‘...The arc of disillusionment for any given designer has become somewhat predictable. As students, designers are encouraged to make expressive, nuanced work, and rewarded for experimentation and personal voice. The implication, of course, is that this is what a design career will look like: meaningful, impactful, self-directed. But then graduation hits, and many land their first jobs building out endless Google Slides templates or resizing banner ads. The disconnect is jarring – not because the work is beneath them, but because no one prepared them for how constrained and compromised most design jobs actually are. We trained people to care deeply and then funnelled them into environments that reward detachment. And the longer you stick around, the more disorienting the gap becomes – especially as you rise in seniority. You start doing less actual design and more yapping: pitching to stakeholders, writing brand strategy decks, performing taste. Less craft, more optics; less idealism, more cynicism...’
‘...At the same time, designers are expected to constantly curate a public-facing identity: to brand themselves, stay visible, and make it all look effortless...Personal branding became a kind of silent arms race, one where self-promotion had to be strategic but appear spontaneous. Irony and sarcasm became tools to manage that contradiction, making it seem like the thought put into self-presentation was just naturally easy.’
‘...At the same time, designers are expected to constantly curate a public-facing identity: to brand themselves, stay visible, and make it all look effortless...Personal branding became a kind of silent arms race, one where self-promotion had to be strategic but appear spontaneous. Irony and sarcasm became tools to manage that contradiction, making it seem like the thought put into self-presentation was just naturally easy.’
Goodspeed E (28 March 2025) ‘Elizabeth Goodspeed on why graphic designers can’t stop joking about hating their jobs’, It’s Nice That, accessed 03 April 2025. https://www.itsnicethat.com/articles/elizabeth-goodspeed-optimism-vs-pessimism-graphic-design-270325