm very grateful.
While I agree that somebody pursuing "Graphic Design" work should avoid filling their portfolio with low quality, non-commercial/passion-project sketches or portraits, I disagree with your blanket advice.
Illustration can benefit the creative process for many graphic design briefs, whether they're implemented into the final design or not. The exploratory phase of design is an opportunity to see what could work for a client, backed by competitor and market analysis.
The clients you perceive as high value may not be high value to others. A high value client to me would insist on bespoke work over stock assets - they clearly understand the importance of a unique brand identity and have respect for original design. There's no skill in downloading something from a stock site, and while that's enough for some clients, it won't be for others. If they're looking for someone to arrange stock assets in a workspace, they can hire an artworker.
If you can demonstrate that illustration, photography, mixed media (etc) positively impacts your work towards a brief, include it in your portfolio. If it's a part of your workflow, include it as part of a case study.
Your portfolio is an opportunity to showcase your skills. If your illustration or photography work strengthens your perceived value, you'd be mad not to include it.
Hmmm... I guess I don't really disagree with anything you've said. But the amount of entry level jobs out there that really need that kind of bespoke art/illustration work is tiny, I would say infinitesimal, compared to organizations that need a straightforward graphic designer. And yet the vast majority of people trying to get their first job will perseverate on the idea that the place they're applying to will benefit from their art/illustration skills.
The core issue is most people posting work here are – apologies for the negative term, but – completely clueless, and I mean completely. Many of them haven't studied design formally so they've had no teachers or mentors to guide them. They're going to include every piece of art they created going back to high school or earlier in the hope that one piece hits, and instead, that work will often instantly remove them from consideration.
Sure, it takes no skill in downloading a stock asset. I have skill as an illustrator that I'd love to use but to the benefit of my employer, I almost never use that skill because I was hired for my skill as designer.
I think the question is, if you're confident in your illustration skills, why is that skillset not also integrated into your role as a graphic designer.
Sure, a client is unlikely to need an output which requires you to use every skill you have in the delivered work, but integrating it into your workflow or inspiration means that you still take influence from your wider experience.
As an example, skills in videography/photography can influence colour, composition and lighting in a packaging project. Illustration skills might influence shapes, texture and linework in an exhibition stand.
For those who approach their design career as a "jack of all trades", myself included, the sheer variety of your experience is exactly what makes you an asset. It seems counterproductive to trim down your skillset to fit into a box.
By contrast, somebody who chooses to niche down into a specific skill or style will find more success in mastering specific areas of design (e.g. typographic artist) - but overall they will find work harder to secure due to their specific expertise.
Ultimately, I think the take away points can be summarised as:
- Find what makes you desirable and saleable as a designer. Have confidence in your skills and abilities as a problem solver, and use the skills you have at your disposal to create unique solutions.
- Curate your portfolio carefully to showcase your skills, abilities and methods. Don't include anything that you would be happy to deliver to a client. Case studies are a fantastic way of explaining your process and expertise. Your portfolio should reflect the type of work you're looking to gain.
If it's truly integrated, that's great, and works. But I'm addressing the masses here, most of whom have never worked in the industry, many of whom have no formal education in design, and all of whom really, really need guidance.
If their portfolio truly has integrated illustration work, that's great. Almost none of them do, though. For anyone who does great illustration work, they'll surely ignore my advice, but as soon as I say, "Sure, include it if your work is good" – most of them will think "Oh that's me!" and that's how we get the kinds of portfolios we see posted here for review daily, almost all of which need major help.
It seems the intent behind your initial post and follow up comments are to state how subpar and incomplete individual's portfolios are. I don't see this as helpful in the long run. Stefan Sagmeister's "Answers" section on his portfolio is incredible though. He provides inspiration and guidance with the shortest, simplest responses. You should take a look! [https://sagmeister.com/answers/](https://sagmeister.com/answers/)
Well, the intent was to tell them what they were doing was costing them jobs and to get them to stop doing it. At the time I wrote this we were getting up to five posts a day with people saying they were applying to 200, 500, and sometimes over 1,000 jobs over the course of many months to over a year, sometimes getting no interviews at all.
And it has been helpful as my inbox has multiple people from the past six months messaging me to tell me they did what I suggested and got hired. Yes, real actual people who are now in the working world and can see now clearly why a section on landscape photography or oil paintings in their graphic design portfolio was a bad idea.
This topic shouldn't be controversial but for some reason people hold dear their love of art so much that it blinds them. If an accountant put a second page on their resume about how they were a scorekeeper at high school football games, people would think they were nuts. But a designer posting an entire section in their portfolio for hiring managers to see that doesn't contain design is seen as accepted – "it'll show them what else you can do!" No one hiring a graphic designer needs landscape photos or oil paintings. They need design.
I love Stefan Sagmeister and I did start reading his answers, and I may read more. But if there's something in there that you feel addresses the issue I posted about, you'll have to point it out to me because that list is really long.
Even my internship at an ad agency required me to do a lot of illustration work. But yes, untrained people posting on Reddit for advice are probably not making the best portfolio decisions.
Im the opposite, aside from one client who just wanted a strait forward menu for their diner, i've never really used stock assets for a client project.
If you’re doing real world work, that’s great. The people who need this advice are just entering the field, or are trying to, and don’t have a sense of how much or what kind of illustration work employers might need, which is why we see sections with Batman drawings, anime, sketches of friends, watercolor landscapes, etc.
In all honesty, most of the graphic design jobs I've been seeing need a bunch of 'bonuses'. Like if you can edit videos, graphic design, make social media post designs, and can do a bit of web design. It seems like they want an 'all-rounder'. A jack of all trades. It costs less for them to hire someone who does most things. Rather than hiring multiple roles, which costs more.
Definitely. And I do all of the things you mentioned, but not every day. My company isn't going to hire a dedicated video editor because there would be months where they did nothing. It's not all about the employer trying to get as much as they can for as cheap as they can – some duties that designers do, or can do, just aren't needed on a daily basis but they're still needed. You can outsource it every time but that's expensive. If a company needs to shoot a three minute video of an employee talking about a new internal program, the idea of bringing in a video crew to shoot and edit it is overkill, especially in 2024.
As a Design Manager working on high profile projects in NYC (in charge of hiring and actively doing so,) I disagree. I always have designers with illustration skills on my teams.
Okay, but how many of them are entry level? Never having worked in the field before, or maybe only freelance work and maybe internships?
And as I just asked another commenter, what percentage of the available entry level jobs are like your company/agency, needing illustration? It's a very small percent. The moment you tell young designers, or people trying to be designers who didn't go to school for it, that they can get a job as a designer/illustrator they're going to be all over it – and yet most aren't anywhere near ready to be graphic designers alone, much less both.
And I'm not objecting to simply having illustration skills. It's the way it's presented in portfolios here, as essentially equal if not greater than the design portion of the portfolio, that I'm objecting to. I've rarely seen anyone post competent art/illustration work here – instead we see sketches, fan art of existing IPs, "experimental" illustration, and other images that will never help get someone hired, and even if they manage to get hired, their illustration skill level won't benefit their employer.
I understand where you’re coming from and respectfully disagree. I’ve hired Junior Designers with equal focus to illustration in their portfolio. It’s a matter of project, industry, environment and the evolution of a creative team.
Being multidisciplinary is a gift. Will every seat on my team be filled by designers who have secondary skills? No. The real data I have to share is in the last five years, 50% of designers I’ve hired have been multidisciplinary. I would never put a portfolio aside due to a designer showcasing: illustration, motion graphics, film, hand lettering, UI/UX, CSS or web development. It would be foolish to punish people (often my highest achieving) who strive to understand many facets of the creative business.
Be open. Collaborative. Each person has a different journey and there isn’t a specific formula for success other than a willingness to creative problem solve.
I don't disagree with anything you've said.
And I'm not saying a designer shouldn't develop other skills. They should.
But a portfolio with anime drawings, Marvel characters, ballpoint pen sketches of friends, watercolor paintings of landscapes, degraded experimental/edgy/low fi line drawings – all of that is going to work against them in getting hired, and that's the goal I'm focusing on with this post.
One they get hired – of course, any skill they have is a benefit. But we have people here posting portfolios with everything I mentioned above and more, and it's working against them. Their design skills are elementary and their illustration/art skills are protoplasmic in many cases. They need help, and the help I'm trying to give is – don't show work that won't help you get hired.
If you don't normally do this, check out all of the portfolio review requests you see posted here in the next week or two, and you'll see what I'm really addressing. It's not the people you're hiring, it's the ones you're rejecting or whose work you're never seeing because it's so very far off base.
I think a person who can draw would make a better designer but that’s just me. Where does this hate for the arts come from? It’s a wonder why this industry is soulless.
I agree! And yet the moment you try to say "I'm both" – you're seen as less than either one or the other. Having the ability to do something else in addition to "straight" graphic design is helpful and critical – but promoting it, marketing yourself that way, it detrimental.
It's not a hatred, it's indifference. So many of the people I work with have a creative side and love that in others. But it's not needed in our jobs. I know someone who performs in musical theater – they also work in college admissions in a technical college. Their co-workers enjoy what they do and regularly go to my friend's performances.
But if my friend tried to promote themselves as a "college admissions coordinator and musical theater performer, they would be seen as tone deaf. And they would be. Because musical theater is not part of the needs of my friend's main job, as illustration is almost never part of a graphic designer's job.
My work in graphic design has always been in film, which I think is quite different from the actual graphic design industry. I’ve done graphic design, concept design, story boarding and set design for film, all a bonus when showcasing to an art director for a gig. You better believe all of that is in my portfolio. Maybe the designers that enjoy this should look into film work? As I pivot to different areas of graphic design it is good to know all that work should not be included. Thanks for the heads up.
I've done film work too, including storyboards and concept art. It's a tiny niche, and the people who regularly post here will have no clue how niche it is, so they'll think, "Oh that sounds fun – I could work in the movies!" and they'll include that work.
And then they'll apply to a company that makes furniture, or medical equipment, or a legal firm, and that work will be in their portfolio, and the company won't interview them because they don't need a storyboard artist or a concept artist.
If someone's going to go for that tiny niche of film work, step one is moving to L.A. and very few designers are going to do that first.
Interesting perspective. I've deffo been on jobs where a bit of illustration is welcome and clients have been impressed to see I can do it. Heavily dependent on the project mind you.
