I’ll just say I’ve never met a graphic designer in the wild who actually makes their living from all these sexy posters and brand kits I see on TikTok. Every designer I’ve ever met worked for, like, a real estate company, or for a food distributor generating barcodes for boxes of tea, or designing email headers for the internal comms department of a corporate janitorial company. Just totally unglamorous but dependable work. It’s not bad, but just not cutting edge. It’s certainly never anything that requires all the tRiPpY art nouveau typefaces, blend tool abuse, or blurry half print type textures constantly generated for IG and TikTok.
The number of dog ugly dudes who look like they need a wax and a bath in acetone yet make their entire living teaching other people on Instagram how to Photoshop every hair and pore from a woman’s body is entirely too high, though.
It's the same format as design blogs years ago. Tips and tricks, get sponsored, show some inspiration, show a project, start advertising, rotate through your audience until you lose enough for it to be not worth the effort, fin
Design inspiration should come from outside the design world.
Following design influencers leads to the same context collapse AI suffers from, resulting in shallow copies of trends with no depth or meaning behind it.
They don’t even register. Because, ….. The Dunning–Kruger effect is defined as the tendency of people with low ability in a specific area to give overly positive assessments of this ability.
I can see that. The problem is a lot of comments are overwhelming positive, and all I can think is if this was presented in a top studio it’d be thrown out.
I guess it’s the difference between the online world where you’re often designing into the void as oppose to against a brief and business objectives. There are decent designers out there mind you, but the idea of designfluincing just seems to devalue the industry for me
There is a guy who repeats the same old-fashioned, hand drawn logos for every one of his clients presented in the same style for every client, on a colored background with antique objects around the outside. Most of the time the objects aren't even for the right industry. He pops up every year or so, reposting the same content from a different account. When I called him out, he sent me a link to his book to try to prove that he was a good designer and then blocked me.
I laugh. And I'm greatful for the help weeding the narcissists out of my life.
I didn't accept the request to chat, so it is gone now. But it was probably 3-5 weeks ago they were posting that I saw them. It was probably in the logodesign sub. I did check out their website and was further disgusted because they follow the same formula for every single client, showing about 10 type design options for each client, but they only have about 20 options total in their toolbox that they use for everything.
I'm sure the clients love it because they go to them specifically for that style. But as a designer, I have zero respect for that.
The more formulaic your work is, the faster AI will be able to replicate it, so they are likely to put themselves out of a job faster.
I really don’t understand the draw to Chris Do. I find his videos so cringy. Yet so many views.
Him doing client / designer role play with someone in his audience instantly makes me close the tab.
I’m sure a lot of them started out as designers and then when ‘influencing’ made more money than the design work they switched. What a different mind set tho having to be a content creator over a designer. Sounds exhausting tbh. But if the money is right, I can see why people do it.
Some designers who have popular YouTube channels and social media accounts are excellent at what they do, and are actually helping educate people about good design practices and what the career is really like.
It doesn't necessarily bother me that they get money from YouTube (for many of the ones I watch it can't be a substantial amount) or even that they sell stuff like courses or digital assets. There's nothing inherently wrong from making money from your design work, even side hustles. And it doesn't bother me that some of their content caters to a YouTube or social media audience, with short, timed rebrand challenges to themselves (Brandon Shepherd) or competitions between other designers (Zimri Mayfield) because they're exercising good design principles and showing strong results while making the work fun and inviting others in.
However, some of the worst examples are selling a lifestyle that generally doesn't exist, to people who eat it up, most of whom don't know any better and many of whom will never work as designers – especially in the full time freelancer lifestyle that's most commonly depicted. It's easy to present a sunny, positive image and get people excited, because for those who don't make it – which will be the majority of the people who follow the worst examples I'm thinking of – they'll just fade away.
And if someone were to say something in the comments of those videos like, "Hey, I did everything you said for years and I couldn't get work as a designer", the finger would likely quickly be pointed back to them, saying their work wasn't up to par – and because there's subjectivity in assessing design, there's no way to really combat that argument. If someone tried to be a full time freelancer and failed, it must be the quality of their work – right? (sarcasm)
And for *those specific designers* with popular YouTube channels or social media account (I don't like the terms "Design Influencer" or "Designfluencer") who I'm reference, they're completely exploitative, and it infuriates me. There's one in particular who drives me nuts because her videos are so well made – and she's not even editing them! – that she'd grown a cult of sycophants around her that can't see the truth. Her work, especially her typography, is deeply lacking and in the past couple years I've seen young designers trying to emulate her style, "customizing" type in terrible ways. At one point she told her "story" and said she only started designing after quarantine hit – and the video where she gave this reflection was at least a year ago, so she was looking back on her design career – which as far as I can tell, didn't involve education or working full time for anyone other than herself – a couple years into her career (I'm trying not to put every other word in quotation marks).
It drives me nuts, as does the fact that she seemed to create the fantasy of her lifestyle before she was working for paying clients – then she sold the fantasy through her videos – and soon enough, real clients who didn't know any better seemed to think "she's legit!" and hired her to do work, so now she's been legitimized when her skills and judgement needed a good decade or so to sort themselves out. Putting bad work out into the world is bad, but presenting yourself to naive followers as an authority is a sin in my view.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DbUTc6E1rHs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DbUTc6E1rHs)
Note in the beginning of the video she said she made a choice not to improve her design work, but to improve her marketing!
I've seen the occasional video on TikTok from her. I'm not a fan and not her audience, since I'm 20 years her senior. But I care about her, and people like her, because they represent industry trends.
On one hand, I'm old enough to remember when design influencers were more in the vein of Tobias van Schneider ... self-important dudes with beards all designing hyper-minimalist stuff and selling it through connections and bravado. Compared to those guys, Abi feels like a breath of fresh air to me. At least she openly admits to learning in public.
On the other hand, she's a designer who clearly has very little formal training. This shows up in some of her process and work.
I don't think her work is so bad overall, even if it is green at times. People comparing her work to Canva is interesting, because Canva employs designers and is responding to broad trends at the direct consumer level. I think she's intuitive and knows what her clients (and their customers) will respond to, and that's ultimately smart.
She has no formal training. She says so herself:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0U-6omir2k](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0U-6omir2k)
She started her channel four years ago, seemingly starting hobby work as a designer as the same time, and within two years she was presenting herself as an authority. She talks about her background in this intro:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6glIhH5NJ0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6glIhH5NJ0)
I'm not saying she doesn't have something to contribute, but look at this video she made two years in. Just scrub through and see what she does to the type:
[https://youtu.be/lNOqlS5X1GU?si=SXMfoh1An49ItQ0o](https://youtu.be/lNOqlS5X1GU?si=SXMfoh1An49ItQ0o)
She has no business presenting herself as any kind of authority. She used videos like the above to get real client work, which shows how clueless some clients are.
And then she used that client work to bolster her position as a real working designer, and started selling courses to young hopefuls. That's crazy. I hope she looks back at what she's done someday and cringes, maybe deletes all the early stuff, but I don't expect that she will. She believes her own hype too much.
