How to Start Career in Graphic Design?

Are you interested in graphic design? And want to start a career in graphic design? This article will help you to make a better career decision with graphic design.

So, let us start with the basics before going deeper.

What does a graphic designer do?

Graphic design is the art and practice of planning and projecting ideas and your experience with visual and textual content. Using manual or digital tools, its approach involves creativity, innovation and lateral thinking.

Definitions of graphic design.

• The practice of composing and arranging the visual elements of a project
• Graphic design is the art of using design elements to convey information
• Graphic design is the work drawn, painted, Photographed, or computer-generated images it helps to communicate a message to an audience.

A graphic designer can work in all industries that use visual design. Designers create contacts like logos, posters, visual effects, web banners, and layouts. They develop the overall layout and production design for applications such as advertisements, Brouchers, magazines, and reports.

To start a career in graphic design. It would be best to learn how to use different tools and skills. So let me help you with the detail of tools, skills, etc.

What tools do graphic designers use?

Here are some of the better tools for graphic designers to use.

• Photoshop by Adobe is one of the best tools for image editing. They are also used for colour balance, cropping and straightening images. Alter colours in your photograph. Remove blemishes from a portrait or combine multiple images into a new scene.
• Illustrator tools are used for decoration, interpretation, or a visual explanation of a text—concept, process, or integration design in print of digitally published media. With Illustrator, you can resize and rescale design without losing clarity.
• Sketch is a UX and UI web design web and app. It is an excellent tool for designing icons, banners, social media images, and presentation materials.
• After Effects is known for animation, with After Effects, designers can create animation, movie titles, transitions, or even in 3D space.
• Canva is a SaaS online tool that makes designing beautiful creative assets easy for everyone, from social media images, videos and gifs to posters, websites, booklets, multimedia presentations, and more.
  
• GIMP is a free graphic design program on many platforms like Windows, Linux, and Mac OS.GIMP is an open-source program that allows you to change its source code and distribute the program.
• Lunacy is free graphic design software for UI, UX and web design. It has everything you are used to, another similar app beyond.
• Affinity Designer is a cheaper alternative to Illustrator. The software is known to work smoothly, which can improve your workflow and make you express your creativity. It helps you to move and zoom your artwork at 60fps.
• CorelDRAW Graphics is a powerful design tool to help you work faster and smarter. You will find numerous customisation options, Whether you are working on logos or web design.

We have listed a few, but there are many more to explore.

What skills do graphic designers need?

Graphic designers aim to produce professional graphics. However, one needs many different skills than design, and we have classified them as technical skills and soft skills that one needs:

Technical skills:

• Page layout Deals with the arrangement of elements on a page.Such as image placement, Text layout and style. Page design is always a consideration in printed material and has recently extended to displays such as web pages.
• Grids serve as a method of arranging both space and information and allowing the reader to comprehend the all-over project easily.
• Typography is one of the essential elements of graphic design. Typography is arranging letters and text to make a copy legible and clear. It involves font style, appearance, and structure.
• UX and UI design UX design is all about identifying and solving problems. UI design is all about creating intuitive, Interactive-Interfaces, and Aesthetically-pleasing. By understanding UX and UI, graphic designers can create a visually appealing design. Therefore, UX design usually comes first in the product development process.
• Ideation is innovative thinking. Thinking up new ideas, developing exciting ideas, and methods for putting new ideas. This is the first step a graphic designer must take when beginning a new project. Ideation involves a few steps—research, Development, evaluation and application.
• Technology is the most critical technology to have are computer literacy. Some of the technology that graphic designers should be familiar with include adobe illustration, adobe Indesign, adobe photoshop, adobe after effects and Sketch.

Soft skills:

• Creativity is the ability to think about a task or a problem in a new or different way or use the imagination to generate new ideas. It describes constantly being tasked with developing new and unique designs.
• Communication skills are at the heart of graphic design work. Not only do they need to communicate ideas through their design, but Graphic design also needs to communicate with clients. Good communication skills help to explain a design decision or a rationale to people without a design background.
• Problem-solving is about Finding the issues, understanding them, and generating alternative solutions.
• Time management skills include setting goals, focusing, and organising. As a graphic designer, Time management skills are paramount the completing task on time.
• Estimation gives an understanding of the cost of a task and then estimates the final release date. Therefore, a designer’s estimation skill is essential in agreeing with the client.
• Negotiation is how you want to convince the client to pay more. The client will use their skills to reduce your price, and your negotiation skills will help you convince the client for a higher price.
• Marketing skill is the ability of the graphic designer to let the client know why they are the best for them. Marketing skills can help graphic designers showcase their talent and pick more assignments in the future.
• Goal Setting is the skill that a graphic designer needs to have to set goals for their work and then work towards getting more work.

How to Become a Graphic Designer?

To start a career as a graphic designer, follow the steps mentioned below:

Step 1: Learn visual design principles

To become a graphic designer, you must understand the visual design principle. In addition, it involves applying design theory and principles.

Graphic designers must consider lines, colours, shape, space, texture, typography, scale, and harmony.

For example, when designing something for a professional, you should use professional fonts, not funky ones.

Step 2: Enrol in a graphic design course

A graphic design course helps to teach you the fundamentals of design and allows you to start a career and build a career in graphic design. You can learn an online course at Udemy.

Graphic design courses will cover colour theory, typography, layout, and graphical design tools and software.

Step 3: Learn to use the graphic design tools

If you want to start a career in graphic design, you need to use the available tools. A graphic designer works on this software. We have mentioned some of the best tools above, and you can pick any of them.

Design work can be created with these tools.

Step 4: Work on your project to develop design skills

After a knowledge of graphic design principles and tools, it’s time to practice. The best way to grow your skills and master graphic design software is to work on your project.

To get started, you can create mock ads and logos for real and made-up companies. You can also try creating new designs. This is good practice for becoming a graphic designer and can be used as a sample when interacting with clients.

Step 5: Build samples to showcase design work

A strong portfolio is essential for the graphic designer. Your portfolio showcases your skills, work projects, and completed course.

To start a career in graphic design, Your portfolio is the first impression employers, or clients will see, So select work demonstrating your design skills and interest.

Frequently Asked Questions