Graphic design without sugarcoatings

This is a sensible,  no-bullshit, straight-to-the-point, devoid of sugar-coating description instead of the social media's portrayal of a bunch of coffee-sipping Apple fanatic hipsters preaching about how 'cool',  'slick', 'edgy' graphic design is (with a cute background ukelele music) without even telling about the hard work, tradeoffs, and pain behind it.

I've been designing for 10+ years and now, sometimes..... I want to get into basket weaving.

All kinds of design are extremely Sisyphean jobs, most of the tasks are not made up of creative activity, but rather of logistics and marketing and sales, and in addition, overall it is also extremely harmful to the environment.

According to my daily experience, it is a profession where practice, skill, and effort aren't always enough to guarantee to make a living. 

It is a sitting job

Here is the good news, the job is not physically hard.
You can sit for 8 hours! Straight! Sometimes more! It is a sitting job! In this point of view, yeah, our job is really "easy".

I absolutely hated sitting at a desk for 8 hours a day. I felt like I was wasting my life away in virtual reality and moving from one screen to another. Then I picked up walking as a hobby (2 hours/day), and it became a bit better.

If I have a window I can watch the closest firewall in the next building.

Healthwise this amount of sitting is bad for your eyes, bad for your ass, bad for your back, and bad for your wrists. Actually, around age 38-45, small issues will stack up, and the real shit kicks in. Remember this article when you got your first hemorrhoid.

Highly competitive working environment

I liked designing and drawing for 10-12 hours on my own, back in college. I still love to improve my visual skills or learn new software. But when I got my first job in a crappy startup-ish company, I kinda started to loathe the thing.

The atmosphere was so toxic, that the first winter I literally had to duel with my senior designer because the management declared that they only intended to keep one of us! I felt physically and mentally so weak, I ended up being seriously ill. 

I remember lying in my furnitureless room (I only could afford bare 4 walls+internet basically) and pondering about my depression and incoming failure.  

I had to come up with original ideas that my senior (luckily) absolutely could not do. My design won the tender of the Hungarian Museum of Fine Arts but it destroyed the master-student relationship between my older colleague and me.

That was not my type of workplace and I looked elsewhere.I left bad jobs, and jumped into worse jobs! (I believe jumping from bad jobs into worse jobs is especially the experience one has to make.)

Consider the stress... it's not something one can overlook.

Accepting a job 

That's why you need to ask questions during the interview. Check the environment, check the toilets, check the leisure room, check the kitchens, check the workstations, and your future workstation, check the chairs (once again, it is a SITTING job), and check the company policy.

You don't need free coffee, table soccer or darts table, or beer nights with your coworkers. You need a good chair. You need the software and hardware background. You need a good contract. (Having fun colleagues is just an extra bonus, that is not necessary.)

If the work environment is messy and unhealthy, the chairs do not allow dynamic sitting, don't even consider working in that position. It will be bad for you.

What do you feel during the interview? Your intuition will be probably right.

The hierarchy 

The hierarchy of needs for small, medium, and large companies is different. 

If you work for a small or medium company you have to do many things, like writing code, doing customer service, doing SEO, answering phones, translating texts, you name it...

You will never be able to specialize yourself.

This is one of the sad reasons why I became a one-man army. :)

Guess where I waste most of my time and then regret it? Yes, frontend.
Why do I regret it? Because web development changes so fast, all of my knowledge gets outdated faster than a Subway sandwich rots. You need to learn constantly. 
If you are lucky you can convince your team to invest in you. If not, you have to rely on your own, learning every night the latest practices without any guidance.

Not so competitive salary 

If you are an average designer working for a small/average company... then do not count on a significant bonus. Your salary will not be stellar.

Lawyers/accountants/doctors/engineers/prostitutes earn a lot more. No, it is not an exaggeration. There is nothing quite like being stared down upon by an aging part-time camgirl to remind you that you are not at the top of the food chain. 

