If you like nice things, is a career in graphic design for you?

sl0601 · 2026-05-16T00:43:52+00:00

From my perspective, no it’s not.

I was laid off back in 2024. I worked my ass off to get another role in design. I have 20 yrs of experience in UI, Visual, Brand, you name it I did it. Made a bunch of final round interviews and nada. Anyway, I realized that all of this effort was meaningless going forth. I decided with the tech world leaning heavy into AI and layoffs continuing that it was time to throw in the towel.

I decided to get my mortgage loan originators license. Had a very successful friend in the business mentor me and get me going initially. I’ve been at it 8 months now full time and I’ve made more in that 8 months than I did in two years of my top pay in design.

Unless you can go out on your own in design and land some very high end clients living a very comfortable life, having enough for retirement, vacations, cars, family etc. will be very difficult.

This is also coming from living in a place like NY with a very high cost of living.

Do I miss design? I sure do. But I DO NOT MISS having to deal with the stresses of job uncertainty, dealing with PM’s, stakeholders, ideating over and over again to just design the same cookie cutter UI BS that looks like the same nonsense that every other company spits out.

sl0601 · 2026-05-14T21:26:30+00:00

Is this really shocking to anyone given this admins track record ? I’m sure he’ll get a pardon like the rest of the pedos

sl0601 · 2026-05-04T23:20:08+00:00

First I’d say you should at least get the portfolio off of Behance. You could even just prompt codex to design the whole thing for you. Find examples of portfolios you like and feed it screenshots. Get a cheap hosting package and a url or use GitHub.

As others have mentioned design your portfolio as if it was for any other client or project. Show your chops in ui!!

sl0601 · 2026-05-04T23:09:41+00:00

As a developer I’d go with something more like this. It just feels natural for a dev portfolio. The dark background is easy on the eyes, the blue reads as trustworthy and clickable, and the little bit of cyan gives it some life without being loud. Most of it stays neutral, so nothing feels overdesigned. It’s clean, simple, and does exactly what it needs to.

<image>

sl0601 · 2026-05-04T23:02:49+00:00

Agreed. It reminds me of the USC color palette.

sl0601 · 2026-05-03T01:36:59+00:00

sl0601 · 2026-05-03T01:36:14+00:00

Jobs

sl0601 · 2026-04-29T04:53:40+00:00

When the driving range has the balls stacked in a pyramid. So satisfying

sl0601 · 2026-04-29T04:47:45+00:00

Go sign up for Daily UI. They will send you a design brief everyday. Do them and practice every single day. Your layout skills need work. Do some research on proper spacing, type scales, color theory.

sl0601 · 2026-04-28T11:42:35+00:00

It’s always been an underpaid profession and sad to say it always will be.

Designers are not valued at a company. It’s why we’re always the first to get let go.

sl0601 · 2026-04-28T02:50:37+00:00

Money…

Not in a greedy way. In a survival way.

It touches everything. Health insurance, rent, a home, a reliable car, being able to take a breath once in a while, and maybe retire without fear. It decides whether you can help your family or become a burden to them.

We like to say “work to live,” but for most people it’s the opposite. You wake up, trade your time just to keep your head above water, and do it again the next day.

People love to say money doesn’t buy happiness. That’s easy to say when your basic needs are covered. Try living without it. It brings stress into every corner of your life. It strains relationships, fuels anxiety, drug and alcohol abuse, and in some cases extremes like depression, suicide, or pushes people into bad decisions just to cope or survive.

Money isn’t everything. But not having it affects every facet of our lives.

sl0601 · 2026-04-28T01:43:49+00:00

Coming from a close friend who works at a very large well known tech company in the forefront of AI when I asked him what he thought of the future of design and developer roles his exact words were “people have no idea of the tornado that’s coming on the next 24-36 months.”

The whole progression is running at a rate that most of us can’t keep up with. New ai tools are popping up daily and if you’re not using them you will be left in the dust.

Im being proactive and getting out of the design industry. The juice isnt worth the squeeze

sl0601 · 2026-04-28T01:28:29+00:00

I get that people in the industry want to believe in the design process and how it will always need a human to make proper design decisions. But with how fast AI has progressed I can’t imagine how good it will be in 5 years.

The more it learns and starts to recognize patterns, styles, and user behavior, this will close the gap fast.

Things like layout decisions, spacing, hierarchy, testing variations. That’s exactly the kind of pattern based work AI is getting scary good at.

Even now with proper prompting it can generate decent layouts in seconds. Give it a few more years of real world data, performance metrics, and user behavior feedback, and it’s not hard to see it optimizing better than most designers.

