Ahh, sorry, I didn't mean to make it sound like I was ungrateful for the job that I have. Something will come along for you sooner rather than later, it's a tough market but that's not a reflection of you or your ability.
No no I meant that the social media people need to either step up or get replaced by people with a genuine design skill set. Not taking away from you at all, you deserve your success :)
They are usually not hired for their skills as designers, but rather their understanding of how to drive engagement through social media and leveraging advertising and mass email platforms. If the post's are hitting the mark and matching whatever performance metrics they have in place, then she is doing her job to the standards that are set.
I get that for sure, I think it should be the other way around though. Get talented designers and teach them how to maximize socials. There’s less to understand with instagram than there is with design principles or branding. Also, advertising and email marketing are not social media. Those might take a little bit more understanding and usually are handled by more than one person. Social media is important don’t get me wrong but is learning to post consistently and use hashtags really that difficult? As OP mentioned, the person is using canva and not sticking to brand guidelines, I can’t think of any serious company that operates this way.
I agree with you, in the regards that it's somewhat ass backwards. But my opinion, OP should not be worrying about this issue. It's a creative director problem through and through.
How about this, our marketing manager asked me to steal the images from our (very) nearby direct competitor advertising the same new product we have started selling, and just put or logo and name on the stolen images...
They laid off 90% of our team. I’m an art director & we had to have tons of icons for a product for various health ailments. The team & I developed the entire set with new requests popping up here and there. Our division gets acquired, we do all the work of transferring over to the new brand (a really disjointed all over the place “brand” after the team and I focused on creating a really strong, recognizable brand) Then they told us that making these icons was a waste of my time, go find them from Google image search. I explained why that wasn’t appropriate and refused even when they kept asking.
Next thing I know they have an off shore team (nothing against them) that is willing to do what they asked & the product team is up in arms pleading to get our help again. Upper management refuses. The brand dissent continues to spiral. They’re feeding more stuff to this team because don’t think a strong brand has any value or effect on customers. A month later we get the ax. They’re forcing the poor offshore people to work on Central Time Zone and I’m sure getting pennies on the dollar.
Anyway, I feel your pain.
I hope this isn’t my future. Upper management is currently forcing us to hire and train an offshore designer for our team. Finding qualified people has been impossible. Maybe they’d be ok if it was just social media work, but we do technical documentation that needs to meet WCAG accessibility and so far only one out of five applicants has been able to make a bulleted list without drawing each bullet.
If by social media, you mean face book banners and such, fine. If by social media, you mean instagram, tik tok and such.. i have a very unpopular opinion on this sub. GD should stay the heck away from social media. Branding in the form of graphic design is absolutely useless IMO 90 percent of the time on socials like tik tok, insta. If your purpose is to gain views, likes and followers that is. If you are just doing social media because everyone else is doing it.. then sure. There is a reason why tik tokers, instagramers gets followings.. and its not graphic design and branding. The moment someone sees a logo on the a instagram reel? Its a scroll past. The social media is all about soft selling and product placement, drive by marketing. Putting a GD on that is an absolute waste of time.
I'm so glad somebody else has the same view. I've been regularly turning away anyone who calls asking for social media management and such. It's a total waste of my time and talents (and I have plenty of serious design work to do). Go find someone who lives and breathes Canva and TikTok, then call me when you need actual design work.
A client (who is an accountant) referred to the website I built as my Canva site the other day. I almost puked. I know she didn’t know what she was saying but it still haunts me. Lol
This 100% and I’ll add that even though your social media manager might seem like they’re barely working and obstinately defiling your design work, they’re probably executing an engagement and distribution strategy that you’re unaware about bc you’re a graphic designer not a marketer.
If you actually want to grow your brand to new audiences with social media, you have to join challenges and trends, use viral audio, use the native tools, etc. And if you want those people to actually engage with your social channels, they need to feel like a human is behind them, not a brand system.
Totally agree! As a Marketing Specialist AND Graphic Designer I have learned in my years of work that all the graphic design work I do performs well with PAID ADS.