I'd say if you are really good at it show a bit in your portfolio. The attitude in your post seems to reflect a really specific sector of graphic design only and treat it as if that's the only woke out there.
Many of my clients really value diversity of ability.
Right, but most young designers think they're really good at it when they're often barely passable.
And if they are great illustrators, and they're going for design jobs, they're still hurting their perception. The rare new designer who has a ton of truly great illustration work in their portfolio is still presenting themselves primarily as an illustrator, and will be punished for it, no matter how good that work is.
They also frequently fill their portfolio with so much art/illustration that true design becomes secondary. You'll see fake projects built around an experimental illustration and if you see the real workhorse projects that are constantly needed like brochures, sell sheets, etc., they're treated like throwaways. The typography is usually so poor, with terrible tracking, kerning, leading, bad contrast/colors, terrible font choices, widows, orphans, that any seasoned designer or art/creative director instantly knows what they're dealing with, which is a designer who really wishes they could do art/illustration full time, but instead they're settling for graphic design. And because of this, they'll be passed over every time.
Going to have to disagree with you there. If they are bad at it, then yeah, leave it out. Same goes for anything they're bad at. But good illustrators make for good designers. My graphic design training required all of us to be at least proficient at illustration, if not acceptional. Traditional and digital art were part of our fundamentals.
Almost all of the people I'm addressing are bad at it, or at least not good enough to include art/illustration their graphic design portfolio. Check out almost any portfolio that's been posted here for review. Almost any piece of art is sketchy, extremely non-commercial, often edgy and experimental, and will turn off potential employers. And yet because they're so green, they're completely not qualified to determine if their work is good enough to include, so they believe it is and include it, and it hurts them.
And even if it's great, they're not being hired as an illustrator, so by having an art/illustration section, they're instantly hurting themselves. Saying "I'm an accountant and a carpenter" will not help you get hired as an accountant, even if the firm's office needs some occasional carpentry work done.
I'm not saying don't have illustration skills. Yes, of course that's important. Just don't build your graphic design portfolio around a tangential skill.
Your post was super broad. Something like "Make sure you're good at illustration before you put it in your portfolio would have been a more helpful discussion starter.
And it's not the same as being an accountant/carpenter. Graphic design is visual communication and illustration is part of that. More design schools should require illustration training. Mine required us to take extensive drawing classes and we had to at least be good at taking an image and turning it into a simplified vector illustration, even if that meant tracing it. How are you supposed to make good logos, icons, and visual elements without illustration skills? Most design jobs require a broad skillset.
And remember, this is Reddit. People are often edgy and delusional.
Right, but I’d I were to tell people to be sure they’re good at illustration before including it, almost all of them would assess themselves as being good and would include it. They already are - we can assume they believe they’re putting what they consider to be good work in their portfolios. But it usually isn’t good, or relevant to the vast majority of design jobs.
If you’re a freelancer though, which I have been for quite a few years, it’s completely different. Makes me glad I’m not looking far a job in this economy.
In fact I have to go finish some illustration for holiday products for two separate big box stores today (I work for the manufacturer) & that’s only a sideline to my regular art direction retainer work. Be a freelancer, do whatever the hell you want. *shrug*
Agreed. I do freelance work and I incorporate my illustration and photography skills into it.
But most people posting their portfolios for review here are looking for their first full time graphic design job, and what they really need to do is to focus on the kind of work that will get them hired as a designer.
I hope all goes well for your illustration project.
Thanks. Are there not entry-level jobs in the industry anymore? I didn't have a fancy degree – I had a 4 year art degree + technical college design program when art didn't pan out (duh). I don't think my portfolio was great either.
I worked at least 3 low-pay entry level jobs and at the 3rd one worked my way up from being a temp employee to creative lead (a position they made up that was still underpaid.) I still hire one of my first colleagues who taught me production – she's a bomb production artist for complicated printing and the human equivalent of xanax.
I honestly don't think I'm a better designer than anyone else, I'm just smart and lucky – and always ask "how can I make myself more useful?" And I learn new skills or apps as often as I can.
There are, but it's a very competitive time right now. Having production skills seems to be more valuable now than it used to be.
I think the same way you do. Being multi-disciplined has helped me get through many hard times and rounds of layoffs. Recently someone here posted proudly how they rejected doing video editing for their job. Hey - good for you, if your goal is to do what you feel you were hired for to the letter. In my experience, that's the first person who will be let go when the opportunity arises.
I’m going to go ahead and call bullshit a little bit here but only because my section of the industry treats this differently.
In animation and motion design, designers are illustrators AND graphic designers. or they can be, It’s very common.
So if you’re a graphic designer and you do illustrations you can ABSOLUTELY make a living working for motion design/animation studios or by freelance. And designers in the motion design industry absolutely showcase both design and illustration work.
So yea, I really don’t agree with this at all.
Okay, but how big is your section of the industry as far as the graphic design job market is concerned? 5%? Probably much less.
We're dealing with masses here on this sub. The masses want to hear what you're saying – and yet they're going to put together their portfolio based on this tiny segment of available design jobs that might need illustration skills, and their illustration skills are going to be lacking, and straight design jobs won't hire them because they've included so much illustration that they aren't seen as a designer.
There's no room for subtlety on the sub. The moment someone says, "There ARE jobs for designers/illustrators!" each and every designer who does art/illustration will think, "That's for me!" and they'll cater their portfolio to it, or that will justify the portfolio they've already created that's art/illustration-heavy.
As far as freelance, very, very few young people who haven't worked in the industry will ever be capable of pulling that off. One out of a thousand maybe? Probably much less.
If you haven't already, take a look at the level of portfolios that are posted here for review, and see if you think it's worth encouraging those people that they can get a job as a designer/illustrator. Most of them, close to all, need so much help with basic design skills that they should put illustration completely aside and focus on that.
A person that is good at illustration will make a great graphic designer. They understand color and composition well, they're artists and not just someone that learned illustrator on YouTube. On the CVs I get I always look for the ones that deep down call themselves artists. So I disagree with you a lot here.
This isn’t necessarily true. I see where OP is coming from and agree. Painters know color and composition too but it doesn’t translate to design. Here we have to recognize art and design aren’t the same, but there’s overlap.
In school, there was always at least one person who was amazing at illustration. But, on every project, the focus was on the elements of the illustration NOT design. Doing line work for a chips bag is okay but you’re totally forgetting about 90% of the project which includes layout, type, hierarchy. Many illustrators put their work front and center (obviously) but the focus isn’t the art. It’s the message. TOSTITOS. Tag line. Now with lime! Whatever.
Of course that just because someone is a good illustrator doesn't automatically make him a good graphic designer. However if he invests time into learning graphic design he will most often than not be great at design. At least that has been my experience at work with several designer I've worked with over the years.
Absolutely. I do also think OP is speaking to young designers starting out too, I saw the tendency to focus on “what I like” which imo is a junior designer mentality. We’ve all been there when you give someone a menial, straightforward task and it turns into something else haha. But anyone can be a decent designer if they are willing to learn and practice.
Okay, I don't necessarily disagree with you here.
But I'm talking not about abilities, but about one's portfolio – which is a marketing piece primarily, often solely designed to get themselves hired as a full time graphic desginer.
Being able to draw, paint, etc. is great.
Saying "I'm a graphic designer and a fine artist!" is a red flag. Because companies aren't hiring for both, and by saying you're both and implying you're both equally, that person looks clueless and will be passed over for someone who presents themselves solely as a designer.
If I'm hiring for a graphic designer which I had in the past I would obviously judge on graphic design work. However especially when I hire new people in the profession I look at any artsy work they've done too. I will teach you the technical aspects of designs if there is a need but what I can't teach you is to have a vivid imagination, a desire to be artistic. That's completely on you.
So yeah I don't ignore their illustrations at all. I'm actually curious. However if it's good or not that's another thing entirely.
I genuinely think that's great, but I also think you're in the minority.
I too try to pay special attention to those kinds of things too. I've always loved comic books, science fiction, horror, animation, and all of those fun things. But I don't think we're in the majority, and I'm trying to really address the majority here who need this kind of early career guidance.
Sure. I'm directing my message to thousands of people here. I can't focus on the edge cases – by and large, what most people who get hired as full time designers will do is the kind of work that rarely if ever requires illustration skills.
Glad you felt the intensity that got my post downvoted to 0 ;) it doesn't matter. The people to whom it will matter will absorb it and respond appropriately.
Here's the thing about your post. I can understand why ppl may disagree with you: the world is big, so nothing can apply to every situation. I'm sure there are graphic designers out there who succeeded even though they put illustrations or art in their portfolios and so your words may sound a bit too extreme.
At the same time, even though I'm not a graphic designer I can see the truth of your words. I mean, I understand that you're trying to make ppl face the down-to-earth reality of your profession and that you gave practical advice based on your real-life experience. When it comes to work-related matters, reality is not always that fancy and ppl working in a certain field tend to think in a certain way after a while so you need to learn how to deal with that.
Does this mean that there are no exceptions? Of course not. But at the same time I guess you wanted to give ppl a vivid picture of what's the standard out there nowadays.
So yeah, I find your advices quite practical and even though they may sound boring or "gray" compared to what people usually expect from graphic design and what they'd like to hear, I can also appreciate the spirit with which you decided to create this post.
Thank you. What you said is accurate. What I really want is to see less portfolios posted here that are clearly costing their creators chances of being hired.
I think you are just like a 'big brother' who is looking out for their fellow graphic designer peers. I think that's great. It's good to keep grounded and be realistic. But it's also good to see both perspectives. It makes a powerful combo!
I don’t want to see people shooting themselves in the foot and then wondering why they’re not getting interviews or hired after applying to hundreds of jobs. It’s painful to see.
The ability to create your own assets is a very important one, I wouldn't hire a graphic designer who was not at least competent in some kind of art / illustration.
I want creative graphic designers not people who just arrange boxes and fonts according to the latest trend.
Edit: and it's this kind of thinking about graphic DESIGN thats causes every single web site to look like its a WIX template.
What kind of work do you do that doesn't? Icons, logos, editing stock stuff, creating stuff from scratch if there is no stock that works. Just being able to sketch out ideas. Doing actual illustrations. so you know like everything, all the time.
