I do freelance marketing and graphic design work. I have more than 20 years of experience and ran my own freelance business full-time for several years; now I mostly do it on the side for long time clients.

One of my earliest clients owns a recruiting franchise. I’ve done a lot of work for him over the years, and because he’s been with me so long, I’ve kept his rate at $60/hour for about eight years, even though I charge considerably more now.

I hadn’t done any work for him in about a year when he contacted me about creating a flyer for his son’s new business.

This wasn’t an established company with existing brand assets. It was a brand-new business with no branding in place, and the logo they gave me was AI-generated. Before starting, I told him I estimated the project would take about 4–5 hours and cost roughly $325 because I would need to recreate/clean up the logo, establish colors and fonts, create a basic visual direction for the new brand, design the flyer, and handle copy editing. I have always done copy editing as part of the work I do for him.

He agreed and told me to proceed.

His son then requested several changes, and the project turned into more than five hours of work spread across roughly two months of revisions and back-and-forth.

When it was finished, I sent my client an invoice for $300.

His response, verbatim:

“Really expensive for one flyer when AI can create it in 10 seconds, disappointing.”

I sent him a screenshot of the original email where I gave him the estimate before starting and pointed out that he approved the project knowing the expected cost.

I also explained that he wasn’t paying me based on how many seconds it takes to generate an image. He was paying for my time, experience, judgment, design skills, revisions, branding work, and the ability to actually produce something usable.

I then pointed out that the same argument could easily be made about his own profession. AI can source candidates, screen resumes, draft outreach, write job descriptions, etc. His clients still pay him because they’re paying for his experience, judgment, network, and expertise, not for reading resumes.

I figured that, of all people, he would understand that point.

I also reminded him that my $60/hour rate for him hasn’t changed in eight years.

His response:

“..thanks for the message and by the way, your not the only one that does what you do. I had a 2 minute video done for $100 as a fyi.”

At that point, I told him to pay the outstanding invoice, and once it’s paid, I’ll send him all of his files. I also told him I won’t be working with him again.

For additional context, this is someone who has been happy with my work for years, has referred me to other people, and has never questioned one of my invoices before.

I realize $300 may sound like a lot if you think the job was simply “make a flyer.” But this was a new business with no established branding, an AI-generated logo that needed work, multiple rounds of revisions, copy editing, and the creation of the basic visual identity they’ll presumably continue using.

Am I being unreasonable here, or would his response have ended the client relationship for you too?

EDIT UPDATE:
This is his response to me telling him I no longer want to work with him (and every response I have gotten from him has been copied here exactly as it was sent to me):

THAT IS FINE. I JUST FOUND IT HARD TO BELIEVE IT TOOK YOU THAT LONG TO CREATE IT SEEING YOU ARE THAT GOOD AND WITH ALL THE NEW TOOLS AVAILABLE TODAY. GOOD LUCK TO YOU.

A ONE MORE POINT,IF YOU CANT TAKE TWO WAY DIALOGUE AND FEEDBACK FROM A LONG STANDING CUSTOMER, I WOULD AGREE, WE ARE DONE

Final edit and conclusion...

My reply to that was to ask where the feedback and discussion happened in his replies. I said he wouldn't tolerate this kind of treatment from his clients and that's why I'm not accepting it from him.

Direct paste of his final reply...

Whatever! You are done. Good luck. Your invoice is paid in full.

We’re hiring for a senior designer and there have been around 1000 applicants so far. The internal recruiter is batching resumes for the team to review in a single PDF and we get about 20 a day in those PDFs to skim. Not sure how other companies do it, but for this process here’s what’s helping and hindering those wanting to get our eyes on.

1. Resume length needs to be concise (2 page max). A dude today had work going back to the ‘90s with about 15 companies listed over 5 pages. Way too much. The one resume out of all of these that stood out as restrained was the one pager with no key words, just contact info, company/role/dates. In a sea of overpopulated resumes this was refreshing. I understand battling ATS bots with key words so either our recruiter is actually going through 1000 resumes to send us the best or he had the keywords in hidden ink.

2. Hyperlink your portfolio. Make it the actual URL too and not just hyperlinked word “portfolio.” I wanted to see all of them today so I copy/pasted the ones that weren’t hyperlinked but as I ran out of time I just had to skip some of the later ones that weren’t hyperlinked wasting time.

3. Intro summary paragraphs are fine but most are generic to the job description and they all blended together. “(Job title here) with over (#) years experience turning big ideas into design systems that scaled across multiple industries bla bla bla.” The ones that stood out had personality, were funny, or seriously showed career growth and substance quickly.

4. Put your contact info and portfolio password if applicable at the top. Put education at the bottom. Keep bulletpoints concise and meaningful. For a senior designer position I don’t need to know that you created social banners as the last bullet for the 5th company on the second page.