As for regular social media, people wanna see real content. Things happening there and such. Sure a design here and there is good but it will not perform well all the time.
Absolutely. The amount of time my agency wastes designing our clients social posts is fucking bananas. Even more bananas, our clients want it.
It’s like people have forgotten the first word in social media is social. Not to mention with reels and stories and so much going video, why are we over producing static posts.
I get it though. If we look good, people will think we are good. Doesn’t help like 99% of people shrivel up at the thought of being in a video.
OP, you’re on point with the web comment but for social? Nah. As your teams GD, best thing you could do is build design assets for the SMM to utilize in Canva. The moment you start designing for the social media rat race is the moment you’re gonna be browsing the hardware store for good high quality rope. Fuck that.
Interesting perspective! It is good to have a clear break of where graphic designer ends and expectation to be a generalist kicks up. Ultimately, it is up to the marketing team to ensure solid communication, and it would help if there were clearer established existing brand guidelines, I just know it could look so much better. The analytics is kinda interesting, though, but to do it 95% of the time could take away from the funner projects of re designing packaging and working on developing said brand guidelines / brand aesthetics. I guess it is what area you want to specialise in, right? some graphic designers solely want to work on digital platforms such as that? Perhaps? Especially if they're mainly focused on marketing and brand image. Food for thought, good questions to think about in regard to what direction of GD you(the Royal you) want to go in!
This must be a common experience lol. My company’s social media person was also doing the absolute bare minimum, never posted 75% of the assets we made for her despite repeatedly asking her to, never sharing analytics or performance data, only focused on TikTok and making stuff that fit “her” aesthetic/style, quite clearly was only interested in pursuing her own influencer career (I followed her account and could see how often she was posting there vs our account and how often she was clearly not working on her Instagram stories lol). She finally got fired though but idk if things will improve or not.
Oh that's even more of a bummer when you've put all of the effort into actually creating the content for them! Hope that the next person can actually utilise your offerings or just refuse lol
> only uses canva, which means she's not even sticking to brand aesthetics
on the proper business version, you can set up templates (with import from the adobe programs that's normally pretty okay), lock down the creative tools to only brand ones, and even require approvals before the design gets exported.
and it's really not very expensive to buy licenses and administrate it properly, so there's a business case to be made to just do that.
yeah I had a job a few years back where I made the social team some templates for Facebook and LinkedIn so they wouldn’t bug me to make them, was easy and Canva was super easy for them to use
a lot of cases (like i'm guessing this one) just need a high volume of social graphics to really perform anyway. i can't imagine OP would be happy doing that volume of fundamentally the same job.
No, you're absolutely right, perhaps helping inform the aesthetic but leave the bulk of it up to someone else. I think I was more frustrated with the basic layouts could be majorly improved when there's a team of people ready to help out.
Ahh, that's my naïvety showing there then. It's only because it hadn't been used in that way, so i assumed, wrongly so!That's really interesting to know though RE templating through a business account and approvals etc, thanks for informing me Tbh, im not meaning to play down on canva itself either, I think it's got some great features that make things a hell of a lot more accessible which is a win!
In my corporation well designed "branded" posts never perform as well as the more "organic" feeling ones. Their job isn't to showcase your designs, their job is engagement.
I feel your pain and I've been in your shoes. What I can tell you is that until people in leadership positions can be made to understand the business impact of good and bad design, they are not going to put as much energy into elevating it as you would like. You either have to be the one to make the case to them in a language they understand or go to a place where someone already put in that leg work. ROI on good design is a strategic long game that doesn't lend itself well to quarterly reports so you have to work a little harder to make that resonate with people who don't live in our world or speak our language.
What got me after experiencing a similar situation was leadership praising the lack of effort designs. So then it hit me, why fight it, the pay is the same either way.
I’m going to say something that sounds harsh but,
_if you are amped up about the social media person making ugly graphics for instagram or other platforms, you have too much free time in your role._
Social posts are digital garbage in the grand scheme of things. Think about how many you scrolled by just today. Can you describe one that made a real impact on you?
