Thursday, March 5, 2026
Graphic design take-home assignments that aren't spec work
Designers have a well-earned suspicion of take-home tests. Plenty of them have spent a weekend on a "trial project," been rejected, and then seen something very like their idea go live a few months later. That's spec work, and the profession's main association, AIGA, has opposed it for years on grounds of quality, intellectual property and fairness.
So the first job of a design take-home is to look obviously different from spec work. Three rules do most of that:
- Use a fictional brief. Make up the company, or use one that's clearly not yours. Never ask for work on your own live campaign.
- Pay for it, whatever happens. A flat fee for the time you're asking for, paid whether or not they get the job.
- Keep it small. One asset, or one screen with its states. Not a brand system.
If your test passes all three, good designers will take it seriously instead of quietly dropping out.
Why not just look at the portfolio?
Look at the portfolio too. It just doesn't answer the questions a hiring manager has. A portfolio piece might have had an art director standing over it for three weeks. It might be the one great project out of fifty. And it rarely shows the file underneath, which is the part your team will actually inherit.
A short test answers three narrow questions: can they work from a brief they didn't write, how do they build a file someone else will open, and can they explain their choices.
Five example briefs
Pick the one that matches the job. Don't stack them.
Marketing designer (2 to 3 hours). "Fernway is a fictional project-management tool running a webinar called 'Planning Without Meetings.' Design a three-frame LinkedIn carousel and one 1200×628 ad. A logo and a color palette are attached. Write placeholder copy if you need it."
UI designer (3 hours). "Design the password-reset flow for a banking app: the request screen, the 'check your email' screen, the new-password screen, and their error and success states. Use the attached component library and annotate anything that's new."
Brand designer (3 to 4 hours). "A neighborhood bakery called Rye & Rise needs a wordmark. Show two directions, one-color versions, and the logo at favicon size and on a 6-inch storefront sign. Include a short paragraph on each direction."
Production designer (2 hours). "Here's a messy layered file from an agency. Clean up and name the layers, swap the hero image for the one provided, and export three banner sizes to spec. Send back the source file and the exports."
Design critique (1 hour, any level). "Here's a landing page. Write up or record the three changes you'd make first, and why." This is short, cheap and surprisingly revealing, and there's nothing in it you could ship.
What's a fair time limit?
Two to four hours for most roles. Senior candidates can take on more ambiguity in the brief, not more hours. If you're tempted to ask a lead designer for eight hours, run two paid stages instead: a short exercise for everyone, then a longer one for your final two or three.
Before you send the brief, have someone on your team do it cold. Whatever time they take, candidates will take more.
What should you pay?
Pay the hours you're asking for at a rate close to the job's. As a reference point, the US median for graphic designers was $62,960 a year in May 2025, about $30 an hour. Freelance rates run higher because freelancers cover their own overhead. For a three-hour test, a flat fee of a few hundred dollars is in a fair range for experienced designers.
Pay quickly. A $200 payment that needs a vendor portal and 45 days of net terms turns a goodwill gesture into a chore. For the broader argument, see You're already paying for candidate screening.
Who owns the work?
Say it in the brief. The simplest rule is that the candidate owns it and can put it in their portfolio, and you won't use it. Since the brief is fictional, you wouldn't be able to use it anyway, which is the point.
How to grade it
Write the rubric before the first submission comes in, and have two people score each one separately.
| What you're checking | What good looks like |
|---|---|
| Brief adherence | Every requested size, state and deliverable is there. |
| Visual craft | Clear hierarchy, readable type and a consistent spacing system. |
| File quality | Layers and components are named, nothing destructive was done, and fonts and assets are packaged. |
| Rationale | A few sentences explaining the key choices and what they'd try next. |
Leave out style preferences the brief never mentioned. If you wanted a particular look, put it in the brief.
Ask for the walkthrough
The most useful 15 minutes in a design hire often come after the take-home: the candidate shares their screen, opens the actual file, and talks you through it. You see how they organize their work, how they react to a question like "what if the headline is twice as long?", and whether they can defend a choice without getting defensive. Pudding records this as part of the assessment, so the whole hiring team can watch it later instead of scheduling another call.
Related reading
- How to handle a request for an unpaid take-home assignment (the candidate's side)
- Work sample automation
- Take-home examples for writers, marketers and engineers
Josh Priollaud
Founder @ Pudding
Josh Priollaud is the founder and CEO of Pudding, a Siligo Ventures portfolio company. Josh has worked in business development roles at Cloud9 IDE, Webgility, MuleSoft and Adobe. Before his Silicon Valley career, Josh served as an Economic Development Adviser in the Peace Corps. Josh holds an MBA from the Leavey School of Business at Santa Clara University and a BS in Business Administration from Portland State University. Josh has been a full stack developer (Ruby on Rails, React) since 2020.