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Limited growth, wearing too many hats.
+1 to all of this except the 40 hour work week. I’m lucky if I work under 50.
I prefer it. Yes, you wear multiple hats - I like the variety, so it works for me. Much better WLB. More relaxed.
If you’re at a smaller company, you can get a lot of creative freedom and control over what you do. You can continue to teach yourself new skills as you go along if you’re driven and adventurous.
Really, it just depends on your personal preferences and how you work as a designer.
You are stuck within pre-existing brand guidelines that can be a pain to break through. Expect a lot of marketing collateral/web, documents layout, and power point decks for Sales. If the company does any sales events or customer events there is opportunity to go a bit wild with the brand there, if they don't outsource it to an agency. Depending on the size of the company you might do UI work, as well.
Second the growth and many hats.
I'm the sole designer for my office. So I deal with coworkers who don't understand what I do, what my skillset is, and how best to utilize me. Yes, there is no one else to bounced ideas off, and working in state government means there are restrictive brand guidelines. But because my office doesn't use me to my full potential, I'm able to hop in on projects across the whole department. And there is a strong core of people who do understand what I do and what I'm capable of.
Also, having excellent benefits, a decent salary, opportunities for continued education and being able to freelance all make it worthwhile.
It could be like they say. For me it means greater work life balance, less stress, and opportunity to own the brand and the products you create.
Coach
Agree with what everyone has said thus far on the knowledge gaps of colleagues, the wearing many hats, and the limited growth. The creative part of my job is really in translating business problems that can be solved best visually, proving I can solve several problems over time, and proposing ways to expand my reach within the org without overextending myself.
I love it! I work at a tech company that owns social/dating apps- with a smaller design team, and while sometimes I do wish there was more variety in the brands we are working on, there is a good amount of variety in the type of work I get to do and we have a great amount of creative freedom. We also have a really great work life balance.
Recruit me plz lol
Depends on what type of company. I used to work as an in house designer at a local audiophile company and we mostly designed catalogs and social media posts. I got to design the sticker that went on Weezer's blue album that said "limited edition blue vinyl" which I thought it was fucking cool. But ultimately most days I sat there for 8 hours doing nothing which was very frustrating. But now at an agency I pine for the days I could just listen to music and mindlessly design catalogs. The grass is always greener.
As a few have said, it really depends on the size of the company and the team you're on. I've only ever worked on in-house marketing teams in my 10 year career. All of them have been at very recognizable companies in various industries, but with varying sizes of teams and designers on them, but I think the common theme with them all is that you have the ability to gain more knowledge about the business as a whole and use that to create better design solutions. Some of the pros and cons overlap with one another, depending on the boundaries you set up for yourself - wearing too many hats lets you try a multitude of mediums and really own the brand, but it can lead to an imbalance in work/life. The gap in knowledge and understanding from coworkers can feel isolating, but also leads to building relationships and being the subject matter expert. A lot of projects can feel mundane and more internal-facing, but truly let you create a cohesive brand experience. I've loved my time in-house (even in the years with crazy hours) and have found a better stride once I learned to start advocating for myself with my bosses, whether that be in terms of WLB, pay or growth opportunities.
Exactly what everyone else has said. I’ve been doing it for almost 2 years and I wear at least 5 hats and being completely underpaid for it. However as everyone else says - a lot of freedom and variety of type of work is nice, my stress levels are low and expectations aren’t very high. It’s great for learning multiple crafts and honing what you got on someone else’s dollar. After my obligations are met I generally pick up my projects and learn new skills on the job and now using those new skills to pitch for higher pay until they stop agreeing. Then move onto the next company or agency until I feel strong enough to float myself freelancing
Everything everybody said above about lower stress, 9-5 40hr WLB, cooks in the kitchen, requests to ‘pretty’ up powerpoints, lack of creative growth, is correct —- I would add loose incoherent scope and deadlines, lack of respect from external designer peers, learn about business at a deeper level, get stale
It’s usually less exciting and less volatile. You’re sort of committed to working on one brand and there’s generally a bit better regularity and WLB. Usually the marketing year has somewhat predictable seasons. It just depends on the sort of person you are. For some reason I enjoy the madness of chaos and new, different work that you find in agencies and freelancing. Some people find this unsustainably terrifying. I find working on one brand a bit boring, while others enjoy the structure, reliability and WLB it affords.
Stable but low ceiling, overlooked, over worked, limited learning, underpaid and boring. It really becomes a production job or as I call it “design monkey”. And then too many cooks in the kitchen or design by committee.
I’m actually in the process of getting UX/UI cert to transition out.
In a very small company- Not having clear direction from management. Too many opinions in the review/approval process. No accountability on finalized designs… except you. 😂