> I'm not saying she doesn't have something to contribute, but look at this video she made two years in. Just scrub through and see what she does to the type:
>
> https://youtu.be/lNOqlS5X1GU?si=SXMfoh1An49ItQ0o
Seems like a very typical case of how learning software does not equate to developing design understanding.
https://preview.redd.it/pzyx3md8657d1.png?width=1606&format=png&auto=webp&s=8afeb6e5e0d0911c80fd99ed4645056c268fdaa1
Definitely. Look at all of that "personality".
The sad thing is, and I mean this – I have no doubt that she'll continue to grow in popularity and be seen as an expert, especially as those who follow her – those who manage to get hired – go one to become the tastemakers.
Imagining the Abi Connick chapter in a future Graphic Design book makes me think of the ending to Ray Bradbury's "A Sound of Thunder". Hopefully I'll be retired by then, or dead. Eventually, one or the other will be true.
The most frustrating aspect to me is how you can have legit criticism around ability, technique, or even a public media personality, and people will just be dismissive because they take it personally. *They* like it and so therefore your criticism is attacking *them* by proxy of their preferences.
Or outright try to hide behind subjectivity, used similar to "faith." Just kills any discussion.
And I know, that's not new, it's always been common, I just can't relate to it at all.
Why can't we all just discuss things properly. But then, like you I think, I like discussing things. Many seem to just want validation.
>Imagining the Abi Connick chapter in a future Graphic Design book makes me think of the ending to Ray Bradbury's "A Sound of Thunder". Hopefully I'll be retired by then, or dead. Eventually, one or the other will be true.
*sigh* Yep.
> On one hand, I'm old enough to remember when design influencers were more in the vein of Tobias van Schneider ... self-important dudes with beards all designing hyper-minimalist stuff and selling it through connections and bravado. Compared to those guys, Abi feels like a breath of fresh air to me.
That's basically just most marketing in a nutshell. Throwing different skins onto things to grab different demographics.
Not sure I see whatever most of you all are seeing in this particular video.
Here is a woman speaking to designers about not only how to get 'more' work, but how to position yourself as a strategic business person in order to get better work that pays more and the process in which that work is to be developed.
The tool she's talking about is a typical 'tailored' agency tool/proposal that helps current and potential clients understand what's involved in the design process (the different phases) so that they know what to expect, and again...why something costs what it costs. This clarity also enables potential clients to understand what services/deliverables and associated timeline you will be providing so that they can make an informed decision when other designers are also bidding for the same project.
She's says her focus (of this video) is not specifically about improving design as the video is about the 'process' in which you will ultimately lead to creating better design. It's implied design deliverables will improve.
Honestly, it seems like 90% of the designers here on reddit are asking how or complaining about not getting work, not being paid well for that work, and or their clients not appreciating their education and skills.
This video is meant to help those folks help themselves.
The most successful designers are the ones that understand that its not about what software program they use, how many logos they have created, or what school they attended, rather how to positioning yourself as a business person who is trained at helping clients solve complex problems with highly tailored solutions.
Yes, it's meant to be helpful – but she has no business advising anyone.
This video came out two years ago, and it was two years after she started her channel. In the intro she states that herself:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6glIhH5NJ0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6glIhH5NJ0)
She presented herself as an authority within two years of starting out some form of design – almost certainly not real client work.
That would be egregious enough if she'd gone to school for design, but she didn't. Here's her video How I became a Graphic Designer without a Degree:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0U-6omir2k](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0U-6omir2k)
And here's one more video where she shows how to customize type:
[https://youtu.be/lNOqlS5X1GU?si=SXMfoh1An49ItQ0o](https://youtu.be/lNOqlS5X1GU?si=SXMfoh1An49ItQ0o)
Look at what she does to that poor font. Again, she's instructing people as a self- within two years of starting design in some way, likely as a hobby, from the perspective of a YouTuber.
You're right – many designers here could use more advice not just about design but about marketing, positioning, sales – business itself.
But not from someone in her position.
I had not heard of her prior and was commenting specifically about the 'design proposal' she shared per the original thread here.
Based on what you have shared and further research into her videos...it'd pretty evident a graphic designer she ain't. Ouch.
It 'is' clear she's pretty good at leveraging social media to convince people she's a trained graphic designer. We live in the golden era of self promotion after all.
I guess if I cared enough I could do further research to unearth how she came across the 'design proposal' she shared. Perhaps she was a project manager or something like that at an actual agency and 'borrowed' that to talk about.
I'm with you now.
Yeah. I take no pleasure in saying anything negative about anyone. But, she's actually damaging young designers, with both bad information and false expectations.
She says in one of her videos from two years ago that she was 24 at that point, so unlikely that she would have worked any substantial time as a project manager before then.
I've done all the unintentional research on her that I'll hopefully ever do. It's disheartening.
Exactly. She promotes the false narrative that anyone can become a professional Graphic Designer without formal training which seems to be quite common sentiment on this thread. The "Just understand the basics of color and layout" crowd. Ironically, this type of statement is often followed by statements like 'why is it so hard to get a full-time job' or 'Graphic Design pays so poorly'.
Yep. I'm reading the comments on the customizing type video now and getting angry all over again.
"She is just simply the best design instructor in the whole wide world. Lots of love, Abi."
"So this 64 year old just learned a ton of stuff in about 12 minutes!!! You are a great instructor! Thank you for sharing!"
"Babe you've literally just taught me more about illustrator than a full year of my graphic design classes. Thanks a million omg"
"So helpful as always Abi. Feels like I learn more from you than I do in my graphic design classes ♡"
"Loved it! I'm about to start working on type manipulation for a client so this came at a great time lol. I usually gravitate towards the blob brush tool instead of the pencil tool when making customizations"
"I really don't know if thank you is a good enough word to use to express how much I appreciate your videos. Many persons have skills, but only few know how to teach others that skill."
It is depressing.
Look at it this way. For every one of her, there's people all over the world on Youtube telling their followers not to take Vaccines and the world is flat...so big picture, the damage she's causing is relatively minimal.
A lot of the underlying attitudes seem to be mostly from an emotional standpoint, especially around the notion of learning, training, developing.
They view all education as the same, and as elitist or largely a scam/waste, and while that definitely does apply in a lot of cases, overlooks what the education is actually supposed to represent, which is all that development.
Virtually no one would think that way in almost any other scenario. Where we have Person A who has 4000 hours following a meticulous plan under the tutelage of a 5-10 person group of experience mentors/coaches. And then we have Person B who has maybe 100-500 hours entirely self-directed with no real outside feedback at all. Now let's pretend both will arrive at the same endpoint. That's how a surprisingly high number of people think around design development, including on this sub.
Let's apply that to anything else. Sports, painting, accounting, language/writing, skilled trades, whatever. No one would *ever* bet on Person B, and yet within graphic design people try to pretend there's no difference between them except an expensive piece of paper. If that *is* the case, it just means Person A went through a terrible program.
This is the one that kills me. And she does it in many of her projects. Look what she does with the word "good" around 6:00
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCkM5zJooYY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCkM5zJooYY)
A shorter one:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNC-1mebaUY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNC-1mebaUY)
Read the comments – those people worship her. The last time I said something negative about her on a thread in this sub, someone came out in defense of her. Her followers are frighteningly and blindly loyal.
