TLDR

Being a designer can be rewarding, but there are some downsides to this profession, people rarely talk about. In short: Design isn't art. Self-Expression is not what you should expect from the job. Tools and especially AI don't automatically turn you into a professional. That requires years of learning and practice - and yet some claim to be "designers" and "artists" without any skill. And they are taken way too serious. Clients judge with a bias and rarely care for the WHY. Harsh Feedback awaits us on a daily basis, you're being told your work or even you are "worthless" and people expect you to know things about jobs you've never done.

The people working as designers are dealing with lots of tough situations. By sharing some thoughts I hope I can help people understand better what creatives are dealing with on a daily.

There are many beautiful things about becoming a designer (I’ll share a post about that soon 😉), but there’s also a darker side people rarely talk about. Most creatives run into these things sooner or later. Some lessons hit early, others take years. So let’s look at a few of the downsides and the things design actually teaches you.

DESIGN IS NOT ART

Many young designers start out thinking design is a way to express themselves. It isn’t. Not in the professional world.

Per definition, everything, that was created for a purpose, is designed. Design follows a goal and certain rules. Art doesn’t need any and is about free expression.

If I design a chair that no one can sit on, I failed. If I create a pencil that weighs three metric tons and is 15 meters long, I failed. If I make a party flyer with white text on a white background… Failed. You get my point.

Design has a job to do. Your job as a designer is to make sure that job gets done. It is that simple.

Sometimes you can mix artistic expression into your work, but the goal always comes first. And often, what you want to express isn’t what will end up published. Especially when clients are involved.

Your design job is not the free expression of your creativity you once hoped it would be. It’s a sad realization at first but it also takes pressure off. Realizing this simple thing will make you stop taking every change, every bit of criticism and every feedback round personally. You’ll learn to create a healthy distance between yourself and your work.

A TOOL DOESN'T MAKE YOU A DESIGNER

Especially now, that AI slop is becoming an uninvited guest across the internet, more and more people call themselves “designers” or “artists” without the skills to back it up. Infuriating? YUPP. But there’s a greater problem: the slop factor.

As written before, design follows rules. Many of them. Knowing how to use a tool is not the same as knowing what you’re doing. A tool may enable you to produce something, but it doesn’t teach you the fundamentals. Neither the details nor the bigger picture. (I’m the first to admit: AI helps me to organize my thoughts better. But that doesn’t turn me into a professional writer, as you can see…)

The skills needed to be an efficient designer are being taught in schools. That includes handling the most common tools as well as theoretical knowledge about basically everything you will design. Just a little quiz for you at this point – these are things that any designer knows in their sleep.

> Which of these formats support transparencies?
JPG, PNG, BMP, TIFF
> Which of these can be opened by ANY of the photoshop versions?
TIFF, PSD, SVG, IND, OGG
> What are the dimensions (millimeter) of a DIN A4 format?
> What are DPI / PPI?
> When do you use RGB/CMYK/PANTONE?
> What’s the standard DPI for web, print and scans?
> What is a Bleed?
> Which types of fonts exist? How are they used?
> What are core principles of design?

I’ll share the answers at the end of this article, but my point is this:
Good designers understand what they’re producing, how they do it and why. They know the path from layout to final result, and everything that needs to happen in between.

AI, on the other hand, is excellent at making you feel special and serve you as the good little machine it is. It doesn’t generate precise design. It generates exactly and only what YOU like. Not necessarily something that makes sense. Think Coca Cola’s Christmas video – did you notice their damn truck runs over a person on the street? No? Now you probably will.

If you are trying to solve problems with AI keep going, fair. But spare yourself the label “AI artist” as that term is an oxymoron. Using AI doesn’t give you skills. It only produces outcomes. Sloppy ones at that. I think if it’s labeled AI there is nothing wrong with that per se, but it’s not something to brag about either.

Just don’t act surprised if people tell you that you are cheap, especially if your company makes millions a year. 😊

CLIENTS OFTEN DON'T CARE ABOUT THE WHY

We like to believe that good reasoning wins clients over, that if we explain the thought process and the “why”, clients WILL understand and change their minds. In reality this is rarely the case.

Most clients want their personal preferences turned into visuals. That’s it. Whether the idea makes sense, works, or follows any design principle is often just an afterthought. Of course there are rare exceptions and those clients you can really build something awesome with. Most of the time this is a rare occurrence though because people bring their own biases.

They WANT pink and glitter? Pink and glitter it is. They think blue is the color of “losers”? Stay away from blue. Green reminds them of their ex’s handbag? Forget green exists.

In about 80% of cases (from my own experience) want a refined version of what they had in mind for whatever reason, even if they claim you are free to do as you like. (Spoiler: To have ALL freedom, is a RED flag!) And you know what? That is part of the service we do as designers. It’s part of our job to find a balance of design work and personal preference. We are supposed to shape the client’s vision. Not our own. This fact is also the reason why people like AI so much – it excels at serving while some designers with good conscience and design taste might argue or maybe fail to deliver at the first try. AI is better than we are at pleasing management. And that’s what matters most. (To them)

YOU WILL END UP KILLING YOUR DESIGNS

Imagine you work on a project and you feel like this time you’ve created something beautiful. You followed all the rules, your design is aesthetically pleasing and it just works.