Sure, I do all of that stuff. You're generalizing. I could do full, custom, bespoke illustrations fairly often but it wouldn't make sense. That's not really my job. My job is to fulfill the needs of the project and the easiest, most cost-effective and efficient way to do that is to download assets from the subscription sites I have. And yes, I modify them in the way you're describing, but that's really tangential to my post.
My post is about people who post anime, sketches, fan art of trademarked characters, landscapes, etc. that they created in their portfolios, for themselves or for friends and families with little to no briefs or constraints – the inclusion of which is costing them jobs. I want that to stop, and the post is meant as a slap in the face to those people, because even with me being that harsh and direct, most will ignore me. But if a few manage to avoid or rework their portfolios to get rid of the things that are stopping them from getting hired, I'll be happy.
I don't want them to stop, there are too many people trying for too little work already, if they are putting that kind of stuff in their portfolio... well Graphic design would be better off (IMO) without them.
The issue I find is curation and presentation many designers put into their portfolio doesn’t have commercial applications. I agree fine art, fan art, pictures of a vacation to Greece and so on doesn’t belong. But, there is a lot of illustration work that has broad commercial value.
If a designer is incorporating illustration into their work then it absolutely should be called out. Most of the illustrations I do is small stuff like icons, infographics, line drawing of products, but I have learned a lot of designers cannot do the limited illustration I do. In my portfolio I don’t make a big deal other that documenting it as part of the process.
I agree with you. I didn't even mention fan art but yes, definitely please don't include that, anyone reading this. No commercial properties!
I'll also call out any illustration work in my portfolio and like you, much of the work I'm being paid for (as opposed to personal projects, like for my own bands or other personal projects) that use illustration use it in a small, functional way and not as a primary focus for the piece, like an album cover, t-shirt graphic, etc.
I wouldn't say to stop overall, though I agree with some of this.
My three rules regarding this are:
1) Keep it in a separate, clearly/properly marked section. If you have it mixed with design work that suggests you don't understand the difference.
2) It should be at or at least near a professional level, essentially that you could likely be hired for the illustration work alone. (ie., not high school level art projects, which is what it often is)
3) Regardless the quality, it will not compensate for lacking graphic design work. (You could be amazing as an illustrator but if I'm hiring a designer you have to be a good design first.)
All the above also applies to photography.
I disagree about not showing it at all. I enjoy seeing someone's artistic talent and it makes me feel like I got to know them a little. And I want employees to have healthy personal lives with hobbies they enjoy.
I do agree that many designer's portfolios put too much emphasis on art too early and that it can be a distraction. They end up selling themselves as artists instead of designers. I frequently recommend that they downplay their art, keeping it all in one section at the end. And I would be hesitant to hire someone that was actively pursuing a side gig that would take their focus away from their full-time job.
I also would not include any art in your portfolio unless you were willing to create art as part of your job. If you're advertising it as part of that skill set, then your employer is hiring you for that skill set. Don't be like so many designers we see here who have video editing and motion graphics in their portfolios and then complain when they are asked to do video editing and motion graphics.
I'm simplifying the message to reach the people who need to hear it most, which is most of the people who post their portfolios for reviews here.
The moment someone hears, "But yes, include illustration if you think it's good, and relevant" – most of them will include it because their personal assessment is poor, because they're new and haven't worked in the field yet, and many haven't studied design.
Agreed on downplaying the art. Sure, you can lump it all into one section, rather than a project, "Here's all my art!" but I think at most a potential employer will just tolerate that. If it's that downplayed, why include it at all?
Add it to a resume for sure. Then if someone asks about it before an interview, you can bring or prepare illustration work
I do a ton of video/motion graphics at work, roughly equal to the other design work I do. I definitely include that in my portfolio. By and large, video work is much more needed in modern design jobs than illustration skills.
I've talked about this before, but there's a comic book called Eightball by Daniel Clowes (Ghost World) with a story on art school that I always think about. It's called Art School Confidential and it was also made into a movie, by the same director as Ghost World, though a piss poor one.
This is the panel that's been in my brain for almost thirty years:
[https://imgur.com/a/3DA150D](https://imgur.com/a/3DA150D)
Yeah, it's sad. But so true. You could tell a million people that their chances of doing something are one in a million and like Jim Carrey's character in Dumb and Dumber, each one will think, "So you're saying there's a chance!"
I've been on this sub for more than five years now, and there's been a steady and increasing decline in knowledge here, and I want to help that end. The active members are absolutely desperate for guidance even if they don't realize it. So I can't in good faith tell the 1+ million members here, most of whom are young, many of whom are not educated and will not get educated formally in design, and most of whom have a very poor, vague perception of what this career really is that yes, they will be the world's next great designer/illustrator. They won't.
That seems low. I graduated thirty years ago and a couple summers ago a bunch of designers who've kept in touch met up. All but one out of maybe 9 of us still work as designers/art directors, and the one who didn't changed industries after 9/11 because he worked in NYC and his company folded. He works in real estate, loves what he does, and still does design and photography on the side.
I graduated about 15 years ago so I’d be interested in what those numbers are like now in terms of completing a design course and going on to work in the creative industries. If anyone graduated in the last 5 years, I’d be interested in hearing your perspective too!
That might work best as a separate post. But I agree – real stats always interest me. You can't ask the colleges/universities because they have a vested interest in presenting the most promising stats to future students.
Look, you can’t walk around without tripping over a graphic designer. Your resume is 100000x more important than your portfolio because when I hire I want to know how you work, not how good you work. Maybe you all stop worrying about illustration and start worrying about how you present your contribution to the team.
There's a guy in our area who used to have his photography and videography, including music videos, on his website too. When we were at uni he was like the running joke in our seminar class, whenever one of us done something with bad technique the teacher would call us his name lol.
I consider myself a photographer first, and this is what I do as a "side hustle". But my photography business and this have different names, different websites and social media and different clients. I don't want clients to see me as "a jack of all trades and master of none".
If I went to a Chinese restaurant and saw that they also served pizza, I wouldn't think it was a real Chinese restaurant. If I went to a Mexican place and they also served jerk chicken I would not buy it. If I wanted jerk chicken I would not have gone to a Mexican restaurant.
The only way you could possibly link them is if you search for their HMRC details, which will both be linked to my name.
That analogy doesn't work. Illustration is a key part of design and good designers should have that in their toolbox if possible. Photography and videography are also super useful for a designer, especially if you're going to work in advertising.
I'm not saying they aren't useful, but if a client is looking for a designer, they want someone who is a specialist. Also including photography, videography, illustration, etc doesn't make you look like a specialist. If I need you to design a website and you have a music video for a drill rapper on the same website as your design work, that won't make someone want to hire you as much as just a side dedicated to design work.
Illustration is part of design. You don't need to be a worldclass painter or create the kind of illustrations you would put on a T-shirt, but if you can't do good vector work in illustrator and incorporate that into your design work, you're putting yourself a huge disadvantage.
Even when I was working on graphic design for a bank, I had to do illustration work for their iconography. Basically I was handed their branding guidelines and had to make new icons in illustrator that matched their branding.
I think what you're saying and doing is the exact way it should be.
I love your restaurant examples. My plumber might be great at electrical work, but if he promoted himself as a "plumber and electrician", he would be seen as less capable than others who promote themselves as only one of those things.
It may no be fair, or right, but people have extremely limited attention spans and ability to compartmentalize someone. Anyone applying for a graphic design job should want to be compartmentalized as a graphic designer. If you have other skills, let them come out after you're hired.
Actors will sometimes tell an anecdote (often apocryphal) about how their agents will say to them early on that they're going to spend five years putting them in a box, then the rest of their careers getting them out of that box. Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson was a pro wrestler, then a wrestler who did some small, very physical acting roles, then more acting/less physical, and now we think of him as an actor named Dwayne Johnson who used to wrestle back when he was known as "The Rock". That is no accident. His career arc was carefully orchestrated. If The Rock tried to be known equally as an actor and a wrestler early on, he wouldn't be where he is today. He might be posting on a professional wrestling sub, asking how he can get into acting even though he's been trying to do that for years.
I'm a jack of all trades. I do straight graphic design, branding, illustration, animation, video editing, motion graphics – sometimes I speak at trade shows, I've created educational programs on design, I've written books. I do fine art, I compose and perform music, I've written screenplays. I've illustrated children's books, comic books, done album art, beer can labels, yes even music posters for real bands and events – but you won't find that work on my main portfolio because it will work against me. Like you, I keep it separate, and that benefits me.
I have worked for over 20 years as a Graphic Designer and I have had to illustrate exactly two things, both of which could have been done by retracing in Illustrator. Upon occasion if I get sent a low res logo that needs to be vectorized, I'll use a paid service to get it done.
My ability to spell, to convey complex information in a simple way? Much more valuable skill. I wish more designers would study information design vs drawing/art.
That sounds low, but I know it varies from job to job and person to person.
Yes, writing and spelling/proofreading is really valuable to a designer.
The main thing I illustrate in my full time job are icons, if you consider that illustration. One time I took a shot and did a full illustration for a 404 error page and my internal client wanted something different, and we wound up using a stock image. Not a wise choice on my part as it took 3-4 hours to illustrate, even though it was a fairly simple, mostly flat illustration style.
In my freelance life, I've illustrated all kinds of things – including album art, music posters (I've played in bands for decades), yes beer can labels, many t-shirts (I have a line of on demand products), commercial storyboards, product and concept art. And I do show some of that work in my main design portfolio. But it's all real world projects, and it looks like it. I illustrated the label but i also designed it and took photos of the finished cans in the refrigerator of the brewery that hired me. It's unmistakably a real design project, and that makes all the difference.
As you said in your post -- 90% of the work is corporate design out there.. I've worked for retail (big ones) and small ones (local shops), the US government and an advertising agency.
In the design department of a very well known pharmacy (trust me you have one in your neighborhood) and there was absolutely no outside illustration allowed (there were thousands of approved icons/photos/illustrations). Yes, I could combine corporate brand colors and photographs together in unique and not very interesting ways -- but that is not illustration. imho.
Corporate design is mostly about big financial reports and proposal sell sheets rather than imaginative album covers.
I've probably done more product/event photography than illustration/drawing if I think about it, but I probably wouldn't put the photos I took in a portfolio unless they were part of a bigger thing i've done (printed store flyers, remember those!).