I would say they're Canva at its worst. What she does with letterforms is an abomination.
I've actually seen her improve to some degree, and she's good with color, but the problem is she's doing it in real time, with an audience of wannabe designers and on real clients' projects.
When you start out in design I believe you have to work through your worst instincts and get things out of your system. I've done that, I think everyone has, but it's way better to do it on personal projects, school assignments and early freelance projects for small clients than for a mass audience.
As soon as you mentioned customizing type in bad ways I knew exactly who you were talking about.. everything she makes looks amateur to me, but the painful part is how many people are obsessed with her work.
Basically I see the work and know in my soul that
most of the brands she works with are moms selling Etsy stuff and making like 50k a year probably.
Theres also another UK girl who was super egotistical, her work wasn’t terrible at all but I could just tell from the way she spoke she thought she was incredible, and then suddenly she stopped posting and it turned out a ton of her clients were wildly unhappy with her because she was stubborn and always felt she knew best.
Pretty cool that she was honest in posting about it and admitted her mistakes but I think I just take great personal offense to the fact she and others who follow her suddenly decided to start saying they do packaging design… even though they are totally winging it and frankly doing their clients a disservice. I keep seeing fonts that are way too small and not legible on a shelf, missing net weights, RGB color schemes that would never print in a million years, etc etc and it’s so infuriating. Most people have access to learning different design categories easily but packaging design is super gatekept for a reason - once you print it, there’s no going back, and there are a ton more opportunities to make mistakes along the way than there would be for a simple poster from the legal and compliance aspect to the actual information and structure.
But again, just goes back to the point that these kids are not designing for successful brands, just startups that typically fail to take off or are stuck below 6 figures for the rest of their existence. I can’t even believe people have the audacity to become full time freelancers and get hired by clients with literally zero time spent in a corporate workplace / designing in the real world.
I agree with everything you said though I don't know of the other UK person. It makes me cringe for the person themselves, and it make angry when I think of how many of their followers are receiving the wrong message.
If social media and YouTube existed when I was in school or just graduated, I'm sure I would have jumped on them and made some equally cringey content, though at least I would have had a formal design education to rely on.
And yes, putting that content out in the world with no school and no previous job – imagine any other career doing that. Imagine a tattoo artist, a barber/hairstylist, a wood craftsperson, or anyone in a similar role to designer not learning formally and instead one day just waking up and deciding to do that job – not first getting a job and spending years actually learning how their role and businesses themselves work – and just starting to try to stuff out, posting content, and within a couple years presenting themself as a legit source of information in their field.
When we studied typography in school, we were taught to treat type with great respect, and almost 30 years of working as a designer has not disproven that concept. If she hadn't posted so many videos showing horrible treatment of type, I'd probably be able to let it go, but type is the foundation of design and her disrespect for it riles me up.
Hot take: Most design influencers steal from other people and aren’t good designers but want the recognition. I dated one that has done pretty well for himself but you can tell he has no formal education and can only produce one style. I have another “friend” that’s big on tik tok for teaching design but got fired from the job I got him because he’s a shit designer.
Influencers are fake as fuck, I would challenge any of them to a design off.
To be fair within any structured competition it'd probably be too vague.
I think you addressed it better with the other anecdote, that they just couldn't get or keep an actual design job.
Doesn't really matter what stuff you can show off on Tiktok or what people "like" or think looks cool if you can't actually do what is required within actual design jobs and be a valuable member of the team/company.
I enjoy the reels where they give you a novel tip for a very specific situation. I think those are fun and could be useful.
Honestly as long as they are not gatekeeping or overly precious with people taking influence from their style, I’m cool with it.
Design for likes ego maniacs. Just ignore and find your own way.
They’re not graphic designers, they’re content creators. There’s a few I rate, James Barnard is worth a follow and genuinely talented, and there’s a couple of tipsters that I find engaging and a useful resource. The rest can get in the bin though. 4GM Studio are particularly odious.
Hi 4GM Street team! Coat me with your downvotes. Maybe you can make a tik tok about this. What a life.
Agreed about 4GM. I was horrified when they took people's requests for portfolio reviews from this Reddit sub and made their own YouTube video reviewing their content, without even getting permission from the designers. They were student portfolios and they didn't even obscure their identities.
>They’re not graphic designers, they’re content creators.
That really is the core issue, it's essentially a conflict of interest.
They are motivated by content that drives engagement or is popular, neither of which are mutually inclusive with content that actually is quality and provides proper advice or involves qualified discussion.
Or even just different target demographics, in terms of appealing to hobbyists/amateurs rather than actual professionals.
I run into this a lot as someone with a Cricut, because I don't need any design aspect of content, I'm only looking for technical info in terms of settings to use or certain specific techniques with different materials or applications. A lot seems to blend the too and it makes it frustrating, kind of like if you just want a recipe and someone has fluffed it up with some story to pad out the length or whatever.
i agree, but low key also it sounds like in this situation you were just offering critique unsolicited. for all they knew you were just some random on the internet, not a 10+ year industry veteran.
i think it's a little interesting to see what people consider stylistically popular. since some people do conflate that popularity with good design. though i have the experience to know it's all camera work and advertising and usually not realistic to the industry.
I agree that being modern or trendy has nothing to do with being good design. The other thing that often automatically gets other's respect is when they know how to do something with software that most others don't know and they'll act as if the designer is great without any consideration for whether or not it was actually a good solution for the client's problem.
That’s interesting, I see your point. He wasn’t really asking for critique but I think if you’re proposing “fixing” a logo - which he was - I felt it was right to call out his arrogance - especially as it was such a bland solution!
People who criticize other creatives unsolicited are a bummer. In no social or business scenario is it appropriate for you to approach someone with feedback. Your opinion is subjective and pointless despite your years in the industry unless someone specifically asked for it.
I’d agree but if they’re claiming to “fix” something and they make it worse, how can you not? They’re giving you something to judge it against, it’s why there’s a comment section. And anyway discourse is healthy so long as you’re constructive and not hateful.
It’s not a foregone conclusion that your subjective opinion is a better fix than his. Discourse has a time and a place. Just because you can, doesn’t mean you’re not being the AH.
But I’m not an asshole simply for being critical. My criticism is fair and backed up. I’m also not actually suggesting an alternative “fix” I’m just commenting on his. I wouldn’t be arrogant to think I can “fix” the Amazon/BP/Facebook logo in a comments section…
If your game is generating views that’s fine, that’s your trade. But don’t claim to be “fixing” things because I know people who worked on the BP rebrand at Landor and they’d laugh him out the studio!
Do you think commenters on other types of posts are not rude for offering unsolicited criticism? Fitness influencers? Interior designers? Fashion stylists? Makeup artists? Chefs? Offering unsolicited criticism is always rude.
Just…. Don’t be that guy.
Unfortunately it seems like you just are that guy.
I don’t really know what you’re talking about. I don’t really comment on things I don’t know about, nor do I really follow them.
Im not commenting on someone saying “here’s my take on X”, I’m replying to someone claiming to be “fixing” something. You have to understand that by saying you’re “fixing” something you’re offering a definitive solution.
