Maya Barkai, 2012

I turned 12 of my favourite analogue photographs of Berlin into little calendar for 2027.

Hi everyone 🙋‍♀️ I am starting a fully remote full time graphic design job at an agency. I wanted to know if you have any insights/ tips and tricks in surviving a design agency + working at home. Thank you!

Hi everyone, I’m new here. I’m an Italian product and media designer, recently moved to Switzerland, and I’m trying to build my own agency.

I studied product design at IED, and afterwards I also went deeper into media design: branding, graphics, social media, photography, web design.

If you work in this field, you know there’s always new software. I started with Illustrator, InDesign and Photoshop. Then Figma came along, and for simpler tasks it was often easier. In web design I tried Webflow, but it felt too technical, and now I use Framer for my clients’ websites.

Lately, though, I’ve noticed something. People say Adobe is in trouble: they’re adding AI everywhere, and more and more free open source software keeps coming out. I pay about 70 francs a month for Creative Cloud and use Illustrator and Lightroom every day. The price is fair, but it scares me to think I’m using software that people might not know how to use in the future.

So my question is: do you think Adobe is done by 2030? Will schools and designers move to other software, maybe built with AI? That wouldn’t be wrong, I’m just thinking out loud. Is it only my impression, or do you see it too?

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I've been struggling with communicating with clients who don't have a design background.

Like, they'll say they want something "minimal" or "premium," but when I show them the design, they're like "hmm not really what I had in mind."

But when I ask what they want changed, they can't really explain it either 😭

So I end up going back and forth, making a bunch of versions, and still have no idea what they're actually looking for.

How do you guys handle this? Do you ask a ton of questions upfront, use moodboards, or just keep trying until something clicks?

So after some years I've come to the conclusion that I am a hobbyist and not a professional designer. It is not my day job, I have never had a full time job in it over many years, I basically do it for the love of it and only specifically within my niche subculture. I spent many years pretending I was still in school when I wasn't to get a discount, threatening to cancel my membership to get discounts, now the last available option is to guinea pig some new software and I still only get it dropped to $50/mo. This just isn't sustainable in this economy. I know that affinity is free now, and I have also used open source freeware alternatives as well. I know the switchover won't be totally smooth, and that I'll have to relearn some things, but what I'm looking for is advice from people who have done this process about something I might be overlooking. Something I can be pretty bad about.

How does Behance work without an adobe subscription? Any issues? Is it free? Can I even use it without Adobe? What if I migrate my Adobe portfolio website to Behance before cancelling, will I lose it after I cancel? I'm sorry this seems like it should be a Google question itself but I'm literally getting conflicting answers from looking this up .

Theoretics aside, how can people with personal experience attest to the functionality of using Photoshop or illustrator proprietary files in free programs? What's the best thing for me to do about replacing acrobat?

Is it a huge pain to cancel and restart it again say I suddenly got called up to work full time or even on a contract but they required Adobe product usage for the work?

Most importantly what am I not thinking of? What's gonna hit me like a ton of bricks that you didn't consider til you thought you had this process figured out?

Thanks for any and all advice.

Hello everyone! I'm just starting out in DTP and I work at Aius Publishing House in Craiova, Romania. I have a small technical problem and would need some help from an experienced specialist to configure a book cover in CorelDRAW.

The technical data I have for this project are:

Finished (net) format per cover (1 and 4): 14.5 cm x 20.5 cm

Spine: 1.0 cm

Bleed required by the publishing house: 5 mm all around.

Please clarify a few practical aspects for me:

What is the exact total size with which I need to open the document in CorelDRAW: 31 cm x 21.5 cm or 31 cm x 22 cm (taking into account the 5 mm bleed requirement)?

How do I correctly place the Guidelines for the 5mm cut lines and the two spine crease lines?

What are the exact limits of the Safe Area for Covers 1, 4 and the spine, so that the texts and logos are not affected by the guillotine?

Thank you very much for any advice or guidance!

1. What is the exact total document size I should open in CorelDRAW: $31 \text{ cm} \times 21.5 \text{ cm}$ or $31 \text{ cm} \times 22 \text{ cm}$ (factoring in the $5 \text{ mm}$ bleed)?
2. How do I correctly set up the guidelines for the $5 \text{ mm}$ trim lines and the two spine crease lines?
3. What are the exact safety margins (Safe Area) for the covers and the spine to make sure no texts or logos get cut off during trimming?

Thank you very much for any guidance!

Hey guys I'm in 8th grade and really like graphic design. I've been doing thing son adobe and PowerPoint and canva for a few years now and it's something I've thought about as a career. Are there any tips or things like that I can do to somehow break into this space. I would love to do design I'm just not sure how. Thanks for any feeback! 😁

Currently in the process of applying to my masters project - i learn design at university.

Would love to hear what sort of projects people got up to!

I've noticed a trend lately where companies advertise full-time positions, take candidates through multiple rounds of interviews, and then suddenly change the role to a contract position toward the end of the process.

It's frustrating to invest time and energy into interviews only to have the terms of employment change when you're already deep into the hiring process.

Is anyone else experiencing this? Is this becoming more common in the current job market, or have I just been unlucky? Any advice for someone looking for stability?

Ou je peux trouver des clients ? je suis un génie sans visibilité

Hey!I am Ahzam. As the title says i am trying to learn graphic designing and i want to learn it with friends to make it fun and less challenging. I want a designing buddy:).My skill level is compelete beginner i just know about the basic terms like visual hiearchy,typography etc and have watched some videos on them.I am using affinity and i havent designed anything yet only played with some tools.

Curious how everyone is approaching AI lately

Been trying to figure out where to invest my time in learning AI, but there's just so much out there lol

I don't want to spend time learning every new tool just for it to become irrelevant in a year

I guess I'm wondering where everyone thinks the design industry is heading. Is AI mostly going to be about speeding up workflows? Image/video generation? Automation? Or something else entirely?

A few questions:
- How are you guys using AI in your workflow? What tools do you actually find useful?
- What specific AI tools or skills are companies looking for when hiring designers?
- What are you currently investing time in learning?
- What do you think will set designers apart once everyone knows how to use AI?

I guess my biggest question is how do we stay competitive without constantly chasing every new AI tool?

Would love to hear what everyone's doing or where you think things are headed!

Hi, I’m a 3rd year bachelor product design student at the University of Bologna (Italy), currently on an Erasmus semester at the University of Twente (Netherlands).

During the past week I have had the occasion of visiting the Dutch Design Week in Eindhoven. I was very intrigued by the student exhibitions (especially the DAE Graduation Show), but upon visiting the question arose spontaneously: am I at a design show or is this some kind of contemporary art museum?

Here is what I mean: during my years at design school I’ve been taught that the main line separating design from art is function, but to be honest I have seen very little function in the projects exposed. Basically every single project was some kind of conceptual/abstract thing, which really challenged my understanding and made me wonder whether or not I know anything about design.

Am I right in thinking that what I have witnessed is NOT design (but rather art) or am I just not getting something? And if I’m right, how the hell is DAE considered a world class design school rather than an art school? Maybe the line dividing art and design is thinner than I thought it to be, or maybe I’m just not experienced/knowledgeable enough to get it.

Sorry if I might sound like a “know it all” guy, I’m genuinely just curious at how a school like the DAE and a Technical University can both be considered design schools and they can be listed in the same rankings when their approaches are so radically different (one very conceptual/abstract and one very engineering-centered).

Another thing that I wondered, where is design thinking in such conceptual projects? Where is user research? Where is development? Where is modeling? In short, where is the design process?

Just some things to think about. Please feel free to express your opinion and call out my bullshit if I’ve said some

I can't order food anymore. The menu has 4 fonts and one of them is Papyrus. The prices aren't aligned. Someone used a drop shadow on the word "Soups".

My friends want to talk about the food. I want to talk about the leading.

The pasta was good though.

Hey everyone! I’m trying to build a community of vibecoders who love building cool stuff and have a good eye for design.

We’re hosting a lil virtual vibecoding jam this week where you’ll build an event website. You can use whatever AI agent you’re comfortable with, and the winner gets cash prize (100usd)

Not sure if this is something you’d be interested in, but if it sounds fun, drop a comment below and I’ll share the link with more details!

Would love to have some of you join us!

Hey guys I am a product designer, I’ve done B.des in product and industrial design, I have an experience of 5+ yrs now. But still there are some positions and jobs that say masters is required or mandatory.

Just here wanted to know what other fellow designers think, is a masters in any design in 2026 even worth it or necessary? Or Bina masters ke bhi chal sakta hai ?

Lmk your thoughts below