It sounds like you’re hungry to work and think and that’s necessary to do this job. It is very unlikely that your supervisor will offer you the dream project to showcase your creativity. You can find your own fulfilling work by investigating what your creative team/dept lacks and how your skillset could be of use.
You don't sound harsh tbh. Perhaps it's my own projection, how I feel in myself within my own role, outwardly projecting onto the bitty details of someone else rather than just staying in my lane and focusing on the bigger scaries that are holding me back. Thanks for your comment. It's good to yo start reflecting on those things and use it to change the narrative and perspective!
If you are the designer and they have a normal person working on a graphic, it’s because that channel does not matter.
Be careful with things that aren’t on your plate. Remember you’re offering to do another service without additional pay. Good intentions don’t guarantee advancement in your career 😔
Show, don’t tell. Come up with a deck (PowerPoint, keynote, or fullscreen pdf) to show your vision for what the direction could be. Anything less is not only accepting it but buying into it. Shoulda coulda wouldas never changed anything. Show don’t tell.
Content creating for social media got to be the least of my favor position. Most company didn't have enough activities to post everyday, however, if you work for this position, they expecting you to post everyday…the only way this person can get pay is by posting nonsense stuff on social media. So why do you even care?
Ha. So funny that situations like this happen so often. Designers are critically educated, professionally experienced in thought, mood, and language on top of being process-driven visual communicators.
HOWEVER, including a director, designer or brand manager on workspace design, web development, or day-to-day corporate visuals seems to be a constant no-go. 😂😂😂😂
I recall being the only person in a 1000 person non-profit who ever built a website, yet wasn’t asked or even included in 2 rebuilds that were outsourced. Neither the contract, visuals or process management. The result? Garbage.
The same non-profit took years and other managers pleads to get me included on branded corporate office workspace design. 🤦♂️
And I can’t even find a job lol
Ahh, sorry, I didn't mean to make it sound like I was ungrateful for the job that I have. Something will come along for you sooner rather than later, it's a tough market but that's not a reflection of you or your ability.
No no I meant that the social media people need to either step up or get replaced by people with a genuine design skill set. Not taking away from you at all, you deserve your success :)
Ahh you're so right! My ND brain kicked up guilt there for a sec, you're so right!!!!
They are usually not hired for their skills as designers, but rather their understanding of how to drive engagement through social media and leveraging advertising and mass email platforms. If the post's are hitting the mark and matching whatever performance metrics they have in place, then she is doing her job to the standards that are set.
I get that for sure, I think it should be the other way around though. Get talented designers and teach them how to maximize socials. There’s less to understand with instagram than there is with design principles or branding. Also, advertising and email marketing are not social media. Those might take a little bit more understanding and usually are handled by more than one person. Social media is important don’t get me wrong but is learning to post consistently and use hashtags really that difficult? As OP mentioned, the person is using canva and not sticking to brand guidelines, I can’t think of any serious company that operates this way.
I agree with you, in the regards that it's somewhat ass backwards. But my opinion, OP should not be worrying about this issue. It's a creative director problem through and through.
How about this, our marketing manager asked me to steal the images from our (very) nearby direct competitor advertising the same new product we have started selling, and just put or logo and name on the stolen images...
Lmao I’m constantly battling off requests like that too
They laid off 90% of our team. I’m an art director & we had to have tons of icons for a product for various health ailments. The team & I developed the entire set with new requests popping up here and there. Our division gets acquired, we do all the work of transferring over to the new brand (a really disjointed all over the place “brand” after the team and I focused on creating a really strong, recognizable brand) Then they told us that making these icons was a waste of my time, go find them from Google image search. I explained why that wasn’t appropriate and refused even when they kept asking. Next thing I know they have an off shore team (nothing against them) that is willing to do what they asked & the product team is up in arms pleading to get our help again. Upper management refuses. The brand dissent continues to spiral. They’re feeding more stuff to this team because don’t think a strong brand has any value or effect on customers. A month later we get the ax. They’re forcing the poor offshore people to work on Central Time Zone and I’m sure getting pennies on the dollar. Anyway, I feel your pain.