Yes I could easily not comment, and the positive comments saying “Amazon hire this man!” Could also not comment. But just because a comment is critical doesn’t mean it holds less value, and I’m not gonna apologise for being critical…The difference is I know if someone were to challenge my criticism I could justify it. People don’t have to listen to it of course.
I don't like it generally. A lot of them promote unrealistic ideas of what life as a designer looks like. All while showing and promoting subpar work that they claim supports the lifestyle they are living (it's not the design work supporting them, it's views, ads, and sponsorships usually).
Sometimes you find someone who truly is a designer first who runs a social media presence as a hobby or side hustle and they show much more realistic image of life as a designer, I don't mind them as much. These are few and far between.
I’ve seen some who are really good at what they do and all designers can learn from them just as peers (not meaning they are better than everyone)
But I’ve also seen some lacking basic design fundamentals that get so many views and encourage people to just become designers, no need to study etc. ‘learn from YouTube and what not’
There is one in particular that has designed some really cool stuff and got free stuff from big brands, but they never hired her. Like she got sent stuff after 1000s of people tagged her designs saying ‘hire her’ and like a that’s really cool compliment from the brand but they didn’t hire her. She completely wipes out the brand styles of really longstanding worldwide brands and adds that new grunge Y2K / Wes Anderson / 90s look to them and then asks people to tag them (indirectly asks) so she can design for them or they can use the designs... They eventually hired her to design like a patch or sticker or something for one of the brands, because so many people tagged her and the reveal of her being hired by this brand was a ‘wow video’. It was cool but it felt like they hired her as the safest option because she couldn’t follow brand guidelines and she kept getting tagged for them to hire her. She has managed to get some cool gigs by posting stuff (redesigning shirts for big places that don’t have specific brand styles like holiday places tshirts etc and what not) and relentlessly tagging them. but her design work lacks a lot of basic fundamentals. Half the stuff is clearly low res/raster not vector designs copied and pasted into poster size things for social media and looks low res, it’s work done on procreate but not treated correctly for scaling. She has done like sports equipment designs too and then she will tag the companies and stuff but she won’t add the actual logo, she’ll do like handlettered logo designs in that 90s style or y2k or grunge look that’s trending , and then like subtly encourage people to tag her so the companies will use her design. But the main brand logos don’t feature and nothing is designed with the brand guidelines in mind. The stuff never relates to the existing core brands. It looks decent for the style she’s going for, but never would work for big brands. she could do with learning the fundamentals of design and working for clients/with brands. when people critique the work she replies but like it’s sort of half hearted and people rally in to defend the work. I think she deletes the negative comments.
She has a lot of followers though and it does feel annoying when she is teaching others to just start designing , forget studying , when half of the stuff she is doing lacks core fundamentals necessary for design briefs. I’m not sure how much work she actually gets because it’s all mock projects but yeah anyway if it floats her boat then good for her.
There was an Adobe ad on TikTok recently where the 'designer' (not sure if they were an influencer or even a real designer at all, but they presented themselves implying they were), wasn't even using the right software, doing something in Photoshop that 100% should've been in InDesign.
I'm not really even faulting Adobe for that necessarily, I just assume that's the audience they're targeting on apps like that or Instagram.
The true skill and/or talent of a graphic designer is satisfying the client by sacrificing the least amount of design standards as possible. This is the on going challenge of our profession.
Every single one of them romanticizes the industry and sets up hopefuls for disappointment. The most successful designers I know aren’t even on social or YouTube.
Those who can’t…teach.
I've never really liked that phrase because teaching is really important, and being a good teacher requires a lot of experience and knowledge.
I think my issue is more that the phrase should be "those who can't go *straight* to teaching." Anyone trying to teach something out of the gate or without much/any real world experience isn't going to be a good teacher. There's no shortcut around experience, especially life experience.
You're right—I would edit my comment but I think this is good perspective.
SO much of design is in experience. How you handle yourself (time management, pressure, attitude) as well as how you handle the types of projects and people you work with only comes with time.
What I really mean by the comment is that—if those designers were truly that successful with their work—they wouldn't be spending 20-30 hours a week recording content. They would be working and making bank. But many of them aren't actually good at working with clients or they rely on their "influencer" status to get work instead of good quality. In that case, they are "teaching" *because* they actually can't make a living doing real design work.
And if they were truly concerned about growing a new generation of designers, they would be mentoring and having real conversations with them, not profiting off of them with romanticized ideals or offering a $300 class on "brand design."
I throw them into the same category as scammy crypto-bros. More than likely whatever tutorial or process they’re showing you came from someone else and they’re just dressing it up with shiny “fancy” design elements. If they weren’t selling design lesson, it would be crypto or religion.
The most infuriating thing is that other influencers are up their ass too so it’s like a giant circle jerk.
I reached out to a design podcast recently because I finally think I’m ready to actually speak to people and ease my way into podcast and video, figured maybe I could be a guest or something. I cleared six figures my first year in business which is something most designers can’t even do after a decade, and I also work in “ecommerce design” which really isn’t even an official thing, I kind of made it up (not to be fake but because I genuinely can design anything for ecomm, from packaging to sites to emails to whatever else is needed). I mentioned this thinking maybe they’d find it interesting and got no reply at all, just was left on read - a week later this chick from with a design “agency” (another one where all the work looks overly cutesy and the same) was on the podcast because she has a ton of followers… even though I personally feel like my story / journey / what I do is way more unique and interesting. But I don’t get my clients thru instagram so I only have around 600 or so followers, and that’s all they care about. Featuring people who can bring them more attention even if they aren’t anywhere near as good as they should be. 🙄
I'm sure there are good ones out there but nowdays Imostly consult youtube for tutorials and talks from professionals, you're much better off getting a book on theory
You know what's sadder than 'designfluencers'? Reported professionals who apparently have the time to pick fights with them and then run to Reddit when they get blocked...
Someone interested in discourse wouldn't block someone if they could avoid it.
What's your beef then in posting here with that criticism? If you're going to jump into the conversation you should articulate your stance better rather than essentially just hurl an insult.
I’m actually more interested in other peoples take, to see if they agree with me. To see if they think designfluencers are devaluing our industry too. I think you’re the one picking a fight since you’ve not really addressed what I posted about…
I’ll just say I’ve never met a graphic designer in the wild who actually makes their living from all these sexy posters and brand kits I see on TikTok. Every designer I’ve ever met worked for, like, a real estate company, or for a food distributor generating barcodes for boxes of tea, or designing email headers for the internal comms department of a corporate janitorial company. Just totally unglamorous but dependable work. It’s not bad, but just not cutting edge. It’s certainly never anything that requires all the tRiPpY art nouveau typefaces, blend tool abuse, or blurry half print type textures constantly generated for IG and TikTok. The number of dog ugly dudes who look like they need a wax and a bath in acetone yet make their entire living teaching other people on Instagram how to Photoshop every hair and pore from a woman’s body is entirely too high, though.
was with you until you blamed photo retouchers, the clients ask for those things, blame the clients not the photo retouchers
It's the same format as design blogs years ago. Tips and tricks, get sponsored, show some inspiration, show a project, start advertising, rotate through your audience until you lose enough for it to be not worth the effort, fin
Those designs are mostly just graphic art. Graphic design has a client and actual information to be conveyed.