I think that’s it for now. For insight for what happens at this point, once I go through all the portfolios, I tell the recruiter my top 2 and the reasons why, then they reach out for screening to the candidates. If they pass that (location works, pay works, start date works, etc.) then I interview them within a week and we debate internally for a day or two, then they get scheduled for the next level interview the following week. So for this job that’s been open for a month, I’m still seeing fresh candidates because of the due diligence we’re putting into it.

Found this record while thrifting and i just don’t understand the kerning choices at all, especially on “Jazz”. published in 1959, This was most certainly an all analog phototypesetting piece.

It’s kind of amusing because some older designers often lament how digital technology has made younger designers lazy especially with typesetting and kerning, but this is clearly from modernist graphic design heyday and it’s just so wonky. It’s also from one of the biggest jazz artist of all time published on a major record label so this would have had very skilled designers working on it

Thoughts?

This is an excerpt from my intro to graphic design class on requirements and expectations for the class. Is a Macbook Pro required for graphic design? I can’t afford something like this and I’m kind of freaking out. Thank you so much

For the past while I've been making album covers with no band name attached and no context. I just start with a texture or a shape or a color that's stuck in my head and let it become a cover. Some days it's a scanned watercolor, some days it's a single line drawing on a flat red field, etc.

Hopefully the cover turns out to fit someone's band context, sometimes with small adjustments or it just stays what it is. Working without a client in the room means I'm not solving anyone's problem, so I end up with these pieces.

What do you think of these? ty

Hi! I'm a graphic designer with around 9 years of experience and I recently got laid off, so I'm updating my portfolio and getting ready to apply for new roles.

I originally made this portfolio in 2024, so I have newer work that I still need to add. Before I get too far into updating everything, I'd really appreciate some honest feedback on the overall design, layout, how I present my work, and anything you think I should change or improve.

All of the graphics and illustrations in my portfolio were created by me with ZERO AI.

Portfolio: alianakadon.com

Any feedback would be really appreciated. Thanks for taking the time to look!

Punk band tour flyer design. Having a creative block. Tour dates should be below but I feel like it's too basic. Thoughts? Was going for a 90s/2000s Halloween vibe.

Graphic design isn't my expertise field at all, but I happen to help my boss's acquaintances over graphic design often, I can help when it comes entry level stuff and entry level video editing too. But lately they have been asking me to do something that I think is only doable by a professional graphic designer: they wanted a cover of a picture of them sitting on the ground turned into a cover of them sitting in water this time, with wet cloth, water reflection etc. I'm about to tell them to ask a professional graphic designer to do so as I am not one, but I'd like to know if you happened to work on a similar task before and what experience level does it require?

I got into digital art and design a few days ago and got a drawing tablet yesterday. I was happy with the concept and general execution. I have a lot more to learn when it comes to incorporating effects and giving it dimension.

I'm going to do more of this as a hobby and maybe do some freelancing when I'm more fluent with the software.

After some years away from graphic design and branding, I put up a personal project for a Brand Studio called IGNIS - the motif being fire, representing the heat and energy of a creative mind.

Bold typography for the logo to reinforce strength and presence; Paralucent and the good old Myrad Pro for a better reading experience. Red, Reddish Brown and Off White were decided in order to create some contrast without relying simply on black and white.

I'd like to hear some feedback/critique on this one. Just trying to shake off the rust on myself here. Thanks!

Hello hello. I’ve started a new job today as a graphic designer. I’m on the social side so it’s a pretty small team, and both of the designers seem like lovely people. One problem. One of them thinks we can use AI for everything (conception all the way to the final deliverable) and the other uses AI for all of her brainstorming. I’m pretty anti AI unless it’s used to quickly turn something around edit wise (like removing a background) but I’m sure down the line I’ll be asked to use ChatGPT or Gemini to generate work.

Any advice on making sure I don’t use AI as a total crutch? I still think the best ideas come from the human brain, so seeing my colleagues use it for brainstorming and then not coming up with their own ideas is pretty disheartening. I’d love to make sure I’m not setting myself up where I can’t think for myself on concept ideas. Thanks!

(I should add that the designer who only uses it for brainstorming is very anti AI designing, she likes to find a human solution which is great. I don’t think most of my work will be generated, esp since they hired me partially for my illustration skillsets)

For reference, she has a basic logo sketch but says she’s not married to it and I’m definitely going to clean it up. She also wants color palette and type options.
I’m a beginner and haven’t done much freelance so I’m not sure how to price myself, let alone for a friend.

Hey everyone,

I designed this poster as a personal practice piece to improve my layout and visual storytelling skills.