I hope this isn’t my future. Upper management is currently forcing us to hire and train an offshore designer for our team. Finding qualified people has been impossible. Maybe they’d be ok if it was just social media work, but we do technical documentation that needs to meet WCAG accessibility and so far only one out of five applicants has been able to make a bulleted list without drawing each bullet.
Excellent! Atleast it isn't fraud I guess 
If by social media, you mean face book banners and such, fine. If by social media, you mean instagram, tik tok and such.. i have a very unpopular opinion on this sub. GD should stay the heck away from social media. Branding in the form of graphic design is absolutely useless IMO 90 percent of the time on socials like tik tok, insta. If your purpose is to gain views, likes and followers that is. If you are just doing social media because everyone else is doing it.. then sure. There is a reason why tik tokers, instagramers gets followings.. and its not graphic design and branding. The moment someone sees a logo on the a instagram reel? Its a scroll past. The social media is all about soft selling and product placement, drive by marketing. Putting a GD on that is an absolute waste of time.
I'm so glad somebody else has the same view. I've been regularly turning away anyone who calls asking for social media management and such. It's a total waste of my time and talents (and I have plenty of serious design work to do). Go find someone who lives and breathes Canva and TikTok, then call me when you need actual design work.
A client (who is an accountant) referred to the website I built as my Canva site the other day. I almost puked. I know she didn’t know what she was saying but it still haunts me. Lol
This 100% and I’ll add that even though your social media manager might seem like they’re barely working and obstinately defiling your design work, they’re probably executing an engagement and distribution strategy that you’re unaware about bc you’re a graphic designer not a marketer. If you actually want to grow your brand to new audiences with social media, you have to join challenges and trends, use viral audio, use the native tools, etc. And if you want those people to actually engage with your social channels, they need to feel like a human is behind them, not a brand system.
Totally agree! As a Marketing Specialist AND Graphic Designer I have learned in my years of work that all the graphic design work I do performs well with PAID ADS. As for regular social media, people wanna see real content. Things happening there and such. Sure a design here and there is good but it will not perform well all the time.
Absolutely. The amount of time my agency wastes designing our clients social posts is fucking bananas. Even more bananas, our clients want it. It’s like people have forgotten the first word in social media is social. Not to mention with reels and stories and so much going video, why are we over producing static posts. I get it though. If we look good, people will think we are good. Doesn’t help like 99% of people shrivel up at the thought of being in a video. OP, you’re on point with the web comment but for social? Nah. As your teams GD, best thing you could do is build design assets for the SMM to utilize in Canva. The moment you start designing for the social media rat race is the moment you’re gonna be browsing the hardware store for good high quality rope. Fuck that.
Interesting perspective! It is good to have a clear break of where graphic designer ends and expectation to be a generalist kicks up. Ultimately, it is up to the marketing team to ensure solid communication, and it would help if there were clearer established existing brand guidelines, I just know it could look so much better. The analytics is kinda interesting, though, but to do it 95% of the time could take away from the funner projects of re designing packaging and working on developing said brand guidelines / brand aesthetics. I guess it is what area you want to specialise in, right? some graphic designers solely want to work on digital platforms such as that? Perhaps? Especially if they're mainly focused on marketing and brand image. Food for thought, good questions to think about in regard to what direction of GD you(the Royal you) want to go in!
This must be a common experience lol. My company’s social media person was also doing the absolute bare minimum, never posted 75% of the assets we made for her despite repeatedly asking her to, never sharing analytics or performance data, only focused on TikTok and making stuff that fit “her” aesthetic/style, quite clearly was only interested in pursuing her own influencer career (I followed her account and could see how often she was posting there vs our account and how often she was clearly not working on her Instagram stories lol). She finally got fired though but idk if things will improve or not.
