How to Gain Design Experience Without a Job
You need experience to get hired but you need a job to get experience. There are plenty of ways to start building a portfolio and gain design experience even without a full-time job.
We'll explore creative strategies like volunteering, freelancing, and personal projects you can leverage to showcase your skills.
Volunteer for a Cause You're Passionate About
Volunteering your design skills for a good cause is a great way to gain real-world experience. Look for social impact organizations in fields that you care about such as in education, healthcare, or the environment.
Reach out and offer to help them with design needs like creating designs for their website, social media, newsletters or print materials. You'll get practice with design tools and learn how to match an organization's branding.
Also, ask them to be your reference and a recommendation on your LinkedIn when you apply to jobs!
Apply Your Skills in Design Challenges
Design challenges are a great way to gain real experience and build up your portfolio. At Design Buddies, we run regular challenges where you design something based on a prompt for a period of time. We also provide prizes! All skill levels are welcome in our challenges.
You can also participate in group or solo adventures! We also share hackathons and design-a-thons. Work together with a team to build a solution towards a prompt.
We’re also launching our next large design challenge with our Buddies at Hatch - Interactive webpage design challenge with $1800 USD in prizes. It’s due Feb 29, 11:59 pm PT. No experience needed, we’ll have 2 workshops to support you.
Create an original project in Hatch highlighting your unique approach to no-code interactive web design. Add no-code effects to your creative toolbox and amplify your design skills with AI-generated custom code and visual scripting.
We’re also hosting live workshops on Feb 15 and Feb 22 to help you.
Build Your Portfolio Through Personal Projects
Personal projects allow you to hone your skills and create case studies to show your abilities. Here are some ideas for personal design projects:
Redesign an existing product or service. Pick something you use regularly that frustrates you and reimagine the user experience. Document your process to demonstrate how you approached simplifying the design.
Create a mobile app concept. Come up with an app idea to solve a problem you notice in your daily life. Map out the user flow, wireframes, and visual designs. Describe how you worked to optimize the usability and experience for users.
Design a website for a local business. Approach a small business in your area and offer to redesign their website. Work with them to determine needs and reimagine their online presence. Launch the site and use their feedback in your case study.
Volunteer your skills for a good cause. Nonprofits are always in need of design services. Offer to create wireframes, graphics, or other materials for their website, social media, or email marketing campaigns. The work can provide experience for your portfolio and benefit the organization. You can even ask them to be your reference and write you a letter of recommendation when you apply for jobs!
Start your own project. Come up with an idea for a simple product or service and build a prototype. It could be a mobile app, web app, or other digital product.
Be sure to document your process for any projects you take on. Write case studies highlighting the challenges, your solutions, and results to strengthen your portfolio.
Finding Freelance Work
Freelancing is a great way to gain real-world design experience without the commitment of a full-time job. As a freelancer, you have the flexibility to work on projects that interest you and fit your schedule. Tips to land your first design freelance gig:
Look for freelance job posts on the #paid-opportunities channel on Design Buddies and websites like Upwork, Fiverr, and 99Designs.
Pitch your services to local startups. Do some research to find new companies in your area, especially in the tech sector. Reach out to their founders and offer your UX services, like conducting user research, redesigning their website or app, or developing user personas. Startups often need design help but may not have the budget for a full-time hire.
Have a portfolio and share about your work on LinkedIn and/or Twitter. Demonstrate your UX process, skills, and availability for freelance work. Include case studies of previous projects or a portfolio of your design work. Engage with others in the tech community by commenting on and sharing relevant content.
Let your network know you're taking on freelance work. Tell friends, family, former colleagues, and mentors about your design freelancing and ask them to spread the word. Someone in your extended network may know of opportunities or connect you with a potential new client.
Join Design Communities and Events
One of the best ways to gain experience and connections in the UX field without a job is by getting involved in design communities and attending industry events. These are great opportunities to network, learn new skills, find mentors, and stay on top of trends in the UX world.
Join Communities
Design Buddies is a friendly and educational community for designers. Join our Discord to chat with others in your field, ask questions, share resources, and get feedback on your portfolio or designs.
Look for local meetups in your area to connect in person. You can find local meetups through Design Buddies (based in SF Bay Area but we’re expanding), Meetup, and Eventbrite.
Attend Design Conferences
There are major design conferences such as Design Buddies’ first conference, Design The Future (May 20, 2024 online and in San Francisco), Figma’s Config, Adobe MAX, Creative South, and more.
Attending events like these allows you to hear from leaders in your industry, discover new tools and techniques, and make awesome connections. Even if you can’t attend in person, many conferences release videos of talks online for free.
Conclusion
Keep putting yourself out there, work on projects that excite you, collaborate with others, and remember. Enjoy your journey! The connections you make and the lessons you learn will stay with you throughout your life. You are not your job title!
🎉 Design Buddies Events
Online
Workshop: Interactive Webpages (Thu Feb 15, 2 pm PST - session 1) with Hatch
Workshop: Interactive Webpages (Thu Feb 22, 2 pm PST - session 2) with Hatch
Designing AI Products (The Feb 29, 4 pm PT) with Dovetail
Live 3 week course - Next Level UI Prototyping and Animation (apply by Feb 26) with Bitesize UX and 10% discount
Design Buddies first conference: Design The Future (Mon May 20, 2024 - online and San Francisco)
San Francisco
Design with AI workshop & meetup (Wed Feb 21, 5:30 pm) with GenAI Collective and Ansh Mehra
Product and AI workshop & meetup (Tue Feb 27, 5:30 pm) with GenAI Collective and Ansh Mehra
Lots of in-person meetups coming in March, April, and May leading up to our first conference!
🐰 About Design Buddies
Design Buddies is a community where you level up your design career. Make lifelong friends, improve your design craft, and land jobs. We have free resources, events, design challenges, a job board, mentorship, fun perks, and more. Founded by Grace Ling in April 2020.
👋 Visit our website and hop into our community
💖 Partner with us
👀 Job hunting? Apply to join our talent collective (free)
🌟 Watch our past events and connect with us on Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn for more fun!
Volunteering and passion projects were so helpful for me when I first started designing as a teenager. Most of them are now paying clients.