DesignAgency’s Post

As a #designer navigating the job market, you may have encountered various titles and roles that can be confusing. When I started out, I found these terms overwhelming, too. Ever wondered what distinguishes a Founding Designer from a Principal Designer, or a Senior Designer from a Lead? Let me clarify: A Founding Designer shapes the initial design direction and establishes core design principles for the project or company. A Principal Designer provides high-level design strategy and leadership, often overseeing major design initiatives and mentoring other designers. A Senior Designer manages complex design tasks, leads design projects, and supervises junior designers. A Design Lead guides and coordinates the design team, ensuring that projects align with strategic goals and user needs. Understanding these roles can help you better navigate your job search and find the position that’s right for you and your experience level. Which of these roles have you applied for and did they get back to you? Let me know in the comments 👇 ~~~~ Also I’m working from the office today, it’s always a good feeling when I get to be face to face with my otherwise remote team, you can tell from the big smile on my face. #uidesign #jobsearch

As I posted in the response to this original post: Let's not forget that "junior" designers have been designing for years prior to their formal education. Many of us come with a list of other soft skills that bring significant value to the workplace (e.g. experience in retail/hospitality/customer service or a design-related market). If we've just graduated in the last few years, you can be guaranteed that we can learn things from zero-to-capstone-worthy-project in a semester's worth of time or less. Our skills across the Adobe suite are fresh enough to pick up running again, even if we haven't used them since that last class. And we're probably great generalists, having had to design across multiple styles, projects, and platforms for course work. In short, what we lack in experience we make up in scrappiness and adaptability, and we haven't been doing this long enough to be jaded or know what our niche is yet. ------ I'm not done growing or learning. Ever. I just need to get more reps in and learn more best practices. In the meantime, this "junior graphic designer" is also skilled in ad hoc reporting, Microsoft Excel, building database fields, designing online applications, leading presentations, adhering to stakeholder feedback, creating user cases, managing a product backlog, UX/UI testing, consumer experience, business ethics, volunteer management, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc. Those instincts are already engrained. Those skills don't go away when I open Adobe Illustrator or consider how to approach a project. Given the right projects and the right environment, those skillsets are yours as an added bonus in exchange for me needing a bit more work and time to get my design instincts set in place. Just my two cents.

Junoir with 3 years experience, well well

The Biggest Thing that Separates Junior from Senior Designers... This past week, I was working on a client project and was STUCK. I could feel the resistance. Every time I thought about the project, I wanted to shove it to the back of my mind. I knew the solution would come if I would force myself to simply start. But, even that felt difficult. I'd get distracted. Everything felt easier than what I was supposed to be working on. Herein lies the difference between junior and senior designers. Junior designers wait for inspiration. Senior designers will make inspiration. They have a repeatable process for creating, even when they don't feel like it, even when it's hard. Yes, some ideas will hit me like a bolt of lightning. Or other times, I'll know from the beginning what direction the project needs to take. But, these are the edge cases and not the norm. For everything else, you need a repeatable process for getting unstuck.

“Did you know the tech industry, home to many designers, lost more than 50,000 worldwide jobs between January and March of 2024” - Andrew Thompson In this report, Where the Design Jobs Are, by Fast Company, the following design jobs are analyzed and broken down: Product Design, UX Design, Game Design, Brand Design, Urban Design, Interior Design, and Architecture. Mark Wilson, the Global Design Editor at Fast Company wrote, “This game-changing report is built specifically for designers and companies wanting to recruit designers. Inside, you will find a gathered data set of 63,000 job listings analyzed into early 2024, which was created to give you a rapid understanding of deep, difficult-to-parse job information.”   Key topics covered are: 1. The salary ranges of design disciplines 2. The breakdown of full-time and part-time positions by industry 3. The U.S. cities hiring in each field, and which are more open to remote work. 4. The specific software you should master within design disciplines. 5. The experience you need to land anything from an entry to a senior role. #FastCompany

Job opportunity in Jaipur

In design, there is no universal standard for defining a designer’s experience or expertise. However, common titles exist to describe different levels of designers, which can vary between organizations and industries. JUNIOR / ENTRY-LEVEL DESIGNER — THE LEARNING PHASE - Typically refers to designers who are new to the field or have limited professional experience. - They may still be developing their skills & require guidance and mentorship. - First 2 to 4 years experience. MID-LEVEL / MID-WEIGHT DESIGNER — THE PRACTICING PHASE - They have gained some experience & expertise in their field. - They have a solid foundation of skills & are capable of working on projects independently with some level of creative input. - 3 to 6 years experience. SENIOR DESIGNER — THE LEADING PHASE - They have a significant amount of experience and expertise in their area of specialization. - They often take on more complex projects, lead design teams, & provide guidance & mentorship to junior designers. - 7-10 years experience. ART / CREATIVE DIRECTOR — THE DIRECTING PHASE - These are higher-level positions that involve overseeing & managing the creative direction & design strategy of a project or organization. - They are responsible for guiding the overall vision & ensuring the quality of the design work. - 10+ years experience. It is also to note that in many cases the quality of experience is more important than the years of experience. #design #designer #juniordesigner #seniordesigner #artdirector #creativedirector

The reality is a lot of designers won't have the luxury of being able to follow design processes to the absolute T when working in environments where they have to ship fast. This doesn't mean they're not capable of doing so. Be open minded to this when hiring, otherwise you'll lose out on some top creative talent.

📢 Hiring update: Emerging designers We're moving quickly. 1133 / 1941 applicants included BANANAS. Shoutout to top BANANA mentions: 🍌 “Respect, power, BANANA!!! (if you know, you know)" 🍌 “Following the banana in the question, I'm known for my ability to 'peel back the layers' of complex problems…” 🍌 “...BANANAS ARE ACTUALLY BERRIES..." 🍌 “BANANAS, as my fellow minion would say" 🍌 "Here is a short recipe for banana bread..." We had a good laugh at the creativity, flair and personality. You folks are a bunch of BANANAS. We love it. 💥 Next steps: We're sorting applicants by design superpowers, assessing portfolios and checking availabilities. Then, we'll make a shortlist to contact for the next stage. Talk very soon, Joumana (Chief Banana)