Design inspiration should come from outside the design world. Following design influencers leads to the same context collapse AI suffers from, resulting in shallow copies of trends with no depth or meaning behind it.
They don’t even register. Because, ….. The Dunning–Kruger effect is defined as the tendency of people with low ability in a specific area to give overly positive assessments of this ability.
I can see that. The problem is a lot of comments are overwhelming positive, and all I can think is if this was presented in a top studio it’d be thrown out. I guess it’s the difference between the online world where you’re often designing into the void as oppose to against a brief and business objectives. There are decent designers out there mind you, but the idea of designfluincing just seems to devalue the industry for me
There is a guy who repeats the same old-fashioned, hand drawn logos for every one of his clients presented in the same style for every client, on a colored background with antique objects around the outside. Most of the time the objects aren't even for the right industry. He pops up every year or so, reposting the same content from a different account. When I called him out, he sent me a link to his book to try to prove that he was a good designer and then blocked me. I laugh. And I'm greatful for the help weeding the narcissists out of my life.
Name?
Sounds familiar. I bet it rhymes with Lames.
I didn't pay any attention whatsoever to their name. Couldn't care less.
Could you pls check your old DMs? Sorry im hella invested now lol
I didn't accept the request to chat, so it is gone now. But it was probably 3-5 weeks ago they were posting that I saw them. It was probably in the logodesign sub. I did check out their website and was further disgusted because they follow the same formula for every single client, showing about 10 type design options for each client, but they only have about 20 options total in their toolbox that they use for everything. I'm sure the clients love it because they go to them specifically for that style. But as a designer, I have zero respect for that. The more formulaic your work is, the faster AI will be able to replicate it, so they are likely to put themselves out of a job faster.
…bbbrooooowseee historryyy? No no just kidding, i’ll try finding it myself later looking up #design or sum on TikTok
The guy from The Futur….omg, all style, zero substance
He might be the OG. The Andrew Tate of design
Chris Do. One of the most-obvious cases of a narcissistic personality disorder I've ever seen.
Add narcissistic fashion disorder
I really don’t understand the draw to Chris Do. I find his videos so cringy. Yet so many views. Him doing client / designer role play with someone in his audience instantly makes me close the tab.
I fucking hate The Futr and HATE when people recommend it as a "design resource"
I’m sure a lot of them started out as designers and then when ‘influencing’ made more money than the design work they switched. What a different mind set tho having to be a content creator over a designer. Sounds exhausting tbh. But if the money is right, I can see why people do it.
Some designers who have popular YouTube channels and social media accounts are excellent at what they do, and are actually helping educate people about good design practices and what the career is really like. It doesn't necessarily bother me that they get money from YouTube (for many of the ones I watch it can't be a substantial amount) or even that they sell stuff like courses or digital assets. There's nothing inherently wrong from making money from your design work, even side hustles. And it doesn't bother me that some of their content caters to a YouTube or social media audience, with short, timed rebrand challenges to themselves (Brandon Shepherd) or competitions between other designers (Zimri Mayfield) because they're exercising good design principles and showing strong results while making the work fun and inviting others in. However, some of the worst examples are selling a lifestyle that generally doesn't exist, to people who eat it up, most of whom don't know any better and many of whom will never work as designers – especially in the full time freelancer lifestyle that's most commonly depicted. It's easy to present a sunny, positive image and get people excited, because for those who don't make it – which will be the majority of the people who follow the worst examples I'm thinking of – they'll just fade away. And if someone were to say something in the comments of those videos like, "Hey, I did everything you said for years and I couldn't get work as a designer", the finger would likely quickly be pointed back to them, saying their work wasn't up to par – and because there's subjectivity in assessing design, there's no way to really combat that argument. If someone tried to be a full time freelancer and failed, it must be the quality of their work – right? (sarcasm) And for *those specific designers* with popular YouTube channels or social media account (I don't like the terms "Design Influencer" or "Designfluencer") who I'm reference, they're completely exploitative, and it infuriates me. There's one in particular who drives me nuts because her videos are so well made – and she's not even editing them! – that she'd grown a cult of sycophants around her that can't see the truth. Her work, especially her typography, is deeply lacking and in the past couple years I've seen young designers trying to emulate her style, "customizing" type in terrible ways. At one point she told her "story" and said she only started designing after quarantine hit – and the video where she gave this reflection was at least a year ago, so she was looking back on her design career – which as far as I can tell, didn't involve education or working full time for anyone other than herself – a couple years into her career (I'm trying not to put every other word in quotation marks). It drives me nuts, as does the fact that she seemed to create the fantasy of her lifestyle before she was working for paying clients – then she sold the fantasy through her videos – and soon enough, real clients who didn't know any better seemed to think "she's legit!" and hired her to do work, so now she's been legitimized when her skills and judgement needed a good decade or so to sort themselves out. Putting bad work out into the world is bad, but presenting yourself to naive followers as an authority is a sin in my view.
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[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DbUTc6E1rHs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DbUTc6E1rHs) Note in the beginning of the video she said she made a choice not to improve her design work, but to improve her marketing!
I've seen the occasional video on TikTok from her. I'm not a fan and not her audience, since I'm 20 years her senior. But I care about her, and people like her, because they represent industry trends. On one hand, I'm old enough to remember when design influencers were more in the vein of Tobias van Schneider ... self-important dudes with beards all designing hyper-minimalist stuff and selling it through connections and bravado. Compared to those guys, Abi feels like a breath of fresh air to me. At least she openly admits to learning in public. On the other hand, she's a designer who clearly has very little formal training. This shows up in some of her process and work. I don't think her work is so bad overall, even if it is green at times. People comparing her work to Canva is interesting, because Canva employs designers and is responding to broad trends at the direct consumer level. I think she's intuitive and knows what her clients (and their customers) will respond to, and that's ultimately smart.
She has no formal training. She says so herself: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0U-6omir2k](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0U-6omir2k) She started her channel four years ago, seemingly starting hobby work as a designer as the same time, and within two years she was presenting herself as an authority. She talks about her background in this intro: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6glIhH5NJ0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6glIhH5NJ0) I'm not saying she doesn't have something to contribute, but look at this video she made two years in. Just scrub through and see what she does to the type: [https://youtu.be/lNOqlS5X1GU?si=SXMfoh1An49ItQ0o](https://youtu.be/lNOqlS5X1GU?si=SXMfoh1An49ItQ0o) She has no business presenting herself as any kind of authority. She used videos like the above to get real client work, which shows how clueless some clients are. And then she used that client work to bolster her position as a real working designer, and started selling courses to young hopefuls. That's crazy. I hope she looks back at what she's done someday and cringes, maybe deletes all the early stuff, but I don't expect that she will. She believes her own hype too much.
> I'm not saying she doesn't have something to contribute, but look at this video she made two years in. Just scrub through and see what she does to the type: > > https://youtu.be/lNOqlS5X1GU?si=SXMfoh1An49ItQ0o Seems like a very typical case of how learning software does not equate to developing design understanding.
https://preview.redd.it/pzyx3md8657d1.png?width=1606&format=png&auto=webp&s=8afeb6e5e0d0911c80fd99ed4645056c268fdaa1 Definitely. Look at all of that "personality". The sad thing is, and I mean this – I have no doubt that she'll continue to grow in popularity and be seen as an expert, especially as those who follow her – those who manage to get hired – go one to become the tastemakers. Imagining the Abi Connick chapter in a future Graphic Design book makes me think of the ending to Ray Bradbury's "A Sound of Thunder". Hopefully I'll be retired by then, or dead. Eventually, one or the other will be true.
The most frustrating aspect to me is how you can have legit criticism around ability, technique, or even a public media personality, and people will just be dismissive because they take it personally. *They* like it and so therefore your criticism is attacking *them* by proxy of their preferences. Or outright try to hide behind subjectivity, used similar to "faith." Just kills any discussion. And I know, that's not new, it's always been common, I just can't relate to it at all. Why can't we all just discuss things properly. But then, like you I think, I like discussing things. Many seem to just want validation. >Imagining the Abi Connick chapter in a future Graphic Design book makes me think of the ending to Ray Bradbury's "A Sound of Thunder". Hopefully I'll be retired by then, or dead. Eventually, one or the other will be true. *sigh* Yep.
Yes, finding actual discussion anywhere online is difficult and rare. St. Abi the Savior of Modern Design is on the horizon.
> On one hand, I'm old enough to remember when design influencers were more in the vein of Tobias van Schneider ... self-important dudes with beards all designing hyper-minimalist stuff and selling it through connections and bravado. Compared to those guys, Abi feels like a breath of fresh air to me. That's basically just most marketing in a nutshell. Throwing different skins onto things to grab different demographics.
Not sure I see whatever most of you all are seeing in this particular video. Here is a woman speaking to designers about not only how to get 'more' work, but how to position yourself as a strategic business person in order to get better work that pays more and the process in which that work is to be developed. The tool she's talking about is a typical 'tailored' agency tool/proposal that helps current and potential clients understand what's involved in the design process (the different phases) so that they know what to expect, and again...why something costs what it costs. This clarity also enables potential clients to understand what services/deliverables and associated timeline you will be providing so that they can make an informed decision when other designers are also bidding for the same project. She's says her focus (of this video) is not specifically about improving design as the video is about the 'process' in which you will ultimately lead to creating better design. It's implied design deliverables will improve. Honestly, it seems like 90% of the designers here on reddit are asking how or complaining about not getting work, not being paid well for that work, and or their clients not appreciating their education and skills. This video is meant to help those folks help themselves. The most successful designers are the ones that understand that its not about what software program they use, how many logos they have created, or what school they attended, rather how to positioning yourself as a business person who is trained at helping clients solve complex problems with highly tailored solutions.
Yes, it's meant to be helpful – but she has no business advising anyone. This video came out two years ago, and it was two years after she started her channel. In the intro she states that herself: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6glIhH5NJ0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6glIhH5NJ0) She presented herself as an authority within two years of starting out some form of design – almost certainly not real client work. That would be egregious enough if she'd gone to school for design, but she didn't. Here's her video How I became a Graphic Designer without a Degree: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0U-6omir2k](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0U-6omir2k) And here's one more video where she shows how to customize type: [https://youtu.be/lNOqlS5X1GU?si=SXMfoh1An49ItQ0o](https://youtu.be/lNOqlS5X1GU?si=SXMfoh1An49ItQ0o) Look at what she does to that poor font. Again, she's instructing people as a self- within two years of starting design in some way, likely as a hobby, from the perspective of a YouTuber. You're right – many designers here could use more advice not just about design but about marketing, positioning, sales – business itself. But not from someone in her position.
I had not heard of her prior and was commenting specifically about the 'design proposal' she shared per the original thread here. Based on what you have shared and further research into her videos...it'd pretty evident a graphic designer she ain't. Ouch. It 'is' clear she's pretty good at leveraging social media to convince people she's a trained graphic designer. We live in the golden era of self promotion after all. I guess if I cared enough I could do further research to unearth how she came across the 'design proposal' she shared. Perhaps she was a project manager or something like that at an actual agency and 'borrowed' that to talk about. I'm with you now.
Yeah. I take no pleasure in saying anything negative about anyone. But, she's actually damaging young designers, with both bad information and false expectations. She says in one of her videos from two years ago that she was 24 at that point, so unlikely that she would have worked any substantial time as a project manager before then. I've done all the unintentional research on her that I'll hopefully ever do. It's disheartening.
Exactly. She promotes the false narrative that anyone can become a professional Graphic Designer without formal training which seems to be quite common sentiment on this thread. The "Just understand the basics of color and layout" crowd. Ironically, this type of statement is often followed by statements like 'why is it so hard to get a full-time job' or 'Graphic Design pays so poorly'.
Yep. I'm reading the comments on the customizing type video now and getting angry all over again. "She is just simply the best design instructor in the whole wide world. Lots of love, Abi." "So this 64 year old just learned a ton of stuff in about 12 minutes!!! You are a great instructor! Thank you for sharing!" "Babe you've literally just taught me more about illustrator than a full year of my graphic design classes. Thanks a million omg" "So helpful as always Abi. Feels like I learn more from you than I do in my graphic design classes ♡" "Loved it! I'm about to start working on type manipulation for a client so this came at a great time lol. I usually gravitate towards the blob brush tool instead of the pencil tool when making customizations" "I really don't know if thank you is a good enough word to use to express how much I appreciate your videos. Many persons have skills, but only few know how to teach others that skill."
It is depressing. Look at it this way. For every one of her, there's people all over the world on Youtube telling their followers not to take Vaccines and the world is flat...so big picture, the damage she's causing is relatively minimal.
A lot of the underlying attitudes seem to be mostly from an emotional standpoint, especially around the notion of learning, training, developing. They view all education as the same, and as elitist or largely a scam/waste, and while that definitely does apply in a lot of cases, overlooks what the education is actually supposed to represent, which is all that development. Virtually no one would think that way in almost any other scenario. Where we have Person A who has 4000 hours following a meticulous plan under the tutelage of a 5-10 person group of experience mentors/coaches. And then we have Person B who has maybe 100-500 hours entirely self-directed with no real outside feedback at all. Now let's pretend both will arrive at the same endpoint. That's how a surprisingly high number of people think around design development, including on this sub. Let's apply that to anything else. Sports, painting, accounting, language/writing, skilled trades, whatever. No one would *ever* bet on Person B, and yet within graphic design people try to pretend there's no difference between them except an expensive piece of paper. If that *is* the case, it just means Person A went through a terrible program.
Unfortunately, at least in the US, education in general is the enemy to many. Sorry to get political there but couldn't help myself.
Your last sentence should be pinned at the top of every thread in this sub
This is the one that kills me. And she does it in many of her projects. Look what she does with the word "good" around 6:00 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCkM5zJooYY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCkM5zJooYY) A shorter one: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNC-1mebaUY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNC-1mebaUY) Read the comments – those people worship her. The last time I said something negative about her on a thread in this sub, someone came out in defense of her. Her followers are frighteningly and blindly loyal.
