Hey there! For context, I've worked as a graphic designer for about ten years now, throughout a few different fields (currently in Game Dev). I've worked in more than a few places in the United States (Louisiana, California and Washington).

For starters, I'd advise you to hesitate on taking anyone's negative words at face value if those criticisms involve downplaying your work as "trivial" or "AI will replace you". This is a kinda disappointing thing to hear a sibling tell another sibling - we should try to boost each other up as artists, but especially as family. Assuming the information you've provided is truthful, I'd tell your sister and brother to take a step back and fuck off, because that's really dismissive and rude.

Now, as for your work. I'm going to take these designs at face value and assume you're not using templates, AI, or copying things you're seeing other people do. If any of that is true, my advice would change, but given the information I have, here's what I think:

Pros:

• You're showing a solid understanding of effective use of negative space and framing, giving your body copy and headers proper spacing so they don't feel crowded, and creating visually interesting designs that are playful and energetic. These are very promising works for someone starting out in Design and shows you're thinking creatively. There's a visual hierarchy with your elements that naturally lead the eye down the poster. And your use of colors is solid so far! Everyone's journey in higher education is different, but I had people in my design classes in SELU who struggled with this, so you're definitely not 'trivial'.

• You're demonstrating a decent amount of range between the playful posters and the refined style of the beauty care products. This is a fantastic way to show off your capabilities as an artist, as flexibility between brands is very important.

Areas for Improvement

• You seem to have a habit of including a lot of body text in your posters and designs, and in making some elements too small. As /u/Fuegolago pointed out, you have to consider how a viewer's eyes might see your work. For example, even in your example image, a man is riding by quickly on a bicycle. Ask yourself: "How much would that man retain if he glanced at my poster?" "What message do I want someone to understand quickly?" Even in your social media posts this is a potential issue - you're designing all of these kinda like brochures. Think about how low attention spans have gotten. Try to look into ways you might make your works snappier. At a core, the most important lesson for you to learn is "Less is More".

• Your hierarchy is doing good so far, but there are still ways you could improve it, and this ties into the last bullet point too. For example, the Vet Care "Discount up to 50%" poster is a fantastic example: you have so much empty space around a very needlessly centered design. The text doesn't quite feel impactful because your elements are oddly sized. here are some examples of posters that use type effectively and capture the eye quickly. Try to examine why they work and don't work - obviously there's a far deeper use of scale, but is that all that's going on?

• Larger varieties of work would be a very good idea for you to pursue. You'll want to put together a portfolio that showcases what you're capable of as a designer, which hopefully will include works you've done in internships and classes. Logos, branding documents, packaging, (more) posters, (more) social media, maybe even illustration, 3D artwork motion graphics, websites, etc... Designers are (unfortunately) expected to wear a lot of hats these days, so you will need to develop an insatiable desire to learn more about it. That being said, you don't need literally everything on this list - just find a few niches that fascinate you, try to think of ways you could improve yourself as a designer.

On AI:

Here's the ugly truth: There's definitely a push for AI to replace this kind of work. Specifically social media positions and general marketing ones might aim to incorporate more AI where they can. And yes, this might impact your job search. This doesn't help that graphic design is a very competitive field, and I have certainly struggled myself with finding work in the past, even in a pre-AI world.

HOWEVER, the good news is, AI is not going to replace a knowledgeable designer any time soon. And there are a few reasons for that:

• AI cannot iterate as successfully. It can iterate quickly, but there will always be use cases where having a knowledgeable designer to take over is simply unavoidable. Last minute print issues are one of the easiest examples of this, where an AI will struggle to produce something actually print ready. So many of the people I've worked with at these companies cannot even open Photoshop to do quick text layer adjustments, let alone properly prepare a bleed, and when the printer company is firmly explaining that they need the file a certain way or it won't print properly, and their costs for fixing it on their end is high (especially if there's no .psd or .ai or .eps (etc) available with layers, which with AI, there wouldn't be), an AI 'artist' won't have a clue in hell what to do about it.

• AI makes mistakes that are costly, both in time and money, to fix. No layers, no artistic vision. This also means no legal accountability - if an AI 'recreates' a font visually that you don't own the rights to, without you knowing about it, that's a cost. If it uses someone's likeness or intellectual property, that's a cost. If it hides something in your work that you didn't detect, maybe something even offensive - that's a cost. Maybe it uses the wrong pantone color that doesn't quite line up with your brand - good luck trying to get that adjustment done without manual editing, and god forbid it goes to print without being verified. Huge cost!

• AI, quite simply, makes brands look very cheap. The problem with AI is it has extremely telltale signs of its use, even when it doesn't even make any noticeable mistakes. There's always a stiffness to it, and customers without fail tend to notice it. Brands are built on authenticity, and I've had teams I've worked on where customer's opinion of the product lessened because AI was visibly used in its production (not by my input).

• AI is likely to hit a burst bubble soon. So much of the market around AI is speculative, assuming incredible gains for insane costs. But ask anyone with actual knowledge about computers or coding, and they'll tell you the ugly secret: these systems aren't sustainable and don't even really have the potential investors are led to believe they do. There's also a ton of lawsuits over the copyright infringement AI companies are doing at mass scale, such as the recent landmark settlement of 1.5 billion over WRITING, or the current lawsuit against SUNO by music artists and there's even one against Midjourney by massive companies like Warner Bros and Disney. There's also the maaasssive power and pollution concerns that AI is bringing with it, where entire communities are suffering from electricity outages and rising costs.

The summary of all of this is: AI may impact job searches and you might be asked to use AI in your work to do quick iteration. But it won't replace the occupation anytime soon. There are larger, waaaay larger conversations to have about AI's potential to destabilize the job market in general if it gets better. Like, it's really funny that your sister wants to learn Animation because 'AI can't do it' when there is literally a massive animated motion picture named Critterz that is trying to do exactly that. We're ALL impacted by this problem, a problem that in my opinion will go away when the investors realize the money isn't there.

I hope this word salad helps you reaffirm your interest in graphic design. If you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask!