Hi, from very amateur designer!

My name is Ella and I’ve just recently graduated from high school. I want to do a bit of freelance design for small local businesses and I’m here because I will most definitely need help and critique from fresh eyes and people who know what they’re talking about.

Thank you in advance!

You shouldn’t be offering any services if you don’t know what you’re talking about.

You want to get paid work from local companies, then use a forum of professional designers to improve your paid work from people from here for FREE because they know what they’re talking about?

Think about that?

I’m not suggesting you don’t pursue a career in graphic design.

But you’re far better off getting an internship at one of the local companies and enroll yourself in some design courses - locally in colleges or government schemes that are available in your area.

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Couldn’t agree more with Smurf on this. You are nowhere near being in a position to be able to offer professional services in any good conscience.

It’s great you want to pursue it as a career, but I’d suggest going the formal education route every time. Then 5 years studio experience. Only then will you possibly have enough knowledge to offer professional services.

Do it, but do it the right way. It can be a great career, but only if you really know what you are doing. There are so many people out there who see it as an easy, seductive route to a cool career. You’ll be bottom-feeding with them forever. Give yourself the best chance you can of being an apex predator!

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That’s a really good point, thank you. My only problem would be that I live in a rural area that doesn’t have many studios locally let alone any that are willing to take interns. I do have a Bachelor that is deferred for next year, but in the meantime, I purely came here to seek guidance because I can’t access it locally at the moment. I wanted to use the time before hand to build my skillset and practice, maybe even get some feedback.

I want to be a heart surgeon but not many opportunities in my area. Can I practice on you and then I check with a forum of random doctors if I’m doing it ok

Welcome :hugs:

Have you done designs for businesses yet? I’d like to see some of your work.

Could you please show us your portfolio?

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Ella said she just graduated from High School. I’m thinking there isn’t much of a portfolio - other than things she is practicing on. She did post her latest project in the student forum. It had some really great sketches … but it’s gone so she must have deleted it. :frowning:

I hope she sticks around and knows that not everyone will bite her on the ankles when responding :wink: If her sketching skills were any indication, she has great potential.

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image

Not saying it can’t be done. But using a forum of random unknown graphic designers instead of formal education is a bizarre route to take.

It’s a digital world now. Maybe I’m wrong.

I am old, and things are done differently than when I started out.

Best of luck. And if a snarky reply from one randomer on the internet is preventing the OP form posting further, then perhaps they aren’t ready for real world critiquing…
:innocent:

Sorry - but I’d rather push formal education over education by forum.

But maybe it will work. And the OP won’t get any official certificate that shows competence by a recognised educational body.

It’s just harmful route for the OP to take. Years of working and doing bad work, and doing it wrong, with nothing formal to show at the end of it.

I am just one man. One opinion.

Ella said she has just graduated from high school and is deferring higher education for a year.

Years ago, after graduating from a rural high school, I painted signs for a grocery store. I’d spend about three hours alone in the store each Wednesday evening painting signs advertising their weekly specials. The next day, the store owner would hang them in the windows.

In hindsight, they were probably pretty bad. Even so, the freelance job was my first experience with this sort of thing, and it influenced my decision to pursue graphic design as a career a couple of years later when I changed my college major.

As others have said, a formal education is the door into this field, but it won’t hurt to do some paid work here and there as long as the person hiring you knows you’re still an aspiring designer with some not-quite-yet developed talent.

I didn’t get a chance to see the sketches you posted. @RedKittieKat said they were pretty good. She has a good eye for things like that, so I hope you repost them. I’d like to see them. :smiley:

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I read the post.

Weird about forums and difference of opinion .

Seen as the world is diverse, as are opinions.

I have my opinion. You and others have your opinion.

That’s what a forum is.

It’s one person’s view. If your don’t like it move on.

Edit* it’s a forum, relax, we all want to help. We just help in different ways.

I wish someone was straight with me when I started out.

So relax, as a forum this is awesome, you guys do a great job.

I’m not a traditional forum user. I’m not mister popular. I’m not right all the time.

In fact it’s rare.

But I’m entitled to my opinion.
I read the posts. I give my opinion, my experience.

All I ask is that you can respect that.

I’ve not had an easy life. I’ve been in worse situations than most including the op. Obv not war situation.

But I am in a battle of a market saturated by amateurs.

I’ve made a good life myself.

I want that for ops, that’s why I’m a prick and hard on them.

Because it’s like the real world. Except not as harsh.

Bi Ullamh

Sorry for being harsh, but it’s far from who I am.
It’s far from what’s encountered.

Oh, I completely respect you, your opinions, your experiences, and your knowledge. I might, on occasion, have differing views on more subjective matters, but I rarely disagree with you on the less subjective things. For that matter, I agree with the gist of what you’ve written in this thread.

We might differ the most in how we express our similar viewpoints. You’re more direct and assertive. I probably take a more nuanced approach.

If everyone had the same viewpoints and expressed them in the same way, the world would be a boring place. There’s room for both, which is pretty much what you already said.

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Exactly.

I wish I knew

I’m curious Smurf. Did you grow up in a small rural community? If so, I think you might’ve been a little more understanding.

I grew up in a town of 2000 people. The closest university was over 65 miles away. And my family had limited resources. I started as a freelancer when I was 13 years old and the only sign painter in town passed away suddenly. Since I was supposedly “the town artist“ I was expected to take up the mantle and I did. I made decent money and got much better at my skill very early.

Later when I had a chance to go to college and then to get a real job as an assistant to an art director at a Tv station, that early skill helped me get that starting job.

Small town people simply do not have the opportunities that the same people might have who had the advantage of growing up in larger communities.

I am 74 years old now and had a very successful career, but I had to spend the first 15 years of my career while still in college to gain the experience I needed for that success to happen.

Please Smurf, for the sake of the voice of the rest of us who are on this forum, try to be a little more understanding to those who are very young and very inexperienced.

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Removed and responded privately.

Why am I not surprised by a wall of text.

You just never quit. I’ll give you that.

Once again … we are done with this thread.

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