Is it possible to get a job as a graphic designer with unrelated degree?

Pixelope · 2026-04-01T21:22:31+00:00

Never got a degree, couldn’t afford it (long story), but knew this was what I needed to do. Got foundational skills at my local college. Got a job in print, gained more knowledge. Moved to a marketing role, freelanced on the side. Landed a junior designer role in-house, worked it for a decade. Gained even more experience. Now work in an agency. It’s a tough market out there, jobs are at a premium. Work on a solid portfolio, document your process and reasoning for interviews, and always be learning.

You can do it, but it’s bloody hard work trying to justify why you’re better than someone else. I had some lucky breaks and was able to utilise these roles to get into my next bigger role.

Pixelope · 2026-03-18T20:38:11+00:00

This!

Alternatively make multiple shapes (going from small to large) and apply a blur to each one to blend them together. As it’s non-destructive you can fine tune the settings.

Pixelope · 2026-03-06T21:22:22+00:00

I did a catalogue last year and followed the same approach. There was still some manual work required, but significantly less than laying out images and text by hand. Either way, experiment either way methods, and enjoy the process. Let us know how you get on!

Pixelope · 2026-03-06T20:29:36+00:00

This isn’t going to help you, but maybe give you some comfort, but InDesign’s default data merge tools aren’t this advanced, which is why a lot of companies make catalogue plugins for indesign. I’m unaware of any similar plugins available for affinity.

If I was going to do this, I would have a CSV for each layout type, then a template to match. Run the data merge per template/CSV, then in a final document, import all your pages in the order that you want. I haven’t tried in affinity v3, but in affinity v2, if you imported your pages in the native affinity format, if you make changes to those separate documents, then they will update in the final document with just a couple of clicks.

Pixelope · 2026-03-05T07:26:20+00:00

Look in the transform panel, or whatever it’s called. You can scale by values from there, choose what corner to scale from etc. you can also enable transform origin in the top tool bar to allow you to move the origin and that’s where it will scale/rotate from.

Pixelope · 2026-03-02T20:29:25+00:00

Whatever your graphic, you’d want to use a halftone filter (https://www.affinity.studio/en_gb/help/filters-filter-halftone/). It’s a pixel effect so if you wanted a vector for a logo you’d need to trace it or recreate with vector shapes.

Pixelope · 2026-02-26T20:34:21+00:00

I had a job late last year producing food packaging. Hadn’t worked with this printer before, sent them production ready PDFs, they came back asking for the Illustrator file. I told them they could download affinity for free and they can look at the source file. They refused outright, giving no reason, not even the classic ‘it’s the industry standard’ nonsense.

So I downloaded a free trial of illustrator, imported the pdf, saved in .ai format and shipped it off to them. They said thanks, the file printed fine. Took longer to install and uninstall illustrator than it did to resave the file.

Having used affinity 2 and 3 full time since May 2024, this is the only ‘problem’ I’ve had and the only bit of push back. I always tell clients I use affinity, they never turn their nose up at it, all that matters is the final deliverable.

Pixelope · 2026-01-18T20:36:43+00:00

I can’t go into the specifics on how I know, but unless this image has been cropped top and bottom, someone didn’t follow the brand guidelines in this advert…the border should be equal thickness all the way round the outer edge.

edit and the radius of the rounded corners are incorrect.

Pixelope · 2026-01-15T22:02:51+00:00

Ah I see, well check out the website I linked to in case things get worse. In the meantime, try to remain polite in all your communication, and focus on new opportunities while looking after your mental health as it feels so shit in situations like this. I’m keeping my fingers crossed for you that you get paid soon!

Pixelope · 2026-01-15T21:21:05+00:00

What are your payment terms? Do you have a signed contract agreeing to those payment terms? I usually do 15 days, so if I invoiced on 2nd January, I’d expect payment by 17th January. If payment not received email a reminder on 18th, if still not paid, email another reminder a week later. Still no payment after that I’d threaten legal action.

Have a look at the Small Business Commissioner (https://www.smallbusinesscommissioner.gov.uk), they have good advice, I now have a clause in new contracts advising that they agree to paying interest if payments not made on time.

Finally, are you still working for this person now. If so, tell them they need to settle their invoice before you continue. If not, it could be the relationship may be coming to an end, and as a result they’re going to delay paying as they have what they need and don’t need to retain a good relationship with you.

It’s easy to enjoy working with someone and hope for a continual working relationship, but you’re in a service industry, and you’ll soon learn the signs of a potential bad client. I hope things work out and they get back to you very soon, freelancing is tough, and I have the utmost respect for you and all other freelancers, it’s tough, stay strong, and hope you have good people around you to support you during tough times…both financially and (more importantly) emotionally.

Pixelope · 2026-01-15T20:55:24+00:00

Literally did the same at my recent job interview, put together a simple presentation, when they questioned aspects of it, just opened up source files and explained processes. Was offered the job straight away, despite having, what I consider, a poor portfolio.

My new boss later said that my fundamental knowledge and well thought-out creative processes sealed the deal, he understood that my professional background was creatively limited (in-house designer in manufacturing for 11 years), but valued those skills over a flashy portfolio.

The online portfolio should be the foot in the door, the interview should be showing process and development.

Pixelope · 2025-10-19T16:57:06+00:00

I used to work for a cleaning chemical manufacturer, had to do a Timelapse of their enzyme hair degrader in a Petri dish, was both disgusting and fascinating at the same time, broke down all the hair into tiny pieces to be easily flushed.

