I am currently out of a job and have been struggling to find one for the past couple of months.
I had been working for my parents helping with everything to do with there church. Building there website, Editing there videos, making thumbnails, designing Books and there Logo. I was originally supposed to work for them for a short while to help find a job, after leaving my last Job. But because of the pandemic and other reasons, I ended up working for them for over 5 years.
Due to money and needing to step out, I need to find a job. But no matter how many jobs I apply for and how many agencies I email, I get no reply. I know that I should have focused more than I have on making personal projects that grow my skills and portfolio, and I am trying to remedy that.
Also I have struggled with social media, which I am trying to fix as well.
Does anyone have any suggestion or advise, I greatly appreciate it.
This is a quick drive-by post. I spent literally just 2 minutes or so looking at your site. I think generally you have some nice samples and nice work. What immediately stood out to me were there were some comments such as “this was my first time doing this” or "I did this for my friend’s mom” that makes you come across as less experienced. So, once again, this is just a quick impression, but I would focus on cleaning up the writing and content to come across as more experienced, professional, etc.
I’m sure others will chime in and if I have a chance I will try and do a more deep dive tomorrow. Do you have a CV or resume as well to share? Perhaps there is something in your CV/resume that is making potential employers hesitant.
Thank you for the advice, I appreciate you taking the time to help me. I will definitely look into wording it better.
Looks like I can’t add a link to this reply (because it is my first time posting).
If you or anyone else wants to have a look at my CV, I put it in a hidden section of my website over here jasonwolff.co.za/cv.
With your CV I would change it to say “graphic design” as opposed to “graphics design”. You also list high school and then a vague reference to online courses in your education section. Do you have any formal training or did you take any of the online courses from a university?
I am self self-taught, learning through different methods, but i don’t have any formal training. I have only recently gotten a certificate through Coursera (Calarts, Fundamentals of Graphic Design), I am trying to finish all the other modules so that I can have the Specialization in Graphic Design Certificate. Also this is to cover everything I may missed in my scattered learning approach.
Do you recommend I take out the education section.
For “Soaring Stationary” – Stationery is misspelled. Stationary means it is not moving. Stationery is the spelling for writing materials. Manufacturer is also misspelled
Also, for the logos, while not inherently incorrect, all the logos are essentially center aligned text with most of them having a mark, and two lines of text (in all caps) where most of the time, the top word is a different font. Once again, not necessarily wrong, but as far as a showcase of logo design the approaches on all the logos is fairly “cookie cutter” from an execution standpoint. As far as a positive (IMO) the fact that all of the logos show that they work in black and white is great, but potential employers or clients will most likely want to see how the logos would work in color, placed on products, business cards, etc.
At the top of the logos you also list it as a vol. 1 for 2026. Since you only have the four logos, I would not stress that it is a series of volumes and IMO it is unnecessary in this situation
For Fusion Source – I assume that the visuals are showing youtube thumbnail images. Maybe. If so, I might include a little blurb explaining what the channel is and what the visuals are.
Treasure Trove logo and illustration – The logo is very nice. In fact, overall I personally like to see the progress from an initial sketch to final deliverable. It shows that you begin with idea generation before getting bogged down in execution.
Overall, the text treatment throughout the site (the body copy) needs attention. Focus on alignment, space after paragraphs, line breaks, etc. Especially on the Treasure Trove section where the text is all center aligned and has no space after what I assume are intentional line breaks.
For the Christ Healing Center – the fact that the page is essentially all one image makes it less responsive. I realize it may make it more challenging to replicate the layout through web design, but I would make it similar to the other pages as an actual page, with divs and text.
Also for the Christ Healing Center, while I realize that was the majority of your work. I’d narrow it down to the highlights which IMO are the Heal the Sick shirt, the Trusting God Beyond the Diagnosis book (does it not have a UPC?) and a few images form the website. I would not include the CMS functionality and I’d only include 2 or 3 of the youtube thumbnails which you feel work the best.
For the Trusting God book, one again, the general body copy is the weakest the point. Especially on the back cover.
I’d say overall for someone with no formal training you have a good amount of promise. I’m unsure about the education section. I think you’re stuck between a rock and a hard place. By not listing education, as a potential employer I would be inclined not to hire you as most job listings (at least here in the US) require a degree. However, by listing that you only have a high school education and some certification it would also make one not inclined to hire you (once gain here in the US) as you don’t have a degree. I’m not sure what the market is like in South Africa. While completing more work through Coursera and listing certifications may be nice to include, as a hiring manager I would most likely eliminate you from the running as other applicants with a degree would be more readily considered.
You can probably poke around here on the forum saying the following and explaining it in more detail, but the graphic design market is overly saturated including self taught designers as well as designers with degrees. And more often than not, when employers are filtering through applicants they usually narrow them down by whether they have any formal training and usually by how much experience they have which would out you at a disadvantage.
With that being said, your work is nicer than some recent graduates with degrees, but also in some cases not as good as some recent graduates with degrees. I do think you have a pretty innate talent that can grow and be nurtured. I also think a formal education would suit you best if you want to pursue graphic design. However (once again you can poke around the forum and read more about this) I will stress that the graphic design field is very, very saturated and with the advances in AI, crowdsourcing, etc. it is a difficult field to currently succeed in. That is not to say that you should give up, but it does mean to educate yourself about the reality of the business and figure out how you can succeed.
Then there is the opposite end of the field where designers like myself who have nearly 30 years of experience need to be aware of and have plans on how to adapt and survive age discrimination.
Your portfolio is limited and gives the impression you want to make logos and work for churches. From a business standpoint, those are brutal niches if you are marketing yourself as an employee.
A degree from CalArts has a great deal of cache. A certificate from one of their online courses has none, and listing a minor accomplishment like that probably draws attention to you not having a 4-year degree, and like @CraigB noted, that’s your job competition.
You might look into putting your religious designs on clothing and selling through etsy, etc. Not the same as a full time job, and I’m sure the market for that is already saturated, but it doesn’t require more education.