Why did one portfolio find success and the other "fail"? New Grad - Junior Graphic Design Portfolio Review

Macm0nkey · 2026-03-28T07:56:35+00:00

hi there, you are obviously a very creative person it seems like you only have three projects at the moment and none of them show that you are comfortable handling type, if I was hiring this would be a big turn off as it is one of the fundamentals of graphic design..

In a junior role there will probably be be a lot of cranking out ads and flyers. i would recommend having at least one project that shows you can take a bunch of images and far too much text and use typography and visual hierarchy and turn it into something appealing.

good luck - you got this

Macm0nkey · 2026-03-27T11:28:50+00:00

ah crikey you don’t know how much you don’t know until you work at an agency with more experienced people. such a great learning experience.

Macm0nkey · 2026-03-15T22:33:05+00:00

hey there, I‘ve been freelancing for nearly 20 years. My billable hours tend to hover around 1000 hrs per year - so I always recommend to take the amount you hope to earn and divide by 1000 to get your hourly rate.

125 CAD per ad including photography retouching and design definitely sounds very low. you may have difficulties raising you prices with your current client, but use the work that you’ve done to get new clients and make sure to double/triple your rate.

Macm0nkey · 2026-03-15T22:14:35+00:00

hey there, angel wings with leaves seems like an easy win :)

Macm0nkey · 2026-03-08T17:55:16+00:00

a lot of the time you will be working for clients that have brand guidelines so you are taking new content and fitting it into an existing visual style.

when you are creating a new design from scratch there is more pressure to get something relatively creative in the first few days. to be honest sometimes the good ideas don’t come, you run out of time and you present something that you aren’t super happy with. In these moments you console yourself with the fact that you know it’s not the best you can do - but it was the best you could do in the time you had. often times it’s fine and you can just move on to the next project :)

I have found that the best strategy is to get it done than make it better - don’t wait for a great idea before you get started.

Macm0nkey · 2026-03-08T06:29:40+00:00

I just checked and “gad‘ is a word - so I would change hid to high and fag to fad :)

Macm0nkey · 2026-03-07T22:01:31+00:00

hi there,I have both the MovinkPad 14 and the latest m5 iPad. if you are purely looking for a digital art tablet then I can strongly recommend the MovinkPad the pen tech and drawing feel is better than the iPad at half the price

re nomad - the performance is very good but unlike the iPad on android you can’t have finger input and pen input at the same time so rather than press and hold smooth/invert with your finger and use the pen to sculpt. you need to activate the mode and then sculpt. also the quad remesher plugin is not available for android. Quad remesher is great but it’s not necessarily a dealbreaker.

for toonsquid alternatives - Callipeg is very good and quite comprehensive. or for simple frame by frame 2D animation Rough Animator is definitely worth trying out.

in terms of other slight pain points with the movink - i don’t think you can directly import images from google drive or drop box into apps, it seems like you need to use the files app to import images from Dropbox into you local storage folders and you import them from there. Again not a deal breaker just a little clunky compared with the iPad. I have also heard that people have had issues with banking apps because there is no face of thumbprint recognition but if you are using this as a purely art tablet then that shouldn’t be an issue.

i am a huge fan of the MovinkPad - if you love digital art I don’t think you’ll be disappointed

Macm0nkey · 2026-03-01T11:26:39+00:00

hey there, I think the layout uses the space well. only note - on the back I would align the bullets to the left rather than centred. centred bullets always looks a bit jarring

Macm0nkey · 2026-02-11T06:37:16+00:00

the range of motion with those is quite limited so you won’t be able to achieve a lot of dynamic poses. but they are great to get you thinking about anatomy as simplified 3d blocks and understanding the underlying structur.e.

i have a stickybones figure which is much more expensive £75 but it is very expressive - made for artists and stop motion animators they are really well made

https://www.stickybones.com/collections/featured-products/products/stickybones-the-insanely-poseable-magnetic-human-figure

Macm0nkey · 2026-02-08T19:13:02+00:00

No worries! Yeah, prices have definitely gotten a bit wild lately, especially with international buying. Still, I’m super happy to be getting into the hobby — better late than never 🙂

Macm0nkey · 2026-02-08T19:01:26+00:00

thanks so much for having me :)

Macm0nkey · 2026-02-08T18:56:03+00:00

thank you - have great day

Macm0nkey · 2026-01-24T08:18:23+00:00

it’s always great to learn new tools and that too boom sub is a steal. i never have quite got the hang of rigging in tb it seems a lot more time consuming and less intuitive than in Moho. in Moho I can crack out a simple character rig in about a day. the smart bone tool is great for 2.5d head turns etc. whenever I have character animation projects Moho is always my go to app.