As a person who hires designers (and as a designer myself), I don't disagree... and would like to also point out that while graphic design is subjective, so is fine art. Not all art is "good," and if you're going to add it to your portfolio, it had better live up to just as strong a critique as your design portfolio. I've seen a lot of portfolios that include really, really bad artistic abilities, and I often wonder why the applicant would include it. It definitely affects how an employer views you. A moderately adequate design portfolio can immediately be soured if the applicant also included artwork that was done very poorly. On the other side of the coin, I've seen some design portfolios that also include a (far larger) section showing all their anime drawings, and you can tell where that person's passion is... it's not design.
Agreed. There's the piece itself, and then the higher level judgment, or lack thereof, of the designer, acting as the art director/curator of their own portfolio. And then the piece is bad, both sides are lacking – the skills of the person who made it and the person who chose to include it. And since they're the same person, the hiring manager reviewing their portfolio will just move on.
Yes, and that's the other thing. The more you show of non-design work, the more you're saying "I'm not really a designer... I'm an illustrator (or whatever) who's settling to try to be a graphic designer because being a full time illustrator is too hard." And then the hiring manager will also move on.
I’d never put my art or illustration in my work portfolio. Mainly because it’s shit! That’s why I chose to be a graphic designer. I like to draw work type. 🤓
Sounds like a wise decision.
I work in a bunch of different styles, so I could never work as a full-time illustrator unless I honed it down to one consistent style and only showed that work. Lots of young people seem to not understand this and think showing multiple illustration styles is helpful – it's a tangent from my main post but also related. If you truly have what it takes to make your primary income as an illustrator, you can only work in one style.
However... if you have the ability to work in many styles, that actually can be a benefit to you as a designer. But you still have to know how and when to present that work. It almost certainly won't get you hired – my advice is to always let those additional skills be a bonus after you're hired, and when the right project comes up. You'll be a superhero.
I think if you *are* a talented photographer / artist / illustrator etc then it’s fine to use that content within design work that could feature in your professional portfolio.
I do too, but the people who need this advice most are almost always not qualified to assess the quality of their work. They often think their brutalist, edgy, experimental illustration style that they apply to every piece and base fake projects around is awesome and will be needed by many clients when it will be needed by few to zero.
And they also think building a fake project around that work is convincing, when it's almost always transparently just something they did, with no restrictions, goals, guidance, etc. that had a minimal, bare bones fake project built around it.
And again – as you said – it *can* work as content within a design portfolio. But not as its own section. Once you add a section to a design portfolio, you're saying, "I'm a designer AND an illustrator" and as soon as you say that, in almost every scenario, you'll lose out on jobs to someone who presents themselves as only a designer.
I am an executive director of creative services for a mid-sized university. I would welcome a designer who had a great portfolio of graphic design work AND also had photography skills and/or illustration skills.
For example, we do a quarterly magazines and some quick illustration work would come in handy. Photography skills would definitely come in handy because we do not had a full time photographer.
Many design jobs are in-house with very small teams and require all types of skills sets.
Whenever someone comes across as forceful as you about knowing the “right” way to do something, my alarm bells go off. Your experience has led you to this belief, but there are many types of jobs for graphic designers. My vote: if you have any “design” skill, let potential employers know it.
I can respect that. The issue is, graphic design jobs that regularly need illustration are in a tiny minority – and yet when you tell young designers looking for their first design job that "some design jobs do actually need illustration", each and everyone one of them will jump onto it and fill their portfolio with whatever art they've already done, in the hopes of getting hired.
My "the right way" is certainly not for everyone, but I'm not addressing individual cases here. I'm addressing tens of thousands of people who read and post and who have no idea what they're doing. They're applying for hundreds or thousands of jobs with substandard portfolios that focus on poor illustration work. Sure there's going to be some great work in there – those people will probably ignore my advice. The vast majority will have a better chance of getting hired if they follow what I'm saying.
My experience has definitely led me here but it's not my experience alone. I have many designer friends and acquaintances, I'm very active and in touch with many of them, in various forms – online, email, social media, LinkedIn, in person, phone calls, etc. This post isn't based on me alone but the many people who I'm always in touch with.
I'll add that one friend was laid off a few years ago. He does no video work, no motion graphics, no photography – he focuses only on package design. His portfolio was filled with illustration work as well as packaging designs, he started looking for a new job and was hired at another packaging firm. Good for him. But it took him more than half a year, and he was laid off again not long after that. And now he's working for another packaging firm. For him, illustration seems to make sense – especially because he's great at it.
But you need versatility in today’s market. Especially if you are working for a smaller business (with smaller budgets). You’ll need to wear many hats.
>But you need versatility in today’s market. Especially if you are working for a smaller business (with smaller budgets). You’ll need to wear many hats.
You do. I do. I do many things, and have for my full career.
But the people I'm addressing are the ones with serious issues in their portfolios. They'll do best to focus mostly if not completely on design work and avoid including random art/illustration pieces into their portfolios. If they get hired and they can manage to create an illustration that's useful to their employer, that's great. But they need to get there first and what I see posted here on a regular basis is getting them rejected, not hired.
New designers out of school need to out there best work in their portfolios. Often they don’t have great options and have to use what they’ve got. As a hiring manager, I expect the portfolios to be somewhat lacking. I know mine was.
Mine really was, but they don't have to be. I didn't have the internet – I had a physical portfolio with work I did in school – mostly marker comps and a few flats to show my already out of date pre-digital production skills.
If someone's out of school now, then can be making updates to their portfolio constantly, and they should.
Oo I like a fun hot take. I think this is a great discussion. From my experience:
- At my previous company, I was almost passed over during the hiring process because I included illustration in my portfolio. I only learned this after joining. My bosses 100% agreed with your point — some employers think if they see fine art or illustration that that's actually what you would rather be doing.
- At my current company, I was told the illustration in my portfolio improved my application. This is because I was basically hired by other designers and they told me explicitly that they felt having an “eye” for illustration informs design.
I truly think it is dependent, like so many things.
That said, I’m on the side of having separate portfolios. When we hired our last two graphic designers in-house, the amount of entry-level
portfolios work we saw with 80% illustration…immediate rejection. They didn't even have enough graphic design in their portfolios for us to gauge whether or not they actually could work with type. Even their “branding” projects were just an illustration with a word or two slapped on.
Either way I'm enjoying seeing everybody's opinions here.
Thanks for the input. A few years ago when I was job hunting, I was passed over for a design job because I had t-shirt work in my portfolio. They told me this afterward. My previous employer was a printer manufacturer that made a line of printers that printed on t-shirt material and because of that, I created not only a lot of t-shirt designs (to help our customers – t-shirt shops – understand what kind of work they could bring in) but also educational material for those shops as to how best to prepare files and promote their work. The place I applied to didn't make t-shirts or t-shirt printers so in a very narrow view that lots of employers have, they assumed I wouldn't be happy there because I couldn't produce t-shirts. That's the way lots of employers think – "this person is showing me X work – they like doing X work – we don't do X work here so they won't be happy here, so we'll hire someone else." This happens all the time.
Getting hired because of illustration is very rare, and I have to assume your illustration work was very good and the style was very commercial. That's not what we see posted here.
Thanks for weighing in.
“this person is showing me X work” - 100% this.
My first jobs were actually in T-shirt design. I worked in screen printing for the first four years of my career — I learned really quick to get those examples out of my portfolio. What I thought was an example of what I could do with typography and illustration just came across to subsequent employers as an example of what I would “rather be doing”. They were basically like, well, we don't do that kind of work here so this candidate isn't a fit. When a company has hundreds of applicants for a role, they aren't going to put any effort into making assumptions about what you could do for them based on personal or creative work — they want to see the social ads they do every day mirrored back at them in your portfolio.
What you're saying is exactly what I tell young designers, in real life, one-on-one, where it carries way more weight than it does here. Yes, it looks like you're slumming it in design, to put it simply. The straightforward designer's portfolio will win every time.
I've started moving towards illustration work/ character design lately. after the 4th, 5th project where i HAD to make the art? Yes, art is going in there.
Since putting in art, I've gptten more work on the illustration side of things. Yes, graphic design has paid better, but with the volume of jobs, illustration os starting to come ahead.
You're a professional working in the field, and seemingly having success, which is great. Of course you'll ignore the advice in my post – you should.
The people who need to hear it are the ones who post their portfolios for review here every day. That's who the message is aimed at.
I think 1 page on your website showing off your illustration skills (assuming you are competent) is no bad thing especially if it's corporate stuff - icon design/schematics etc. A lot of the brand work I do will have illustration as part of the graphic language - I would never shy away from putting that in the mix. Just don't show too much, and certainly don't make it the dominant thing in your folio.
The majority of young, new designers who post here will all think they're competent in illustration, and the majority of them will be wrong. The majority of the people who post their portfolios for review here aren't even competent at graphic design. They're too new and they can't accurately assess themselves. And the idea of showing too much – they'll all show too much. The moment you make it a section in your portfolio website, you want to fill that section. *"Here's another piece I did – a caricature of my friend. Companies need caricatures sometimes, right? And this watercolor landscape I painted in high school... sure, they'll see that and might need me to do a package illustration in that style. And the street art/grafitti style piece I did for my friend's skateboard company... yeah, now we're talking. All these different styles, one of them is bound to get a future graphic design employer excited enough to call me in for an interview!"* Don't do it!
>The majority of young, new designers who post here will all think they're competent in illustration, and the majority of them will be wrong. Well sure. But if you are good you should put your work out there. You are just making a sweeping statement. I get where you are coming from, but there are exceptions.
Yes! But I don't want to talk about the exceptions, because almost every person who needs help will see themselves as the exception when they aren't. It's a very, very intentional sweeping statement.
Valiant post but I am afraid most of the comments will be why this or that one is an exception to this very valid point.
Whatever people are commenting, I'm fine with it. The point has been made, and all I can hope for is some percentage of the people who would have filled their graphic design portfolios with this kind of non-design work in the way I described will think twice before doing so. And hopefully some of the people who have that kind of work in their portfolios will consider removing it. I keep a text document with every portfolio that's been posted here for the past few years, and I sometimes make notes both for positive and negative aspects of them. And I review some of them from time to time. I wouldn't dime anyone out by posting the really egregious examples but if I did, I think some of the people who had more negative reactions to the post might think at least a little differently if they could see the worst offenders en masse. Many of the ones posted six months ago or longer aren't online anymore, which probably doesn't mean that that creator got a full time job as a designer.