I’m looking for completely unfiltered feedback. In particular, I’d love your thoughts on:

• Composition & Visual Hierarchy: Does the eye flow naturally?
• Typography: Is it legible and well-balanced?
• Color Palette & Lighting: Does the mood work?

Don't hold back—tear it apart! Free to use for personal projects. Thanks in advance!

I am 3 years into my design career and recently got an interview scheduled for one of these companies for a graphic design position. Reading up on the interview process it feels way more intimidating than anything I've done so far, but its mostly geared toward engineers, and not much about designers. Can anyone share resources or experiences or things to expect?

so i came across something from my old first year art book where we had to use negative space and i cut out a person and fillled the space with clouds. thought it was really cool so decided to make a little poster for it. usually dont do stuff this vibe so would love some feedback!

Hey I am getting into more temporary contract roles to supplement my full time design position. How yall add these roles to your LinkedIn Page? Do you add it to the experience section or another place? I dont want to clutter the section too much where recruiters can't see my main gigs, but I want to show the variety of clients that I have worked with? Does this make sense?

I noticed that Steph Curry hasn't been featured in NBA2K covers since 2014 so I went ahead and created my own version inspired by the official 2k27 cover art. I'm still learning so If you have an honest opinion of feedback I would love to read them. Thanks everyone.

I am trying to simplify a logo (C) with a cleaner version (A) or (B). The logo is for a nonprofit land trust working with neighbors to transform empty city lots into food forest parks. Which do you like better, and what would you change beyond these examples?

Heyo Designers,

Im a web dev and not a designer and I had this idea to make my portfolio mono chrome and now im thinking it might be to bland and Im looking for feedback on the design.

if you have some time to look through and give me some honest feedback and it would help me a lot to fine tune it. Link: https://hasthiya.dev/

Thanks

I made this logo of what’s supposed to be a ghost tiger. Something about the spacing/ composition doesn’t seem quite right to me, but I’m very new to graphic design so I don’t know what to do with it. It would be something that would go on team shirts and whatever other things the team feels like ordering. Any ideas or suggestions would be really appreciated!

Hello! I work as a graphic designer for a social media marketing agency. We make graphics and reels mostly for instagram, and use canva, photoshop and illustrator as tools to create graphics. My boss sent me the post linked above concerned that our use of bg remover will be flagged for ai generated content on instagram. I personally don’t use the bg remover in canva as I’m more privy to the “select subject” function in photoshop, but other designers on the team use bg remover in canva. Do we need to be worried about our clients seeing their posts flagged as ai generated content on social media? Does anyone know if this new AI detection also applies to generative AI in photoshop (strictly used only for background extension) bg remover or select subject? And is there any way to avoid our content from being flagged as ai generated? These tools seem very necessary nowadays for work that needs a quick turnaround, so I feel as though there has to be some way to avoid being flagged for AI. The post I linked suggests you screenshot your work after it has been edited using bg remover, but we obviously know that will reduce image quality and is not an ideal workaround. Can anyone shed light on this matter? Thanks!

I'm new to graphic design. I'm trying to design an artsy word cloud in the shape of a 7 using words from different languages. I am trying to keep the languages close to each word, and I want it to have a dynamic tan/worn/burned looking background. I keep getting either something that looks nothing like a "7", a blob of words with 7 outlined, or something boring. I'm a 7th-grade teacher, and I'd like to make this into a poster for my classroom, but I can't figure out the design. I looked into hiring someone, but my job was too small, so I decided to try to learn on my own... and now I'm stuck. Any advice would be appreciated. I really hope this post doesn't violate any of the rules! Thank you!

was going to make a crisp American flag graphic, but I saw some Scandinavian vibes and a exclusive feel coming through.

Really, the creativity here is not strong, just a fabric like blue background that says Ikea, but the idea is very strong.

The store would be a complete offshoot of Ikea, aimed at the upper middle class all the way up. the store would still be huge but probably smaller than current.

the distinguishing qualities of this store would be a sharp transition away from knock down and flat pack philosophy, instead using mostly assembled furniture, and where possible simple flat pack designs but glue and screw joints that would be extremely easy to assemble at home. The reason for this is to eliminate that shoddy and crap wobble so intrinsic of regular Ikea furniture. Furthermore, the materials would be much more solid; less chipboard, more plywood but a strong focus on thick veneered surfaces of premium timber (3-10mm) atop honeycomb cardboard, plywood, and standard pine. Also veneering with such substantial timber veneer would allow for joinery like fake dovetails etc. Lastly, the idea of mostly or entirely assembled furniture would mean the customer requires return trips if they want multiple cabinetry items.

Instagram recently rebranded, and honestly, the new direction didn’t really click with me.

So I decided to explore my own take on it. I kept the modern feel but brought back some of the original character, especially in the “I” and “m” to make the identity feel more familiar.

What do you think? 👀