Any graphic design course worth its salt will teach you everything you need to know about graphic design and set you up to head out into the world as a graphic designer. Graphic design is the effective visual communication of an idea or concept. Design is all around us—from food packaging and logos to billboard posters—design is a daily part of our lives, enticing us to buy a product or helping with an everyday task like using an app on your phone. Again, Dribbble is a great place to make these connections and to gather valuable feedback on your design work.
They work in different industries, including advertising, publishing, and web design. Graphic Designers use a variety of software programs to create their designs, including Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign.
They help organizations raise brand awareness by designing the visual layout and look of brochures, magazines, products and websites. Graphic design specializations include illustration, packaging design, game design and animation. No matter where you work as a graphic designer, you’ll work with some amazing, creative people. Whether in a studio or in-house, you’re guaranteed to meet a new family as soon as you start working. For freelancers, you’re going to need to send your portfolio over to potential clients when pitching for jobs. They are the fundamental tool in any graphic designer’s repertoire. No one is ever going to give you a job as a graphic designer unless you can show them some impressive work in a portfolio.
What Does a Graphic Designer Do?
However, the statement continued that one with a bachelor’s degree in fine arts or liberal arts would not be considered ready for entry and later upward mobility within graphic design. The BLS anticipates that the demand for Graphic Designers will rise by 3% from 2020 to 2030, equating to around 23,000 new job openings each year. These statistics show that there is no better time to start a career in graphic design. Adobe Illustrator is another industry-standard program often used to create vector graphics, logos, and illustrations. Vector graphics are comprised of points and shapes that can be scaled without losing quality. You can improve your graphic design skills by practicing regularly, taking courses, attending workshops, and collaborating with other designers.
You can use Photoshop to swap parts of images to change out a face, for example, or to insert a background or edit flaws in a photo. Graphic designers must consider the white space around the design elements in the layout – clients don’t like paying for empty space! – or how headers and subheads can be a consistent size while fitting the space on the page. Designers must know how color and imagery impact individuals and how to manipulate them effectively to direct users (and buyers) where they want them to look. We’ve all heard the stories about people like Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg who dropped out of college and went on to create companies that changed the world we live in. These stories reinforce the idea that a college education isn’t necessary – all you really need is natural talent, a strong portfolio, and a lot of hard work… right? Graphic Designers need to constantly be practicing and improving their design skills, which takes time and effort.
Network with Industry Professionals
The strong demand and job outlook for graphic designers in various industries are also promising, with the projected number of job openings expected to rise by three percent between 2020 and 2030. A UI UX designer is responsible for creating an online user experience that is easy to navigate and visually appealing. Companies employ UI designers to improve customer satisfaction and increase conversion rates by making their products more user-friendly. If you have some previous experience with graphic design or related software programs, you may be able to learn on your own through independent study. There are many resources available online, such as tutorials, video lessons, and forums where you can ask questions and get feedback from other creative professionals. But learning graphic design is not really about “knowing Photoshop” any more than knowing how to turn on your phone’s video camera makes you a professional film director.
Create Your Own Learning Plan
We understand standing out is tough, but the reality is the more you connect and have an online presence, the higher chance you have to get noticed and potentially hired. At Shillington, our dedicated graphic design students are taught all about how to design for packaging—from FMCG (that’s fast… A few common terms you may have heard of include the golden ratio, rule of thirds, hierarchy, kerning, leading, tracking and x-height. By becoming fluent with the common design terms, you’ll be able to understand the “design speak” when meeting with other designers as well as communicating with your team. And, to achieve balance, the design needs to have structure through either symmetry or tension.
In that case, we recommend you read about graphic design history and the principles of design alongside practicing the key skills of graphic design. We know it seems a bit overwhelming initially, but all you need to do is put your head down and build your career step by step. If you already have a full-time job in another field and want to pursue a graphic design program on the side, you can also do that, but you’ll need to plan out how you’ll manage your time well in advance. The graphic design industry has quite the reputation for tight deadlines and busy work schedules.
Collaborate on Projects
Read more about Video editing here.
Some of the best graphic design bachelor’s programs are accredited by the National Association of Schools of Art and Design (NASAD). Find out if your graphic design program is accredited by searching for it in NASAD’s directory of accredited institutions. They are aware of the tools at their disposal, but are not bound by a single solution or style. They have the knowledge to originate and develop a “signature style” and the skills to express their own aesthetics. For a full breakdown and to see how your salary would progress as a graphic designer, check out our Complete Graphic Designer Salary Breakdown.
If you are interested in learning how to become a graphic designer, it’s important to first understand what a graphic design job would entail. Graphic design is the art of storytelling through visual communication.