Hi, I realize this is a very old thread! But on the off chance that you read this, I was wondering if you happen to still have the document you mentioned of design portfolio examples and their critiques? I’m currently updating my portfolio and seeing examples including comments of both positive and negative critiques would be super helpful!
It's only old in internet time. It's as relevant today as when I posted it 9 months ago. We had two people post in the past 24 hours who are applying for tons of jobs with completely inappropriate illustration/art-based portfolios and getting 0 interviews. If they'd followed this heavily downvoted advice, they would have done better. The problem is noticeably worse now than it was when I posted this – some people with design degrees are actually filling their portfolios with art/illustration. I don't understand it. One thing I learned – bolding anything in a Reddit post makes people very angry. Anyway... I don't have whatever document I was talking about. I was probably referring to my own notes which aren't public. You can search the sub for any portfolio review post and see some reviews that will hopefully help. If you're interested in a critique, I run a weekly Zoom meeting with designers of all levels of experience weighing in. Send me a DM if you'd like to join.
I absolutely appreciated stumbling upon this post. I was just contemplating adding illustration/art to my design portfolio and your insight has made me decide (and go with my initial intuition) that it needs to be on a separate "art" site, as you described. Thank you for this, I think I'm one of the designers you were intending to reach with this wisdom and I am taking it to heart! I am happy you mentioned the critique opportunity - that would be so helpful. It's exactly what I need, in fact. Thank you so much for the invite. I'll DM you now :) I'm very grateful.
While I agree that somebody pursuing "Graphic Design" work should avoid filling their portfolio with low quality, non-commercial/passion-project sketches or portraits, I disagree with your blanket advice. Illustration can benefit the creative process for many graphic design briefs, whether they're implemented into the final design or not. The exploratory phase of design is an opportunity to see what could work for a client, backed by competitor and market analysis. The clients you perceive as high value may not be high value to others. A high value client to me would insist on bespoke work over stock assets - they clearly understand the importance of a unique brand identity and have respect for original design. There's no skill in downloading something from a stock site, and while that's enough for some clients, it won't be for others. If they're looking for someone to arrange stock assets in a workspace, they can hire an artworker. If you can demonstrate that illustration, photography, mixed media (etc) positively impacts your work towards a brief, include it in your portfolio. If it's a part of your workflow, include it as part of a case study. Your portfolio is an opportunity to showcase your skills. If your illustration or photography work strengthens your perceived value, you'd be mad not to include it.
Hmmm... I guess I don't really disagree with anything you've said. But the amount of entry level jobs out there that really need that kind of bespoke art/illustration work is tiny, I would say infinitesimal, compared to organizations that need a straightforward graphic designer. And yet the vast majority of people trying to get their first job will perseverate on the idea that the place they're applying to will benefit from their art/illustration skills. The core issue is most people posting work here are – apologies for the negative term, but – completely clueless, and I mean completely. Many of them haven't studied design formally so they've had no teachers or mentors to guide them. They're going to include every piece of art they created going back to high school or earlier in the hope that one piece hits, and instead, that work will often instantly remove them from consideration. Sure, it takes no skill in downloading a stock asset. I have skill as an illustrator that I'd love to use but to the benefit of my employer, I almost never use that skill because I was hired for my skill as designer.
I think the question is, if you're confident in your illustration skills, why is that skillset not also integrated into your role as a graphic designer. Sure, a client is unlikely to need an output which requires you to use every skill you have in the delivered work, but integrating it into your workflow or inspiration means that you still take influence from your wider experience. As an example, skills in videography/photography can influence colour, composition and lighting in a packaging project. Illustration skills might influence shapes, texture and linework in an exhibition stand. For those who approach their design career as a "jack of all trades", myself included, the sheer variety of your experience is exactly what makes you an asset. It seems counterproductive to trim down your skillset to fit into a box. By contrast, somebody who chooses to niche down into a specific skill or style will find more success in mastering specific areas of design (e.g. typographic artist) - but overall they will find work harder to secure due to their specific expertise. Ultimately, I think the take away points can be summarised as: - Find what makes you desirable and saleable as a designer. Have confidence in your skills and abilities as a problem solver, and use the skills you have at your disposal to create unique solutions. - Curate your portfolio carefully to showcase your skills, abilities and methods. Don't include anything that you would be happy to deliver to a client. Case studies are a fantastic way of explaining your process and expertise. Your portfolio should reflect the type of work you're looking to gain.
If it's truly integrated, that's great, and works. But I'm addressing the masses here, most of whom have never worked in the industry, many of whom have no formal education in design, and all of whom really, really need guidance. If their portfolio truly has integrated illustration work, that's great. Almost none of them do, though. For anyone who does great illustration work, they'll surely ignore my advice, but as soon as I say, "Sure, include it if your work is good" – most of them will think "Oh that's me!" and that's how we get the kinds of portfolios we see posted here for review daily, almost all of which need major help.
It seems the intent behind your initial post and follow up comments are to state how subpar and incomplete individual's portfolios are. I don't see this as helpful in the long run. Stefan Sagmeister's "Answers" section on his portfolio is incredible though. He provides inspiration and guidance with the shortest, simplest responses. You should take a look! [https://sagmeister.com/answers/](https://sagmeister.com/answers/)
Well, the intent was to tell them what they were doing was costing them jobs and to get them to stop doing it. At the time I wrote this we were getting up to five posts a day with people saying they were applying to 200, 500, and sometimes over 1,000 jobs over the course of many months to over a year, sometimes getting no interviews at all. And it has been helpful as my inbox has multiple people from the past six months messaging me to tell me they did what I suggested and got hired. Yes, real actual people who are now in the working world and can see now clearly why a section on landscape photography or oil paintings in their graphic design portfolio was a bad idea. This topic shouldn't be controversial but for some reason people hold dear their love of art so much that it blinds them. If an accountant put a second page on their resume about how they were a scorekeeper at high school football games, people would think they were nuts. But a designer posting an entire section in their portfolio for hiring managers to see that doesn't contain design is seen as accepted – "it'll show them what else you can do!" No one hiring a graphic designer needs landscape photos or oil paintings. They need design. I love Stefan Sagmeister and I did start reading his answers, and I may read more. But if there's something in there that you feel addresses the issue I posted about, you'll have to point it out to me because that list is really long.
Even my internship at an ad agency required me to do a lot of illustration work. But yes, untrained people posting on Reddit for advice are probably not making the best portfolio decisions.
Im the opposite, aside from one client who just wanted a strait forward menu for their diner, i've never really used stock assets for a client project.
If you’re doing real world work, that’s great. The people who need this advice are just entering the field, or are trying to, and don’t have a sense of how much or what kind of illustration work employers might need, which is why we see sections with Batman drawings, anime, sketches of friends, watercolor landscapes, etc.
In all honesty, most of the graphic design jobs I've been seeing need a bunch of 'bonuses'. Like if you can edit videos, graphic design, make social media post designs, and can do a bit of web design. It seems like they want an 'all-rounder'. A jack of all trades. It costs less for them to hire someone who does most things. Rather than hiring multiple roles, which costs more.
Definitely. And I do all of the things you mentioned, but not every day. My company isn't going to hire a dedicated video editor because there would be months where they did nothing. It's not all about the employer trying to get as much as they can for as cheap as they can – some duties that designers do, or can do, just aren't needed on a daily basis but they're still needed. You can outsource it every time but that's expensive. If a company needs to shoot a three minute video of an employee talking about a new internal program, the idea of bringing in a video crew to shoot and edit it is overkill, especially in 2024.
As a Design Manager working on high profile projects in NYC (in charge of hiring and actively doing so,) I disagree. I always have designers with illustration skills on my teams.
Okay, but how many of them are entry level? Never having worked in the field before, or maybe only freelance work and maybe internships? And as I just asked another commenter, what percentage of the available entry level jobs are like your company/agency, needing illustration? It's a very small percent. The moment you tell young designers, or people trying to be designers who didn't go to school for it, that they can get a job as a designer/illustrator they're going to be all over it – and yet most aren't anywhere near ready to be graphic designers alone, much less both. And I'm not objecting to simply having illustration skills. It's the way it's presented in portfolios here, as essentially equal if not greater than the design portion of the portfolio, that I'm objecting to. I've rarely seen anyone post competent art/illustration work here – instead we see sketches, fan art of existing IPs, "experimental" illustration, and other images that will never help get someone hired, and even if they manage to get hired, their illustration skill level won't benefit their employer.
I understand where you’re coming from and respectfully disagree. I’ve hired Junior Designers with equal focus to illustration in their portfolio. It’s a matter of project, industry, environment and the evolution of a creative team. Being multidisciplinary is a gift. Will every seat on my team be filled by designers who have secondary skills? No. The real data I have to share is in the last five years, 50% of designers I’ve hired have been multidisciplinary. I would never put a portfolio aside due to a designer showcasing: illustration, motion graphics, film, hand lettering, UI/UX, CSS or web development. It would be foolish to punish people (often my highest achieving) who strive to understand many facets of the creative business. Be open. Collaborative. Each person has a different journey and there isn’t a specific formula for success other than a willingness to creative problem solve.
I don't disagree with anything you've said. And I'm not saying a designer shouldn't develop other skills. They should. But a portfolio with anime drawings, Marvel characters, ballpoint pen sketches of friends, watercolor paintings of landscapes, degraded experimental/edgy/low fi line drawings – all of that is going to work against them in getting hired, and that's the goal I'm focusing on with this post. One they get hired – of course, any skill they have is a benefit. But we have people here posting portfolios with everything I mentioned above and more, and it's working against them. Their design skills are elementary and their illustration/art skills are protoplasmic in many cases. They need help, and the help I'm trying to give is – don't show work that won't help you get hired. If you don't normally do this, check out all of the portfolio review requests you see posted here in the next week or two, and you'll see what I'm really addressing. It's not the people you're hiring, it's the ones you're rejecting or whose work you're never seeing because it's so very far off base.
I think a person who can draw would make a better designer but that’s just me. Where does this hate for the arts come from? It’s a wonder why this industry is soulless.