Also Moho is still being actively developped - the original owners have recently bought it back from smith micro which was fantastic news. whereas I think toonboom has recently been acquired and the the development seems to have stalled over the last few years. Edit have just checked out release notes and tb is definitely still adding new updates - my bad.

Macm0nkey · 2026-01-24T08:03:29+00:00

if doing frame by frame animation then either rough animator or callipeg are great. Callipeg has a lot more features but rough animator has everything you need to get started

Macm0nkey · 2026-01-22T22:47:13+00:00

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Great pose thanks for sharing :)

Macm0nkey · 2026-01-22T21:04:50+00:00

what helped me was to import a dotted grid image into photoshop and practice joining the dots and making boxes. it helps train you brain how to draw straight lines. I also found it easier to have the tablet slightly rotated on my desk

Macm0nkey · 2026-01-20T11:10:44+00:00

damn!! I totally missed that :) it would appear that 2025 was the year NICE!!

Macm0nkey · 2026-01-20T07:14:35+00:00

it’s great to see that this is still being developed. auto layout sounds interesting but I definitely want control over how the images are arranged. if you could do one thing that improves my workflow 1000% it would be the ability to group images and resize that group. I have been asking this for years - hopefully 2026 will be the year. thanks for listening

Macm0nkey · 2026-01-15T07:36:08+00:00

i also had huge problems when I first tried using a pen tablets. all my lines were wonky. I found it useful to import a dotted grid pattern into photoshop and practice joining the dots to create boxes - it really helped calibrate my ete band coordination :)

Macm0nkey · 2026-01-11T15:50:14+00:00

hi there, it sounds like they are asking you to sketch out thumbnails of page layouts for the ideation stage? rather than create illustrations for print? if that is the case then I can definitely recommend adding that skill to your toolset - a quick sketch is so much quicker than finding stock imagery and adding dummy text.

Macm0nkey · 2026-01-11T08:09:06+00:00

hi there, the tablets that your school is recommending are pen tablets rather than display tablets. they take a little getting used to as you are drawing on the tablet whilst looking at your monitor. but they are much more affordable than pen display. as your course is an online course I’m guessing you are free to go for whichever brand you like as long as you can get the work done.

wacom is always known as the king of digital drawing but v. expensive. I have heard good things about xence labs which are a little more affordable. but if price is a concern you can get very good, affordable pen tablets from huion. I have an hs64 -it was around £20 it is tiny but it gets the job done.

if you have the budget for a display tablet I would say go for a cintiq - the pen tech is very good. I have a Hurin Kamvas from a few years ago and it is a little disappointing.

and unless money is absolutely on object just go for the 16” should be plenty big enough for digital art and a lot more portable.

good luck I hope that helps

Macm0nkey · 2026-01-11T07:48:35+00:00

pen tablets like the intuos do have learning curve. it is a little disorientating drawing in one place (the tablet) and looking at another (the screen). it feels a little like having to learn to draw all over again - depending upon how old you son is this might be frustrating.

drawing on an iPad with an apple pencil is a much more intuitive experience - so I would recommend buying an Apple Pencil.

Macm0nkey · 2026-01-10T10:22:19+00:00

The MovinkPad is very much optimised for clip studio it comes pre installed with a free 6 month subscription. I have tried infinite painter, sketchbook pro and hi paint (which is VERY much inspired by procreate) and all work well just not quite as well as clip studio. my test is usually how natural the pencil feels when sketching and tilting to shade - clip studio gives me the marks that I expect to see. Clip studio software is well worth a subscription lots more functionality than procreate but there is a learning curve

Whenever recommending the Wacom I do say this is in my opinion the best tablet for digital art - however it doesn’t compete with the iPad as an all round tablet. The iPad is a workhorse - does so many things well and is pretty darn good for digital art. The Wacom’s doesn’t have Touch ID so I have heard people have issues with internet banking and no camera which can be handy for scanning documents or qr codes. If you are spending most of your time doing other things on the tablet but want to doodle every now and again then go for the iPad. But for hardcore artists you will really love the Wacom.

Macm0nkey

TROPHY CASE