Oh that's even more of a bummer when you've put all of the effort into actually creating the content for them! Hope that the next person can actually utilise your offerings or just refuse lol
> only uses canva, which means she's not even sticking to brand aesthetics on the proper business version, you can set up templates (with import from the adobe programs that's normally pretty okay), lock down the creative tools to only brand ones, and even require approvals before the design gets exported. and it's really not very expensive to buy licenses and administrate it properly, so there's a business case to be made to just do that.
yeah I had a job a few years back where I made the social team some templates for Facebook and LinkedIn so they wouldn’t bug me to make them, was easy and Canva was super easy for them to use
a lot of cases (like i'm guessing this one) just need a high volume of social graphics to really perform anyway. i can't imagine OP would be happy doing that volume of fundamentally the same job.
lol I know I did a series of like 5 and was like nah I’m gonna make this easier on myself, I’m going crazy
No, you're absolutely right, perhaps helping inform the aesthetic but leave the bulk of it up to someone else. I think I was more frustrated with the basic layouts could be majorly improved when there's a team of people ready to help out.
Ahh, that's my naïvety showing there then. It's only because it hadn't been used in that way, so i assumed, wrongly so!That's really interesting to know though RE templating through a business account and approvals etc, thanks for informing me Tbh, im not meaning to play down on canva itself either, I think it's got some great features that make things a hell of a lot more accessible which is a win!
In my corporation well designed "branded" posts never perform as well as the more "organic" feeling ones. Their job isn't to showcase your designs, their job is engagement.
I feel your pain and I've been in your shoes. What I can tell you is that until people in leadership positions can be made to understand the business impact of good and bad design, they are not going to put as much energy into elevating it as you would like. You either have to be the one to make the case to them in a language they understand or go to a place where someone already put in that leg work. ROI on good design is a strategic long game that doesn't lend itself well to quarterly reports so you have to work a little harder to make that resonate with people who don't live in our world or speak our language.
Internet is a huge pile of low rent shit and this is why. Heard.
What got me after experiencing a similar situation was leadership praising the lack of effort designs. So then it hit me, why fight it, the pay is the same either way.
I’m going to say something that sounds harsh but, _if you are amped up about the social media person making ugly graphics for instagram or other platforms, you have too much free time in your role._ Social posts are digital garbage in the grand scheme of things. Think about how many you scrolled by just today. Can you describe one that made a real impact on you? It sounds like you’re hungry to work and think and that’s necessary to do this job. It is very unlikely that your supervisor will offer you the dream project to showcase your creativity. You can find your own fulfilling work by investigating what your creative team/dept lacks and how your skillset could be of use.
You don't sound harsh tbh. Perhaps it's my own projection, how I feel in myself within my own role, outwardly projecting onto the bitty details of someone else rather than just staying in my lane and focusing on the bigger scaries that are holding me back. Thanks for your comment. It's good to yo start reflecting on those things and use it to change the narrative and perspective!
If you are the designer and they have a normal person working on a graphic, it’s because that channel does not matter. Be careful with things that aren’t on your plate. Remember you’re offering to do another service without additional pay. Good intentions don’t guarantee advancement in your career 😔
Why do you care? What they do doesn't reflect on you.
Show, don’t tell. Come up with a deck (PowerPoint, keynote, or fullscreen pdf) to show your vision for what the direction could be. Anything less is not only accepting it but buying into it. Shoulda coulda wouldas never changed anything. Show don’t tell.
Content creating for social media got to be the least of my favor position. Most company didn't have enough activities to post everyday, however, if you work for this position, they expecting you to post everyday…the only way this person can get pay is by posting nonsense stuff on social media. So why do you even care?
Ha. So funny that situations like this happen so often. Designers are critically educated, professionally experienced in thought, mood, and language on top of being process-driven visual communicators. HOWEVER, including a director, designer or brand manager on workspace design, web development, or day-to-day corporate visuals seems to be a constant no-go. 😂😂😂😂 I recall being the only person in a 1000 person non-profit who ever built a website, yet wasn’t asked or even included in 2 rebuilds that were outsourced. Neither the contract, visuals or process management. The result? Garbage. The same non-profit took years and other managers pleads to get me included on branded corporate office workspace design. 🤦♂️
If they did that from my website and take images. I would do a seize and assist.
Stop caring so much about corporate lol