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I would say they're Canva at its worst. What she does with letterforms is an abomination. I've actually seen her improve to some degree, and she's good with color, but the problem is she's doing it in real time, with an audience of wannabe designers and on real clients' projects. When you start out in design I believe you have to work through your worst instincts and get things out of your system. I've done that, I think everyone has, but it's way better to do it on personal projects, school assignments and early freelance projects for small clients than for a mass audience.
As soon as you mentioned customizing type in bad ways I knew exactly who you were talking about.. everything she makes looks amateur to me, but the painful part is how many people are obsessed with her work. Basically I see the work and know in my soul that most of the brands she works with are moms selling Etsy stuff and making like 50k a year probably. Theres also another UK girl who was super egotistical, her work wasn’t terrible at all but I could just tell from the way she spoke she thought she was incredible, and then suddenly she stopped posting and it turned out a ton of her clients were wildly unhappy with her because she was stubborn and always felt she knew best. Pretty cool that she was honest in posting about it and admitted her mistakes but I think I just take great personal offense to the fact she and others who follow her suddenly decided to start saying they do packaging design… even though they are totally winging it and frankly doing their clients a disservice. I keep seeing fonts that are way too small and not legible on a shelf, missing net weights, RGB color schemes that would never print in a million years, etc etc and it’s so infuriating. Most people have access to learning different design categories easily but packaging design is super gatekept for a reason - once you print it, there’s no going back, and there are a ton more opportunities to make mistakes along the way than there would be for a simple poster from the legal and compliance aspect to the actual information and structure. But again, just goes back to the point that these kids are not designing for successful brands, just startups that typically fail to take off or are stuck below 6 figures for the rest of their existence. I can’t even believe people have the audacity to become full time freelancers and get hired by clients with literally zero time spent in a corporate workplace / designing in the real world.
I agree with everything you said though I don't know of the other UK person. It makes me cringe for the person themselves, and it make angry when I think of how many of their followers are receiving the wrong message. If social media and YouTube existed when I was in school or just graduated, I'm sure I would have jumped on them and made some equally cringey content, though at least I would have had a formal design education to rely on. And yes, putting that content out in the world with no school and no previous job – imagine any other career doing that. Imagine a tattoo artist, a barber/hairstylist, a wood craftsperson, or anyone in a similar role to designer not learning formally and instead one day just waking up and deciding to do that job – not first getting a job and spending years actually learning how their role and businesses themselves work – and just starting to try to stuff out, posting content, and within a couple years presenting themself as a legit source of information in their field. When we studied typography in school, we were taught to treat type with great respect, and almost 30 years of working as a designer has not disproven that concept. If she hadn't posted so many videos showing horrible treatment of type, I'd probably be able to let it go, but type is the foundation of design and her disrespect for it riles me up.
Honestly I would love to just print this comment and put it somewhere next to my bed.
Feel free! :)
Hot take: Most design influencers steal from other people and aren’t good designers but want the recognition. I dated one that has done pretty well for himself but you can tell he has no formal education and can only produce one style. I have another “friend” that’s big on tik tok for teaching design but got fired from the job I got him because he’s a shit designer. Influencers are fake as fuck, I would challenge any of them to a design off.
To be fair within any structured competition it'd probably be too vague. I think you addressed it better with the other anecdote, that they just couldn't get or keep an actual design job. Doesn't really matter what stuff you can show off on Tiktok or what people "like" or think looks cool if you can't actually do what is required within actual design jobs and be a valuable member of the team/company.
It’s a pretty terrible portmanteau.
I’m not a words guy
Seriously. I clicked into the thread just to say that word makes me twitch.
I enjoy the reels where they give you a novel tip for a very specific situation. I think those are fun and could be useful. Honestly as long as they are not gatekeeping or overly precious with people taking influence from their style, I’m cool with it.
Design for likes ego maniacs. Just ignore and find your own way. They’re not graphic designers, they’re content creators. There’s a few I rate, James Barnard is worth a follow and genuinely talented, and there’s a couple of tipsters that I find engaging and a useful resource. The rest can get in the bin though. 4GM Studio are particularly odious. Hi 4GM Street team! Coat me with your downvotes. Maybe you can make a tik tok about this. What a life.
Agreed about 4GM. I was horrified when they took people's requests for portfolio reviews from this Reddit sub and made their own YouTube video reviewing their content, without even getting permission from the designers. They were student portfolios and they didn't even obscure their identities.
Yeah that was the one that flagged them to me. Absolute bottom feeders. Smug cunts.
>They’re not graphic designers, they’re content creators. That really is the core issue, it's essentially a conflict of interest. They are motivated by content that drives engagement or is popular, neither of which are mutually inclusive with content that actually is quality and provides proper advice or involves qualified discussion. Or even just different target demographics, in terms of appealing to hobbyists/amateurs rather than actual professionals. I run into this a lot as someone with a Cricut, because I don't need any design aspect of content, I'm only looking for technical info in terms of settings to use or certain specific techniques with different materials or applications. A lot seems to blend the too and it makes it frustrating, kind of like if you just want a recipe and someone has fluffed it up with some story to pad out the length or whatever.
i agree, but low key also it sounds like in this situation you were just offering critique unsolicited. for all they knew you were just some random on the internet, not a 10+ year industry veteran. i think it's a little interesting to see what people consider stylistically popular. since some people do conflate that popularity with good design. though i have the experience to know it's all camera work and advertising and usually not realistic to the industry.
I agree that being modern or trendy has nothing to do with being good design. The other thing that often automatically gets other's respect is when they know how to do something with software that most others don't know and they'll act as if the designer is great without any consideration for whether or not it was actually a good solution for the client's problem.
That’s interesting, I see your point. He wasn’t really asking for critique but I think if you’re proposing “fixing” a logo - which he was - I felt it was right to call out his arrogance - especially as it was such a bland solution!
People who criticize other creatives unsolicited are a bummer. In no social or business scenario is it appropriate for you to approach someone with feedback. Your opinion is subjective and pointless despite your years in the industry unless someone specifically asked for it.
I’d agree but if they’re claiming to “fix” something and they make it worse, how can you not? They’re giving you something to judge it against, it’s why there’s a comment section. And anyway discourse is healthy so long as you’re constructive and not hateful.
It’s not a foregone conclusion that your subjective opinion is a better fix than his. Discourse has a time and a place. Just because you can, doesn’t mean you’re not being the AH.
But I’m not an asshole simply for being critical. My criticism is fair and backed up. I’m also not actually suggesting an alternative “fix” I’m just commenting on his. I wouldn’t be arrogant to think I can “fix” the Amazon/BP/Facebook logo in a comments section… If your game is generating views that’s fine, that’s your trade. But don’t claim to be “fixing” things because I know people who worked on the BP rebrand at Landor and they’d laugh him out the studio!
Do you think commenters on other types of posts are not rude for offering unsolicited criticism? Fitness influencers? Interior designers? Fashion stylists? Makeup artists? Chefs? Offering unsolicited criticism is always rude. Just…. Don’t be that guy. Unfortunately it seems like you just are that guy.
