How to find work when the “graphic design jobs near me” search fails

For future graphic designers, the first step on the road to getting paid for having bothered to learn Photoshop is the most soul crushing one.

It’s bad enough that the road is long and steep and very off-puttingly lined with signs promising good money if you’re willing to just step away from it all and start harassing people about their phone contracts in the middle of the day. Then, the very first thing you do is to ask Google whether there are any “graphic design jobs near me” and get told “sure, sure, pretty close — how close to Chengdu did you say you lived again?”.

Or, possibly even worse,  there are graphic design jobs near you and they’re hiring this week and you’re the perfect fit so long as you’ve worked three years in a busy workplace and have plenty of experience selling some hyper-specific shoes for Cabbage Patch Kids that are shaped like impossibly large tomatoes. And the pay is approx £100 a week, but does include biscuits and Pizza Fridays. “Ahhh, so close,” you say; you did work for three years in a place that sold shoes for Cabbage Patch Kids, but not a busy one, and they did distinctly lack a vegetable theme. Or, more likely, you put your head in your hands and stress panic because you’ve made a whole thing to your parents about graphic design being this thing you’re doing and now you’ve just found out you might have to move to China to actually do the work.

Despite this sheer wall of negativity, it is possible to find a way in. Not only did I do it, but I have also seen other people do it. With my eyes. I would say I’m hesitant to spill my secrets — they’ve been hard won and I wouldn’t want to encourage anyone else to be successful. Good lord no. But on the odd chance it actually helps, here’s my advice for finding graphic design work near you — also there’s no single right answer so just take this all on board and cherry-pick the parts you feel up to. I’m not your mother.

How do I find Graphic Design jobs near me?

If there are any of the following I haven’t done and have just asked a friend or seen a trend lately that I think might help, then I’ll point those out. For everything else you can safely assume that I have done it on my personal quest on the road to the promised land of consistent employment in graphic design.

Cold-emailing

This one’s tough. Sending a batch unpersonalised email to every man and his dog won’t go down well. However, giving an agency a call and asking who the best person to email is, then sending a brief email with your information and saying what work they do that you like (genuinely, of course) and following up with a call is perhaps the best way. That will no doubt sound daunting to some of you — maybe check out the simple guide to design jobs if you need to dispel some of the anxiety about who these people are and why agencies are just like you or I, if you or I were faceless design mills… and we might just be, right? I am a Mac Monkey for pay. Give me a typewriter and enough time and you can have your bloody Shakespeare.

Word of mouth

This one’s a killer, but one good job leads to another good job until you have infinite jobs and you have finally Completed Graphic Design. Seriously though, if you’re starting small, or juggling bits of design work with your shelf-stocking job like I did when I was figuring out how to become a graphic designer post-archaeological detour, then use what you’ve got. If a job goes well, share it online. Ask your lovely client for a Google Review. Ask them to keep you in mind for future projects. Even if it doesn’t find you work, it can be used to apply for jobs in lieu of Cabbage Patch Kids shoe-making experience (if you skipped to this section and you’re confused, read the intro, sorry.).

LinkedIn is a thing now

I don’t take my own advice and I don’t do this, but LinkedIn truly is the TikTok for working adults and corporate robots alike. Wade through the awful posts (“I walked past a homeless dog once and ten years later that dog runs my company and just gave the guy next to me a million pounds, don’t be like me…”) and try to make meaningful connections — my sources say this is possible now. Keep in contact, exchange news on jobs, send useful things you see their way; these things come back around inevitably, and remember they’re on LinkedIn with the same goals as you. Just don’t be stupid and start firing your personal details to strangers in hopes for employment, please.

Networking — the LinkedIn of Yesteryear

If you’re catching a vibe here that suggests ‘other people’ are in some way necessary to find or craft graphic design jobs near home, then yes, yes, you’ve cottoned on to my secret. I know, it’s hard to find a group you fit into. If you start one, just make sure you attend at least three times before deciding either way. This route can take like a year to amount to a job, so don’t expect immediate success, but be friendly, enthusiastic, meet in person if you can, and eventually you can pull each other up and into graphic design work.

Work a local graphic design-adjacent job

See a social media role or content role available for a small company nearby that’s not quite graphic design? These jobs always forget to mention it, but they do usually want people with graphic design skills. Your patience for non-graphic design work may vary as you probably won’t be doing it for 70% of the work day, but if you use that time and job security and slowly growing portfolio while keeping an eye out, you can find something with a better balance down the line.

Workshops and Students are beehives of information

I went into this in more detail in my Graphic Design for Film — tips on getting your start in the industry article, but those workshops and film students are in every town and if anyone is ever one step away from finding graphic design work near you, or giving you a bit of slightly underpaid but well-meaning work, it’ll be these people.

These jobs might not want to be found, and you might have to technically invent them if you live truly in the middle of nowhere, but with the methods above and some luck you should eventually find a client or two. If you need some advice on talking to people (this is the main hurdle here after all), I talk about my experiences in what does and doesn’t work for people in the Graphic Design for Film requires patience, persistence, and positivity blog post, you’ll find people smile in your general direction 23% more on average/purpose.