Then you send it to the client.

Then, the requests come back: MAKE THE LOGO BIGGER, MAKE IT PINK AND I NEED AN ENTIRE LICENSE AGREEMENT ON ONE SOCIAL MEDIA POST.

What comes next feels like this: You take this beautiful “child” you brought to life and smother it with a pillow to turn this beautiful thing into the abomination the client wants. The client is happy. You feel like you’ve committed a crime. You might even be sad that another one went down the drain.

The truth is that a small part of your creative soul will die from time to time. That’s part of the job. If you want to make money, you create what works for the client, not what makes you happy.

Pro-Tip:
Save the early versions you’re proud of. Keep them. Put those in your portfolio.
The final monstrosity? Pretend it never happened.

And don’t be surprised when even the ugliest monsters perform well. Sometimes they do. Not because they were ugly enough go get attention, (Although, who knows…) but because the campaign hit a strange nerve. It’s nothing personal.

YOU WILL BE TOLD THAT YOU ARE WORTHLESS AS A DESIGNER

I’ll publish a separate post about giving and receiving feedback, but here’s the short version: Most of us have encountered people whose feedback culture is just crap.

There is one important thing you must keep in mind though.

JUST BECAUSE SOMEONE DOESN’T LIKE WHAT YOU DID, YOU ARE NOT A BAD DESIGNER. EVEN IF THEY TELL YOU EXACTLY THAT.

When I was younger, I worked with people who were… “politically incorrect”. While there can be a lot of value to it, it also made me realize that this is not something you should go for giving feedback. You can break a lot with this attitude when the situation requires empathy. A relationship can break quickly at exactly at that point.

Every designer will produce something a client doesn’t like at some point. That’s normal. We’re not machines.

Design is a process. Ideally it contains less than or equal to three feedback rounds. If the first version misfires, the situation becomes the starting point for a new and much more pointed conversation. You align, refine, rework and polish. And then it’s done. (Finally)

There are THOUSANDS of design styles out there and each has its own right to exist. If someone hates one of them, that doesn’t make it “bad design”. It just means that THEY don’t like it. It can not be an evaluation of the designer in itself.

Many creatives have been shamed so harshly that they fear presenting their work going forward. The expectations are exactly aligned with their negative experience often. They expect that someone will attack them or give them unnecessarily harsh feedback. And that freezes many creatives and minimizes their creativity. They are simply terrified to try something new. I know I was once. And I still feel the consequences even after more than a decade.

But here’s the simple truth you need to remember:
One person’s opinion does not define your worth as a designer, and not as a person.

This is a job. This is not you.

PEOPLE WILL SHAME YOU FOR NOT UNDERSTANDING THINGS THEY DON’T UNDERSTAND EITHER

My personal favourite. “Design doesn’t understand what we do….”
Well then, Sharon / Marcus, TEACH THEM.

Designers focus on visual problem solving. That means we will lack knowledge about other fields, like e.g. marketing or sales. Most of these people don’t know anything about design either, even if they are opinionated. We’re not experts in funnels, KPIs, CTRs or other fancy shortcuts that sound like political parties. Our work is aesthetics, structure, clarity, and fitting the company’s identity into a consistent visual concept while trying to innovate.

That alone is already a complex job. Even if Sharon / MArcus have a different (uninformed) opinion.

Yet many designers are expected to magically understand how other departments function. Meanwhile:
No trainings.
No informal exchanges between departments, no connections.
No interdepartmental discussions.
No RELEVANT knowledge sharing.

And somehow that’s the designer’s fault. :)

It can be a problem, that many designers tend to be quiet, anxious, often introverted. Many of us fear judgment. From clients, from colleagues, sometimes even from each other. Being “the creative” means being faced with harsh criticism daily.

That’s why involving designers early and giving them opportunities for personal connections across departments matters so much. It’s easier to ask “stupid questions” when you know the person won’t mock you or stab you in the back.

And yes, this still happens: I’ve seen meetings in which an entire department nodded at what was being said, only to gather after the meeting and openly ask “What on earth does that mean?” … The fear of being seen as stupid or unintelligent or even the fear of harsh feedback or ridicule hold people back – now more than ever. Even worse: Big groups of people who could possibly make fun of you. Humans do not like to be ridiculed or thought of as incompetent.

If people feel safe, they ask and learn more. God forbid it could even turn into a fun experience….

On the flip side, designers also need to develop interest in other perspectives. Marketing may not understand design, but they can offer insights into why a campaign failed or succeeded. That’s valuable. Designers should show some effort to learn from others. This will enrich their own work drastically.

Unfortunately, real collaboration and connection and education between departments is rarely done well. When it works, though, everything becomes easier. And the designs? Let’s just say it will be a much smoother experience.

There are probably many more things I could add to this list. I do find it important though, to talk about the downsides of this profession as much as we talk about the positive and fun aspects. Designers are often misunderstood or undervalued, and it breaks my heart to see that happen again and again.

If sharing these (admittedly long) thoughts helps even a few people to understand what it really means to work as a creative, to be judged constantly, to feel pressure most never even notice, then it’s worth writing them down.

Thank you for reading. 😉

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