Not to mention private clients. Sometimes they will just not pay. I had a customer who owed me money. The man got the nerve to enjoy massages, spoil his kids with gits (and share photos) but he couldn't cut me a check when I asked for my compensation.

Overall.. don't pick this profession because of the money. You will be disappointed.

Design is a ✨luxury✨

The market is full of designers. This profession is saturated, people are often pitted against one another, and not everyone is picked. 

You will find getting a job difficult if the economy weakens for any reason. You can make no mistakes during a job interview and still find no work.

Design is not something that people need for their everyday life.

Design is a luxury that is only necessary when there is competition and resources. 

Even when my projects were going successfully I would always be asking other teams if they needed help and networking with their project leaders, because you never know when your project will end and you need to find a new "job" even if that next job is with the same company.

That’s pretty stressful, and given the circumstances, many ask themselves “If I have to do that anyway, why not just own the enterprise, to begin with?”

Being a freelancer without knowing the difference between RGB and CMYK, stay-at-home moms, and other oddities 

I realized that many people were drawn into this world by watching videos about "digital nomads" or freelancers, and reading lucrative articles about extremely successful Etsy shops.

 
I would be wary of making important life choices such as starting a business based solely on the perception media has given you of that business type.

I understand that you probably wanted to draw since childhood and imagine your life as a popular designer/artist/whatnot.

I don't mean to discourage you, but most people never end up in the career they wanted when they were younger, especially if that career is over-saturated in applicants or those seeking a place within it.

Most graphic designers don't make much money and often work long unsociable hours and suffer from a great deal of stress trying to meet the deadlines their clients set for them. 

If you start your own business you'll be in charge of your own advertising, editing, distribution, and so forth, and will have to pay for it all out of your own pocket. Including the learning curve, until you finally learn the rules of printing and/or web publishing. If it's done as a labor of love, good, I wish you all the best but don't count on ever making much money or achieving fame.

If you want to be "your own boss" you will end up having each of your clients as your boss respectively.

This entire idea of starting a design studio out of nothing is extremely popular among stay-at-home moms (or other women who ended up being out of the normal workflow). It is almost as fashionable as making baby photos, and online yoga classes.

I don't know why, probably because the ugly and stressful part of maintaining a business, managing clients, and making them pay, using and abusing your friend circle on the way.. is rarely discussed.

(Sure, I get that moms do a lot, but when they start that crap about being the COO of their household, I'm out.)

"Over 30 ways you can MAKE MONEY as an artist"

People will suggest you start a Patreon, with different physical products and sell your stupid mugs and bookmarks, start making videos, be a superstar, get sponsorships, etc. Pretty much everything they're listing requires either money (to get the materials, fashion them, or outsource the work, etc.), lots of exposure, and a consistent following on social media, or both. And for some people, having a good following on social media will just never happen.

It is like suggesting playing the National Lottery.

 
Gambling is not a business plan, my child.

It is not art, it is not about YOU

The design doesn't need to 'speak to you'. Logos are made to be quickly recognizable for the market of the brand. (Many people think a logo should be something elaborated but actually, a logo should be able to communicate an idea most simply and immediately as possible)
UI is made to be easy to use.
Advertisement is made to be successful.

You are not an artist, you are a problem solver. Actually, you can be an artist, if it doesn't hinder your job, but I don't really recommend it. Art usually walks hand in hand with self-expression.

But that design is not really yours.

People will comment on your design. They will ask for changes.
You can't take it personally. Usually, you will not make the final decision.
It is how it is gonna be.

99 times out of 100 

Like I said designing is usually not hard. If you find it hard just download something from Shutterstock, modify it, and sell it as your own. Don't misunderstand me, I invested an insane amount of time and energy to conjure unique solutions when I was younger, but 99 times out of 100 none cares. And life is short.

Working together with people is hard.
Communication is hard.

If you get experienced, people will knock on your door for "solutions". Literally, for solutions even if they call it "nice" solutions. They want something that fits into their world. It doesn't necessarily mean that it is good.

I am sorry that this is so random, I can talk forever about it.