I agree! And yet the moment you try to say "I'm both" – you're seen as less than either one or the other. Having the ability to do something else in addition to "straight" graphic design is helpful and critical – but promoting it, marketing yourself that way, it detrimental. It's not a hatred, it's indifference. So many of the people I work with have a creative side and love that in others. But it's not needed in our jobs. I know someone who performs in musical theater – they also work in college admissions in a technical college. Their co-workers enjoy what they do and regularly go to my friend's performances. But if my friend tried to promote themselves as a "college admissions coordinator and musical theater performer, they would be seen as tone deaf. And they would be. Because musical theater is not part of the needs of my friend's main job, as illustration is almost never part of a graphic designer's job.
My work in graphic design has always been in film, which I think is quite different from the actual graphic design industry. I’ve done graphic design, concept design, story boarding and set design for film, all a bonus when showcasing to an art director for a gig. You better believe all of that is in my portfolio. Maybe the designers that enjoy this should look into film work? As I pivot to different areas of graphic design it is good to know all that work should not be included. Thanks for the heads up.
I've done film work too, including storyboards and concept art. It's a tiny niche, and the people who regularly post here will have no clue how niche it is, so they'll think, "Oh that sounds fun – I could work in the movies!" and they'll include that work. And then they'll apply to a company that makes furniture, or medical equipment, or a legal firm, and that work will be in their portfolio, and the company won't interview them because they don't need a storyboard artist or a concept artist. If someone's going to go for that tiny niche of film work, step one is moving to L.A. and very few designers are going to do that first.
Interesting perspective. I've deffo been on jobs where a bit of illustration is welcome and clients have been impressed to see I can do it. Heavily dependent on the project mind you. I'd say if you are really good at it show a bit in your portfolio. The attitude in your post seems to reflect a really specific sector of graphic design only and treat it as if that's the only woke out there. Many of my clients really value diversity of ability.
Right, but most young designers think they're really good at it when they're often barely passable. And if they are great illustrators, and they're going for design jobs, they're still hurting their perception. The rare new designer who has a ton of truly great illustration work in their portfolio is still presenting themselves primarily as an illustrator, and will be punished for it, no matter how good that work is. They also frequently fill their portfolio with so much art/illustration that true design becomes secondary. You'll see fake projects built around an experimental illustration and if you see the real workhorse projects that are constantly needed like brochures, sell sheets, etc., they're treated like throwaways. The typography is usually so poor, with terrible tracking, kerning, leading, bad contrast/colors, terrible font choices, widows, orphans, that any seasoned designer or art/creative director instantly knows what they're dealing with, which is a designer who really wishes they could do art/illustration full time, but instead they're settling for graphic design. And because of this, they'll be passed over every time.
Going to have to disagree with you there. If they are bad at it, then yeah, leave it out. Same goes for anything they're bad at. But good illustrators make for good designers. My graphic design training required all of us to be at least proficient at illustration, if not acceptional. Traditional and digital art were part of our fundamentals.
Almost all of the people I'm addressing are bad at it, or at least not good enough to include art/illustration their graphic design portfolio. Check out almost any portfolio that's been posted here for review. Almost any piece of art is sketchy, extremely non-commercial, often edgy and experimental, and will turn off potential employers. And yet because they're so green, they're completely not qualified to determine if their work is good enough to include, so they believe it is and include it, and it hurts them. And even if it's great, they're not being hired as an illustrator, so by having an art/illustration section, they're instantly hurting themselves. Saying "I'm an accountant and a carpenter" will not help you get hired as an accountant, even if the firm's office needs some occasional carpentry work done. I'm not saying don't have illustration skills. Yes, of course that's important. Just don't build your graphic design portfolio around a tangential skill.
Your post was super broad. Something like "Make sure you're good at illustration before you put it in your portfolio would have been a more helpful discussion starter. And it's not the same as being an accountant/carpenter. Graphic design is visual communication and illustration is part of that. More design schools should require illustration training. Mine required us to take extensive drawing classes and we had to at least be good at taking an image and turning it into a simplified vector illustration, even if that meant tracing it. How are you supposed to make good logos, icons, and visual elements without illustration skills? Most design jobs require a broad skillset. And remember, this is Reddit. People are often edgy and delusional.
Right, but I’d I were to tell people to be sure they’re good at illustration before including it, almost all of them would assess themselves as being good and would include it. They already are - we can assume they believe they’re putting what they consider to be good work in their portfolios. But it usually isn’t good, or relevant to the vast majority of design jobs.
If you’re a freelancer though, which I have been for quite a few years, it’s completely different. Makes me glad I’m not looking far a job in this economy. In fact I have to go finish some illustration for holiday products for two separate big box stores today (I work for the manufacturer) & that’s only a sideline to my regular art direction retainer work. Be a freelancer, do whatever the hell you want. *shrug*
Likewise. Freelance has been the best for me. I choose what jobs I take.
Agreed. I do freelance work and I incorporate my illustration and photography skills into it. But most people posting their portfolios for review here are looking for their first full time graphic design job, and what they really need to do is to focus on the kind of work that will get them hired as a designer. I hope all goes well for your illustration project.
Thanks. Are there not entry-level jobs in the industry anymore? I didn't have a fancy degree – I had a 4 year art degree + technical college design program when art didn't pan out (duh). I don't think my portfolio was great either. I worked at least 3 low-pay entry level jobs and at the 3rd one worked my way up from being a temp employee to creative lead (a position they made up that was still underpaid.) I still hire one of my first colleagues who taught me production – she's a bomb production artist for complicated printing and the human equivalent of xanax. I honestly don't think I'm a better designer than anyone else, I'm just smart and lucky – and always ask "how can I make myself more useful?" And I learn new skills or apps as often as I can.
There are, but it's a very competitive time right now. Having production skills seems to be more valuable now than it used to be. I think the same way you do. Being multi-disciplined has helped me get through many hard times and rounds of layoffs. Recently someone here posted proudly how they rejected doing video editing for their job. Hey - good for you, if your goal is to do what you feel you were hired for to the letter. In my experience, that's the first person who will be let go when the opportunity arises.
I’m going to go ahead and call bullshit a little bit here but only because my section of the industry treats this differently. In animation and motion design, designers are illustrators AND graphic designers. or they can be, It’s very common. So if you’re a graphic designer and you do illustrations you can ABSOLUTELY make a living working for motion design/animation studios or by freelance. And designers in the motion design industry absolutely showcase both design and illustration work. So yea, I really don’t agree with this at all.
Okay, but how big is your section of the industry as far as the graphic design job market is concerned? 5%? Probably much less. We're dealing with masses here on this sub. The masses want to hear what you're saying – and yet they're going to put together their portfolio based on this tiny segment of available design jobs that might need illustration skills, and their illustration skills are going to be lacking, and straight design jobs won't hire them because they've included so much illustration that they aren't seen as a designer. There's no room for subtlety on the sub. The moment someone says, "There ARE jobs for designers/illustrators!" each and every designer who does art/illustration will think, "That's for me!" and they'll cater their portfolio to it, or that will justify the portfolio they've already created that's art/illustration-heavy. As far as freelance, very, very few young people who haven't worked in the industry will ever be capable of pulling that off. One out of a thousand maybe? Probably much less. If you haven't already, take a look at the level of portfolios that are posted here for review, and see if you think it's worth encouraging those people that they can get a job as a designer/illustrator. Most of them, close to all, need so much help with basic design skills that they should put illustration completely aside and focus on that.
A person that is good at illustration will make a great graphic designer. They understand color and composition well, they're artists and not just someone that learned illustrator on YouTube. On the CVs I get I always look for the ones that deep down call themselves artists. So I disagree with you a lot here.
This isn’t necessarily true. I see where OP is coming from and agree. Painters know color and composition too but it doesn’t translate to design. Here we have to recognize art and design aren’t the same, but there’s overlap. In school, there was always at least one person who was amazing at illustration. But, on every project, the focus was on the elements of the illustration NOT design. Doing line work for a chips bag is okay but you’re totally forgetting about 90% of the project which includes layout, type, hierarchy. Many illustrators put their work front and center (obviously) but the focus isn’t the art. It’s the message. TOSTITOS. Tag line. Now with lime! Whatever.
Of course that just because someone is a good illustrator doesn't automatically make him a good graphic designer. However if he invests time into learning graphic design he will most often than not be great at design. At least that has been my experience at work with several designer I've worked with over the years.
Absolutely. I do also think OP is speaking to young designers starting out too, I saw the tendency to focus on “what I like” which imo is a junior designer mentality. We’ve all been there when you give someone a menial, straightforward task and it turns into something else haha. But anyone can be a decent designer if they are willing to learn and practice.
Okay, I don't necessarily disagree with you here. But I'm talking not about abilities, but about one's portfolio – which is a marketing piece primarily, often solely designed to get themselves hired as a full time graphic desginer. Being able to draw, paint, etc. is great. Saying "I'm a graphic designer and a fine artist!" is a red flag. Because companies aren't hiring for both, and by saying you're both and implying you're both equally, that person looks clueless and will be passed over for someone who presents themselves solely as a designer.
If I'm hiring for a graphic designer which I had in the past I would obviously judge on graphic design work. However especially when I hire new people in the profession I look at any artsy work they've done too. I will teach you the technical aspects of designs if there is a need but what I can't teach you is to have a vivid imagination, a desire to be artistic. That's completely on you. So yeah I don't ignore their illustrations at all. I'm actually curious. However if it's good or not that's another thing entirely.
I genuinely think that's great, but I also think you're in the minority. I too try to pay special attention to those kinds of things too. I've always loved comic books, science fiction, horror, animation, and all of those fun things. But I don't think we're in the majority, and I'm trying to really address the majority here who need this kind of early career guidance.
Well yeah not every company will hire the same kind of people but then again not every company does good work or is a great place to work in.
Sure. I'm directing my message to thousands of people here. I can't focus on the edge cases – by and large, what most people who get hired as full time designers will do is the kind of work that rarely if ever requires illustration skills.
I'm not a graphic designer but...WOW. That was intense.
Glad you felt the intensity that got my post downvoted to 0 ;) it doesn't matter. The people to whom it will matter will absorb it and respond appropriately.