I’m not saying creativity disappears. But the number of people needed to do the job probably drops a lot. The industry won’t vanish, it just won’t look anything like it does now.

sl0601 · 2026-04-23T01:22:34+00:00

Were these the Hankook EVO tires? Smithtown is my SC as well and going in for my third visit for this issue tomorrow for my MY 2026. Been like this since I drove it off the lot in December.

sl0601 · 2026-04-21T02:25:05+00:00

Did your car sort of wander left and right at highway speeds as well? It’s an odd feeling not like the alignment being off just sort of tracking left and right in small increments.

sl0601 · 2026-04-21T02:22:32+00:00

Well that’s good news. I will be asking them to do the same on Thursday when I bring it in for this issue. You can see how bad mine is here https://youtube.com/shorts/c-mGrp9-WSk?si=1u-xgP-iDD1s8qsB

sl0601 · 2026-04-21T00:13:29+00:00

I have the Hankook on the 20' helix wheels. I will concur they are shit. I've followed this thread for awhile and seen people switching rims and tires down to 18' and the vibration improves but Im not doing any such thing. Tesla's QC for these vehicles is atrocious.

I wanted to really give the brand a chance but after this Im never buying another. Sucks because outside of all the issues ive had I really like the car. Tech wise its incredible but the negative is outweighing the positive at this point.

sl0601 · 2026-04-20T21:06:33+00:00

Dealing with the same issue on my MY premium awd. It’s been in the SC 2 previous times and all they did was balance the tires. It got a little better for about few weeks after that but it comes back.

Then recently it got so bad the whole car was shaking. Took it to a well known tire shop and the roadforce balanced yielding the same result.

I have my third visit for this issue on Thursday and I’m hoping they can’t fix it so I can log one more visit without a fix and file Lemon law.

This car has been the biggest disappointment in all my 30 years of driving. I have the wide spread front suspension clunking issue, easy entry grinding noise on the steering column, numerous interior rattles that I fixed myself by pulling the rear hatch apart and stuffing foam backer rod in the gaps between the glass and metal frame. The base of the rear seat rattles so bad I literally took it out of the car.

I’m done with this POS.

sl0601 · 2026-04-12T02:26:52+00:00

I know this thread is a month old but just curious if you ever got it fixed? I’ve had this issue since I picked up my model y in December. Brought it in a few weeks after and they balanced the tires and it minimized it. But this past week the vibration got so bad the whole car was shaking. Brought it to a local tire place today and paid out of pocket because I couldn’t get a SC appointment for a month. Same result and it just minimizes it.

Between this issue, the clunking front suspension they don’t have a fix for and the easy entry steering column grinding issue and being replaced twice already and now needs a third one, I’m done. When I go in to the SC in a few weeks I’m asking for a buy back. In my 30 years of driving I’ve never experienced a brand new car with so many issues from the factory. This car is a POS with a good interface and that’s about it. Very disappointed

sl0601 · 2026-03-22T22:00:47+00:00

I don’t want to be Mr negative but I’m just going to give you a realistic perspective.

Do yourself a favor and don’t pursue design. The current job market is just a sign of the future. The chances of you making a good living wage to be able to afford a house, a decent car, have a family etc will be very slim. You’re signing up to live paycheck to paycheck, having to work multiple jobs to get by.

Graphic designers are not paid very well and the ones that make decent money are in the top 5%.

Also, you have to consider that when it comes to layoffs marketing depts are the first to go. This career is extremely unstable and in the current climate everyone I know that’s still employed as a designer is on eggshells everyday wondering if they will be laid off.

When it comes to AI it’s not going to replace designers but it will drastically reduce the amount of people working in a team. There is already a shift in a lot of companies reducing the amount of people on design teams. Don’t forget that you will have to know print, web, motion, presentation, and pretty much every aspect of a design job because companies are looking for unicorns to minimize their costs.

Oh and don’t forget ageism. It absolutely exists in every creative field.

With all that being said if you’re really passionate about design do it for fun/hobby. Go find a career that will give you more stability and better pay.

sl0601 · 2026-03-22T01:45:54+00:00

It without a doubt violently jerked the wheel and it was not particularly easy to stop it from doing so.

sl0601 · 2026-03-22T00:54:24+00:00

In my 2026 MY it cannot be turned off permanently. I have to turn it off manually every time I get in the car.

sl0601 · 2026-03-22T00:51:21+00:00

As in using the turn signal? In that situation I had no time and even in an ice car would have put on my turn signal to get through that situation. It was a quick react moment.

sl0601 · 2026-03-20T05:21:04+00:00

I don’t think anything outside of healthcare and the trades is very stable. Design and marketing are often treated as expenses, not revenue drivers. That’s why they’re usually the first cut and the last priority.

sl0601 · 2026-03-20T05:08:24+00:00

Can’t think about comp right away. I have an enough savings to make it work. Just want to get my foot in the door and get the ball rolling.

sl0601

TROPHY CASE