I don’t really know what you’re talking about. I don’t really comment on things I don’t know about, nor do I really follow them. Im not commenting on someone saying “here’s my take on X”, I’m replying to someone claiming to be “fixing” something. You have to understand that by saying you’re “fixing” something you’re offering a definitive solution. Yes I could easily not comment, and the positive comments saying “Amazon hire this man!” Could also not comment. But just because a comment is critical doesn’t mean it holds less value, and I’m not gonna apologise for being critical…The difference is I know if someone were to challenge my criticism I could justify it. People don’t have to listen to it of course.
I don't like it generally. A lot of them promote unrealistic ideas of what life as a designer looks like. All while showing and promoting subpar work that they claim supports the lifestyle they are living (it's not the design work supporting them, it's views, ads, and sponsorships usually). Sometimes you find someone who truly is a designer first who runs a social media presence as a hobby or side hustle and they show much more realistic image of life as a designer, I don't mind them as much. These are few and far between.
I’ve seen some who are really good at what they do and all designers can learn from them just as peers (not meaning they are better than everyone) But I’ve also seen some lacking basic design fundamentals that get so many views and encourage people to just become designers, no need to study etc. ‘learn from YouTube and what not’ There is one in particular that has designed some really cool stuff and got free stuff from big brands, but they never hired her. Like she got sent stuff after 1000s of people tagged her designs saying ‘hire her’ and like a that’s really cool compliment from the brand but they didn’t hire her. She completely wipes out the brand styles of really longstanding worldwide brands and adds that new grunge Y2K / Wes Anderson / 90s look to them and then asks people to tag them (indirectly asks) so she can design for them or they can use the designs... They eventually hired her to design like a patch or sticker or something for one of the brands, because so many people tagged her and the reveal of her being hired by this brand was a ‘wow video’. It was cool but it felt like they hired her as the safest option because she couldn’t follow brand guidelines and she kept getting tagged for them to hire her. She has managed to get some cool gigs by posting stuff (redesigning shirts for big places that don’t have specific brand styles like holiday places tshirts etc and what not) and relentlessly tagging them. but her design work lacks a lot of basic fundamentals. Half the stuff is clearly low res/raster not vector designs copied and pasted into poster size things for social media and looks low res, it’s work done on procreate but not treated correctly for scaling. She has done like sports equipment designs too and then she will tag the companies and stuff but she won’t add the actual logo, she’ll do like handlettered logo designs in that 90s style or y2k or grunge look that’s trending , and then like subtly encourage people to tag her so the companies will use her design. But the main brand logos don’t feature and nothing is designed with the brand guidelines in mind. The stuff never relates to the existing core brands. It looks decent for the style she’s going for, but never would work for big brands. she could do with learning the fundamentals of design and working for clients/with brands. when people critique the work she replies but like it’s sort of half hearted and people rally in to defend the work. I think she deletes the negative comments. She has a lot of followers though and it does feel annoying when she is teaching others to just start designing , forget studying , when half of the stuff she is doing lacks core fundamentals necessary for design briefs. I’m not sure how much work she actually gets because it’s all mock projects but yeah anyway if it floats her boat then good for her.
A lot of designers on instagram would be lost without grunge filters on photoshop. Once that trend dies they might struggle to adapt lol
What bothers me is when they’re the taste maker, setting trends, invited to speak at canva or adobe cons
There was an Adobe ad on TikTok recently where the 'designer' (not sure if they were an influencer or even a real designer at all, but they presented themselves implying they were), wasn't even using the right software, doing something in Photoshop that 100% should've been in InDesign. I'm not really even faulting Adobe for that necessarily, I just assume that's the audience they're targeting on apps like that or Instagram.
Whenever people claim to be an “influencer” —I’m out!
The true skill and/or talent of a graphic designer is satisfying the client by sacrificing the least amount of design standards as possible. This is the on going challenge of our profession.
Every single one of them romanticizes the industry and sets up hopefuls for disappointment. The most successful designers I know aren’t even on social or YouTube. Those who can’t…teach.
I've never really liked that phrase because teaching is really important, and being a good teacher requires a lot of experience and knowledge. I think my issue is more that the phrase should be "those who can't go *straight* to teaching." Anyone trying to teach something out of the gate or without much/any real world experience isn't going to be a good teacher. There's no shortcut around experience, especially life experience.
You're right—I would edit my comment but I think this is good perspective. SO much of design is in experience. How you handle yourself (time management, pressure, attitude) as well as how you handle the types of projects and people you work with only comes with time. What I really mean by the comment is that—if those designers were truly that successful with their work—they wouldn't be spending 20-30 hours a week recording content. They would be working and making bank. But many of them aren't actually good at working with clients or they rely on their "influencer" status to get work instead of good quality. In that case, they are "teaching" *because* they actually can't make a living doing real design work. And if they were truly concerned about growing a new generation of designers, they would be mentoring and having real conversations with them, not profiting off of them with romanticized ideals or offering a $300 class on "brand design."
Definitely agree there.
They mostly just become shills for Adobe so I ignore em
I throw them into the same category as scammy crypto-bros. More than likely whatever tutorial or process they’re showing you came from someone else and they’re just dressing it up with shiny “fancy” design elements. If they weren’t selling design lesson, it would be crypto or religion.
So glad I’m not on TikTok— the last thing I want is my design style influenced by nuance design influencers.
I just hate the facial expressions and body language they do in every. fucking. video! DON’T WAVE YOUR FINGER AT ME, DAN!
The most infuriating thing is that other influencers are up their ass too so it’s like a giant circle jerk. I reached out to a design podcast recently because I finally think I’m ready to actually speak to people and ease my way into podcast and video, figured maybe I could be a guest or something. I cleared six figures my first year in business which is something most designers can’t even do after a decade, and I also work in “ecommerce design” which really isn’t even an official thing, I kind of made it up (not to be fake but because I genuinely can design anything for ecomm, from packaging to sites to emails to whatever else is needed). I mentioned this thinking maybe they’d find it interesting and got no reply at all, just was left on read - a week later this chick from with a design “agency” (another one where all the work looks overly cutesy and the same) was on the podcast because she has a ton of followers… even though I personally feel like my story / journey / what I do is way more unique and interesting. But I don’t get my clients thru instagram so I only have around 600 or so followers, and that’s all they care about. Featuring people who can bring them more attention even if they aren’t anywhere near as good as they should be. 🙄
I'm sure there are good ones out there but nowdays Imostly consult youtube for tutorials and talks from professionals, you're much better off getting a book on theory
You know what's sadder than 'designfluencers'? Reported professionals who apparently have the time to pick fights with them and then run to Reddit when they get blocked...
Maybe it's the only sensible place to have extensive discourse on the issues raised.
If they were actually interested in discourse instead of just venting, they wouldn't have prefaced everything with their personal beef.
Someone interested in discourse wouldn't block someone if they could avoid it. What's your beef then in posting here with that criticism? If you're going to jump into the conversation you should articulate your stance better rather than essentially just hurl an insult.
I’m actually more interested in other peoples take, to see if they agree with me. To see if they think designfluencers are devaluing our industry too. I think you’re the one picking a fight since you’ve not really addressed what I posted about…