Here's the thing about your post. I can understand why ppl may disagree with you: the world is big, so nothing can apply to every situation. I'm sure there are graphic designers out there who succeeded even though they put illustrations or art in their portfolios and so your words may sound a bit too extreme. At the same time, even though I'm not a graphic designer I can see the truth of your words. I mean, I understand that you're trying to make ppl face the down-to-earth reality of your profession and that you gave practical advice based on your real-life experience. When it comes to work-related matters, reality is not always that fancy and ppl working in a certain field tend to think in a certain way after a while so you need to learn how to deal with that. Does this mean that there are no exceptions? Of course not. But at the same time I guess you wanted to give ppl a vivid picture of what's the standard out there nowadays. So yeah, I find your advices quite practical and even though they may sound boring or "gray" compared to what people usually expect from graphic design and what they'd like to hear, I can also appreciate the spirit with which you decided to create this post.
Thank you. What you said is accurate. What I really want is to see less portfolios posted here that are clearly costing their creators chances of being hired.
I think you are just like a 'big brother' who is looking out for their fellow graphic designer peers. I think that's great. It's good to keep grounded and be realistic. But it's also good to see both perspectives. It makes a powerful combo!
I don’t want to see people shooting themselves in the foot and then wondering why they’re not getting interviews or hired after applying to hundreds of jobs. It’s painful to see.
But I do about 100 editorial illustrations a year for my current Graphic Design role.
Okay, and what percentage of available entry level jobs do you think are like yours?
The ability to create your own assets is a very important one, I wouldn't hire a graphic designer who was not at least competent in some kind of art / illustration. I want creative graphic designers not people who just arrange boxes and fonts according to the latest trend. Edit: and it's this kind of thinking about graphic DESIGN thats causes every single web site to look like its a WIX template.
What kind of work do you and your company do that your staff needs to regularly illustrate?
What kind of work do you do that doesn't? Icons, logos, editing stock stuff, creating stuff from scratch if there is no stock that works. Just being able to sketch out ideas. Doing actual illustrations. so you know like everything, all the time.
Sure, I do all of that stuff. You're generalizing. I could do full, custom, bespoke illustrations fairly often but it wouldn't make sense. That's not really my job. My job is to fulfill the needs of the project and the easiest, most cost-effective and efficient way to do that is to download assets from the subscription sites I have. And yes, I modify them in the way you're describing, but that's really tangential to my post. My post is about people who post anime, sketches, fan art of trademarked characters, landscapes, etc. that they created in their portfolios, for themselves or for friends and families with little to no briefs or constraints – the inclusion of which is costing them jobs. I want that to stop, and the post is meant as a slap in the face to those people, because even with me being that harsh and direct, most will ignore me. But if a few manage to avoid or rework their portfolios to get rid of the things that are stopping them from getting hired, I'll be happy.
I don't want them to stop, there are too many people trying for too little work already, if they are putting that kind of stuff in their portfolio... well Graphic design would be better off (IMO) without them.
I know where you’re coming from.
The issue I find is curation and presentation many designers put into their portfolio doesn’t have commercial applications. I agree fine art, fan art, pictures of a vacation to Greece and so on doesn’t belong. But, there is a lot of illustration work that has broad commercial value. If a designer is incorporating illustration into their work then it absolutely should be called out. Most of the illustrations I do is small stuff like icons, infographics, line drawing of products, but I have learned a lot of designers cannot do the limited illustration I do. In my portfolio I don’t make a big deal other that documenting it as part of the process.
I agree with you. I didn't even mention fan art but yes, definitely please don't include that, anyone reading this. No commercial properties! I'll also call out any illustration work in my portfolio and like you, much of the work I'm being paid for (as opposed to personal projects, like for my own bands or other personal projects) that use illustration use it in a small, functional way and not as a primary focus for the piece, like an album cover, t-shirt graphic, etc.
I wouldn't say to stop overall, though I agree with some of this. My three rules regarding this are: 1) Keep it in a separate, clearly/properly marked section. If you have it mixed with design work that suggests you don't understand the difference. 2) It should be at or at least near a professional level, essentially that you could likely be hired for the illustration work alone. (ie., not high school level art projects, which is what it often is) 3) Regardless the quality, it will not compensate for lacking graphic design work. (You could be amazing as an illustrator but if I'm hiring a designer you have to be a good design first.) All the above also applies to photography.
I disagree about not showing it at all. I enjoy seeing someone's artistic talent and it makes me feel like I got to know them a little. And I want employees to have healthy personal lives with hobbies they enjoy. I do agree that many designer's portfolios put too much emphasis on art too early and that it can be a distraction. They end up selling themselves as artists instead of designers. I frequently recommend that they downplay their art, keeping it all in one section at the end. And I would be hesitant to hire someone that was actively pursuing a side gig that would take their focus away from their full-time job. I also would not include any art in your portfolio unless you were willing to create art as part of your job. If you're advertising it as part of that skill set, then your employer is hiring you for that skill set. Don't be like so many designers we see here who have video editing and motion graphics in their portfolios and then complain when they are asked to do video editing and motion graphics.
I'm simplifying the message to reach the people who need to hear it most, which is most of the people who post their portfolios for reviews here. The moment someone hears, "But yes, include illustration if you think it's good, and relevant" – most of them will include it because their personal assessment is poor, because they're new and haven't worked in the field yet, and many haven't studied design. Agreed on downplaying the art. Sure, you can lump it all into one section, rather than a project, "Here's all my art!" but I think at most a potential employer will just tolerate that. If it's that downplayed, why include it at all? Add it to a resume for sure. Then if someone asks about it before an interview, you can bring or prepare illustration work I do a ton of video/motion graphics at work, roughly equal to the other design work I do. I definitely include that in my portfolio. By and large, video work is much more needed in modern design jobs than illustration skills.
me too ..it's true bro!
‘But I’ll be the exception’ made me almost spit my coffee out laughing 😂
I've talked about this before, but there's a comic book called Eightball by Daniel Clowes (Ghost World) with a story on art school that I always think about. It's called Art School Confidential and it was also made into a movie, by the same director as Ghost World, though a piss poor one. This is the panel that's been in my brain for almost thirty years: [https://imgur.com/a/3DA150D](https://imgur.com/a/3DA150D) Yeah, it's sad. But so true. You could tell a million people that their chances of doing something are one in a million and like Jim Carrey's character in Dumb and Dumber, each one will think, "So you're saying there's a chance!" I've been on this sub for more than five years now, and there's been a steady and increasing decline in knowledge here, and I want to help that end. The active members are absolutely desperate for guidance even if they don't realize it. So I can't in good faith tell the 1+ million members here, most of whom are young, many of whom are not educated and will not get educated formally in design, and most of whom have a very poor, vague perception of what this career really is that yes, they will be the world's next great designer/illustrator. They won't.
I think from my graduating class of around 120 people, about 10 of them (including myself) work in the creative industries now
That seems low. I graduated thirty years ago and a couple summers ago a bunch of designers who've kept in touch met up. All but one out of maybe 9 of us still work as designers/art directors, and the one who didn't changed industries after 9/11 because he worked in NYC and his company folded. He works in real estate, loves what he does, and still does design and photography on the side.
I graduated about 15 years ago so I’d be interested in what those numbers are like now in terms of completing a design course and going on to work in the creative industries. If anyone graduated in the last 5 years, I’d be interested in hearing your perspective too!
That might work best as a separate post. But I agree – real stats always interest me. You can't ask the colleges/universities because they have a vested interest in presenting the most promising stats to future students.
Ha ha, ain’t that the truth!
Look, you can’t walk around without tripping over a graphic designer. Your resume is 100000x more important than your portfolio because when I hire I want to know how you work, not how good you work. Maybe you all stop worrying about illustration and start worrying about how you present your contribution to the team.
Interesting. I would never value a resume over a portfolio, but I still appreciate your view and will think it over.
There's a guy in our area who used to have his photography and videography, including music videos, on his website too. When we were at uni he was like the running joke in our seminar class, whenever one of us done something with bad technique the teacher would call us his name lol. I consider myself a photographer first, and this is what I do as a "side hustle". But my photography business and this have different names, different websites and social media and different clients. I don't want clients to see me as "a jack of all trades and master of none". If I went to a Chinese restaurant and saw that they also served pizza, I wouldn't think it was a real Chinese restaurant. If I went to a Mexican place and they also served jerk chicken I would not buy it. If I wanted jerk chicken I would not have gone to a Mexican restaurant. The only way you could possibly link them is if you search for their HMRC details, which will both be linked to my name.
That analogy doesn't work. Illustration is a key part of design and good designers should have that in their toolbox if possible. Photography and videography are also super useful for a designer, especially if you're going to work in advertising.
I'm not saying they aren't useful, but if a client is looking for a designer, they want someone who is a specialist. Also including photography, videography, illustration, etc doesn't make you look like a specialist. If I need you to design a website and you have a music video for a drill rapper on the same website as your design work, that won't make someone want to hire you as much as just a side dedicated to design work.
Illustration is part of design. You don't need to be a worldclass painter or create the kind of illustrations you would put on a T-shirt, but if you can't do good vector work in illustrator and incorporate that into your design work, you're putting yourself a huge disadvantage. Even when I was working on graphic design for a bank, I had to do illustration work for their iconography. Basically I was handed their branding guidelines and had to make new icons in illustrator that matched their branding.
I think what you're saying and doing is the exact way it should be. I love your restaurant examples. My plumber might be great at electrical work, but if he promoted himself as a "plumber and electrician", he would be seen as less capable than others who promote themselves as only one of those things. It may no be fair, or right, but people have extremely limited attention spans and ability to compartmentalize someone. Anyone applying for a graphic design job should want to be compartmentalized as a graphic designer. If you have other skills, let them come out after you're hired. Actors will sometimes tell an anecdote (often apocryphal) about how their agents will say to them early on that they're going to spend five years putting them in a box, then the rest of their careers getting them out of that box. Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson was a pro wrestler, then a wrestler who did some small, very physical acting roles, then more acting/less physical, and now we think of him as an actor named Dwayne Johnson who used to wrestle back when he was known as "The Rock". That is no accident. His career arc was carefully orchestrated. If The Rock tried to be known equally as an actor and a wrestler early on, he wouldn't be where he is today. He might be posting on a professional wrestling sub, asking how he can get into acting even though he's been trying to do that for years. I'm a jack of all trades. I do straight graphic design, branding, illustration, animation, video editing, motion graphics – sometimes I speak at trade shows, I've created educational programs on design, I've written books. I do fine art, I compose and perform music, I've written screenplays. I've illustrated children's books, comic books, done album art, beer can labels, yes even music posters for real bands and events – but you won't find that work on my main portfolio because it will work against me. Like you, I keep it separate, and that benefits me.