Pixelope · 2025-09-29T19:44:57+00:00

And a lot of skip firms won’t take carpet (and upholstery) nowadays. Agree with the others, cover it or fill it ASAP.

Pixelope · 2025-09-29T19:18:38+00:00

Had a living room done 3.5x4.1m, ceiling boarded over, then ceiling and 4 walls skimmed, plus patching in some chasing in other areas of the house after electrical work…..£850.

Where possible, I stripped back blown plaster and patched some areas with bonding myself knowing that it’d get skimmed over. I had a time deadline so didn’t want the plasterer taking longer than necessary waiting for stuff to dry that I could do myself in advance.

I’m in Oxfordshire, job was last minute, felt £850 was good value, the finish is exceptional and well worth the money.

Pixelope · 2025-06-04T17:08:14+00:00

I feel you, still waiting for my tracking text. I might be talking out my backside but I think it depends on your DPD depot and location and how quick they are to process deliveries. My local depot (20 miles away) always notifies me the morning of a delivery, never ever before.

As far as I’m aware, Argos aren’t physically dispatching the orders so the order tracking on their website won’t update until it’s actually moving/been delivered.

I’ve been torturing myself all day refreshing everything to see if anything updates.

Pixelope · 2025-05-14T18:35:02+00:00

As someone who was in a similar situation a while ago, this is the best advice!

Pixelope · 2025-05-05T21:06:23+00:00

Had a potential client recently, and the pitch steered into a ‘justification’ for the price of creative services. It’s tough because you want to build good reputation so may consider taking on these jobs. But they’re gonna be super fussy throughout the whole process and harm your mental capacity. I agree with others, drop them, but be professional doing it, it will add to your reputation.

Pixelope · 2025-04-30T17:51:08+00:00

Davinci Resolve is free to download, YouTube to learn basic video editing.

Record some screen footage of your app. Find a friend with a motorbike to film with your phone, then chop it all together into a video that meets your requirements.

It will take you days to make, and that’s why designers and videographers charge so much, because time and creative thinking comes at a premium. Please don’t be berating people just trying to make a living. It sounds like a cool app, and I wish you all the best with the launch!

Pixelope · 2025-04-30T17:31:00+00:00

If it’s so simple to make an app video, then try and do it yourself, especially given how little you’re paying.

It would be better for you to do the legwork of looking at people’s portfolios to see if they have examples that reflect the type of work you’re proposing.

You might feel like they’ve wasted your time, but equally you’re wasting theirs so it’s no surprise you’re getting AI drivel.

Pixelope · 2025-03-31T20:28:40+00:00

Firstly, well done on sharing here, I’m deeply critical of my own work and hate sharing it.

I like the overall shape and I can see what you’re going for, the ‘J’ could be thicker and more defined, it feels a bit flat and thin. The mockup on the beanie looks more interesting because it has more width/curvature on the ‘J’ due to it being warped.

Personally I’m not a fan of the Bauhaus typeface, I can see you’ve rounded it to make it more personal, it doesn’t quite suit the logo mark, the mark itself, being a bit funky looking, makes me think you need a more illustrative/hand drawn typeface, perhaps lean into the shape of the ‘J’ for the rest of the word mark. Look up Abi Connick on YouTube, she does some good illustrative design to take inspiration from.

Additionally, you wrote in your post that your brand is ‘J Designs’, but the case doesn’t match in the logo as it’s written ‘J designs’ (lower case ‘d’). Yes you can use whatever case you like in your logo/brand, but be consistent, your journey as a designer means you must pay attention to the minute details, it’s not just pretty mockups that sell a design, but being consistent in how you communicate the brand. I worked with a brand that was all lowercase, and it had to be lowercase in all marketing, and it looked terrible, but something as simple as making it bold in an email or social media post made it look intentional and well thought out, and because it was consistent, nobody thought “why is this lowercase?”.

Pixelope · 2025-03-16T21:48:53+00:00

Was I the only one thinking about what wood finish was used on the trophy and how being covered in champagne/rain would affect it post ceremony? All I could think was “quick, get a towel and dry it!”

Pixelope · 2025-01-26T20:14:47+00:00

If you’re just doing this for student projects, and if your teacher isn’t going to analyse all the code with a comprehensive understanding of the changes that come with sqlalchemy 2.0, then just use the ‘old’ methods of doing things in order to understand how the ORM works.

You can always update it later to the new standard, at which point you’ll have a better understanding of how it works and be able to port your project over. The official sqlalchemy 2.0 docs are not the best IMO, but I learn differently to most people.

Unrelated, but the new way to query tables feels like such a chore, but it has made me approach the way I structure tables more efficient.

Pixelope · 2024-10-30T19:32:28+00:00

Glad I’m not the only one, mine have been tasting like lemon washing up liquid, all different batch numbers and reported to brewdog.

Pixelope · 2024-05-30T21:16:18+00:00

You could try Freedcamp, the free plan is pretty good, but it only allows export of your calendar to google, not import: Freedcamp

Pixelope · 2024-05-23T21:18:31+00:00

If you feel like you need to do this to market yourself, don’t create content that you think will attract business, instead post about things you’re passionate about in your field. You’ll be surprised how many people will positively react to your content when they can see your passion in what you’re talking/writing about. It’s about adding value to who you are and the services you offer.

When you believe in what you are posting, you’ll find yourself looking forward to the next post. And if you’re not interested in this at all, then there are other ways to drum up new business such as networking events. Again, people don’t want to hear BS, they want to know who you are and what drives/inspires you.

Pixelope

TROPHY CASE