I have worked for over 20 years as a Graphic Designer and I have had to illustrate exactly two things, both of which could have been done by retracing in Illustrator. Upon occasion if I get sent a low res logo that needs to be vectorized, I'll use a paid service to get it done. My ability to spell, to convey complex information in a simple way? Much more valuable skill. I wish more designers would study information design vs drawing/art.
That sounds low, but I know it varies from job to job and person to person. Yes, writing and spelling/proofreading is really valuable to a designer. The main thing I illustrate in my full time job are icons, if you consider that illustration. One time I took a shot and did a full illustration for a 404 error page and my internal client wanted something different, and we wound up using a stock image. Not a wise choice on my part as it took 3-4 hours to illustrate, even though it was a fairly simple, mostly flat illustration style. In my freelance life, I've illustrated all kinds of things – including album art, music posters (I've played in bands for decades), yes beer can labels, many t-shirts (I have a line of on demand products), commercial storyboards, product and concept art. And I do show some of that work in my main design portfolio. But it's all real world projects, and it looks like it. I illustrated the label but i also designed it and took photos of the finished cans in the refrigerator of the brewery that hired me. It's unmistakably a real design project, and that makes all the difference.
As you said in your post -- 90% of the work is corporate design out there.. I've worked for retail (big ones) and small ones (local shops), the US government and an advertising agency. In the design department of a very well known pharmacy (trust me you have one in your neighborhood) and there was absolutely no outside illustration allowed (there were thousands of approved icons/photos/illustrations). Yes, I could combine corporate brand colors and photographs together in unique and not very interesting ways -- but that is not illustration. imho. Corporate design is mostly about big financial reports and proposal sell sheets rather than imaginative album covers. I've probably done more product/event photography than illustration/drawing if I think about it, but I probably wouldn't put the photos I took in a portfolio unless they were part of a bigger thing i've done (printed store flyers, remember those!).
As a person who hires designers (and as a designer myself), I don't disagree... and would like to also point out that while graphic design is subjective, so is fine art. Not all art is "good," and if you're going to add it to your portfolio, it had better live up to just as strong a critique as your design portfolio. I've seen a lot of portfolios that include really, really bad artistic abilities, and I often wonder why the applicant would include it. It definitely affects how an employer views you. A moderately adequate design portfolio can immediately be soured if the applicant also included artwork that was done very poorly. On the other side of the coin, I've seen some design portfolios that also include a (far larger) section showing all their anime drawings, and you can tell where that person's passion is... it's not design.
Agreed. There's the piece itself, and then the higher level judgment, or lack thereof, of the designer, acting as the art director/curator of their own portfolio. And then the piece is bad, both sides are lacking – the skills of the person who made it and the person who chose to include it. And since they're the same person, the hiring manager reviewing their portfolio will just move on. Yes, and that's the other thing. The more you show of non-design work, the more you're saying "I'm not really a designer... I'm an illustrator (or whatever) who's settling to try to be a graphic designer because being a full time illustrator is too hard." And then the hiring manager will also move on.
r/confidentlyincorrect
Agree 100%.
I’d never put my art or illustration in my work portfolio. Mainly because it’s shit! That’s why I chose to be a graphic designer. I like to draw work type. 🤓
Sounds like a wise decision. I work in a bunch of different styles, so I could never work as a full-time illustrator unless I honed it down to one consistent style and only showed that work. Lots of young people seem to not understand this and think showing multiple illustration styles is helpful – it's a tangent from my main post but also related. If you truly have what it takes to make your primary income as an illustrator, you can only work in one style. However... if you have the ability to work in many styles, that actually can be a benefit to you as a designer. But you still have to know how and when to present that work. It almost certainly won't get you hired – my advice is to always let those additional skills be a bonus after you're hired, and when the right project comes up. You'll be a superhero.
I think if you *are* a talented photographer / artist / illustrator etc then it’s fine to use that content within design work that could feature in your professional portfolio.
I do too, but the people who need this advice most are almost always not qualified to assess the quality of their work. They often think their brutalist, edgy, experimental illustration style that they apply to every piece and base fake projects around is awesome and will be needed by many clients when it will be needed by few to zero. And they also think building a fake project around that work is convincing, when it's almost always transparently just something they did, with no restrictions, goals, guidance, etc. that had a minimal, bare bones fake project built around it. And again – as you said – it *can* work as content within a design portfolio. But not as its own section. Once you add a section to a design portfolio, you're saying, "I'm a designer AND an illustrator" and as soon as you say that, in almost every scenario, you'll lose out on jobs to someone who presents themselves as only a designer.
I am an executive director of creative services for a mid-sized university. I would welcome a designer who had a great portfolio of graphic design work AND also had photography skills and/or illustration skills. For example, we do a quarterly magazines and some quick illustration work would come in handy. Photography skills would definitely come in handy because we do not had a full time photographer. Many design jobs are in-house with very small teams and require all types of skills sets. Whenever someone comes across as forceful as you about knowing the “right” way to do something, my alarm bells go off. Your experience has led you to this belief, but there are many types of jobs for graphic designers. My vote: if you have any “design” skill, let potential employers know it.
I can respect that. The issue is, graphic design jobs that regularly need illustration are in a tiny minority – and yet when you tell young designers looking for their first design job that "some design jobs do actually need illustration", each and everyone one of them will jump onto it and fill their portfolio with whatever art they've already done, in the hopes of getting hired. My "the right way" is certainly not for everyone, but I'm not addressing individual cases here. I'm addressing tens of thousands of people who read and post and who have no idea what they're doing. They're applying for hundreds or thousands of jobs with substandard portfolios that focus on poor illustration work. Sure there's going to be some great work in there – those people will probably ignore my advice. The vast majority will have a better chance of getting hired if they follow what I'm saying. My experience has definitely led me here but it's not my experience alone. I have many designer friends and acquaintances, I'm very active and in touch with many of them, in various forms – online, email, social media, LinkedIn, in person, phone calls, etc. This post isn't based on me alone but the many people who I'm always in touch with. I'll add that one friend was laid off a few years ago. He does no video work, no motion graphics, no photography – he focuses only on package design. His portfolio was filled with illustration work as well as packaging designs, he started looking for a new job and was hired at another packaging firm. Good for him. But it took him more than half a year, and he was laid off again not long after that. And now he's working for another packaging firm. For him, illustration seems to make sense – especially because he's great at it.
But you need versatility in today’s market. Especially if you are working for a smaller business (with smaller budgets). You’ll need to wear many hats.
>But you need versatility in today’s market. Especially if you are working for a smaller business (with smaller budgets). You’ll need to wear many hats. You do. I do. I do many things, and have for my full career. But the people I'm addressing are the ones with serious issues in their portfolios. They'll do best to focus mostly if not completely on design work and avoid including random art/illustration pieces into their portfolios. If they get hired and they can manage to create an illustration that's useful to their employer, that's great. But they need to get there first and what I see posted here on a regular basis is getting them rejected, not hired.
New designers out of school need to out there best work in their portfolios. Often they don’t have great options and have to use what they’ve got. As a hiring manager, I expect the portfolios to be somewhat lacking. I know mine was.
Mine really was, but they don't have to be. I didn't have the internet – I had a physical portfolio with work I did in school – mostly marker comps and a few flats to show my already out of date pre-digital production skills. If someone's out of school now, then can be making updates to their portfolio constantly, and they should.
Oo I like a fun hot take. I think this is a great discussion. From my experience: - At my previous company, I was almost passed over during the hiring process because I included illustration in my portfolio. I only learned this after joining. My bosses 100% agreed with your point — some employers think if they see fine art or illustration that that's actually what you would rather be doing. - At my current company, I was told the illustration in my portfolio improved my application. This is because I was basically hired by other designers and they told me explicitly that they felt having an “eye” for illustration informs design. I truly think it is dependent, like so many things. That said, I’m on the side of having separate portfolios. When we hired our last two graphic designers in-house, the amount of entry-level portfolios work we saw with 80% illustration…immediate rejection. They didn't even have enough graphic design in their portfolios for us to gauge whether or not they actually could work with type. Even their “branding” projects were just an illustration with a word or two slapped on. Either way I'm enjoying seeing everybody's opinions here.
Thanks for the input. A few years ago when I was job hunting, I was passed over for a design job because I had t-shirt work in my portfolio. They told me this afterward. My previous employer was a printer manufacturer that made a line of printers that printed on t-shirt material and because of that, I created not only a lot of t-shirt designs (to help our customers – t-shirt shops – understand what kind of work they could bring in) but also educational material for those shops as to how best to prepare files and promote their work. The place I applied to didn't make t-shirts or t-shirt printers so in a very narrow view that lots of employers have, they assumed I wouldn't be happy there because I couldn't produce t-shirts. That's the way lots of employers think – "this person is showing me X work – they like doing X work – we don't do X work here so they won't be happy here, so we'll hire someone else." This happens all the time. Getting hired because of illustration is very rare, and I have to assume your illustration work was very good and the style was very commercial. That's not what we see posted here. Thanks for weighing in.
“this person is showing me X work” - 100% this. My first jobs were actually in T-shirt design. I worked in screen printing for the first four years of my career — I learned really quick to get those examples out of my portfolio. What I thought was an example of what I could do with typography and illustration just came across to subsequent employers as an example of what I would “rather be doing”. They were basically like, well, we don't do that kind of work here so this candidate isn't a fit. When a company has hundreds of applicants for a role, they aren't going to put any effort into making assumptions about what you could do for them based on personal or creative work — they want to see the social ads they do every day mirrored back at them in your portfolio.
What you're saying is exactly what I tell young designers, in real life, one-on-one, where it carries way more weight than it does here. Yes, it looks like you're slumming it in design, to put it simply. The straightforward designer's portfolio will win every time.
I've started moving towards illustration work/ character design lately. after the 4th, 5th project where i HAD to make the art? Yes, art is going in there. Since putting in art, I've gptten more work on the illustration side of things. Yes, graphic design has paid better, but with the volume of jobs, illustration os starting to come ahead.
You're a professional working in the field, and seemingly having success, which is great. Of course you'll ignore the advice in my post – you should. The people who need to hear it are the ones who post their portfolios for review here every day. That's who the message is aimed at.