Are you curious about how to be a self taught graphic designer that creates eye-catching designs without any formal training in graphic design? Look no further! In this article, we’ll reveal 13 simple and intriguing self-taught graphic design tips that will leave you wondering why you didn’t try them earlier.
From mastering graphic design principles of how to use color to pairing typography, these tips will teach you the secrets of graphic design and help you unleash your creativity. So, get ready to be amazed and let’s explore these 13 graphic design tips for self taught graphic design tips together!
Self taught graphic design tips:
Choose a niche
To become a self taught graphic designer you need to first choose a niche you want to specialize in, this will help you focus and establish yourself as an expert in that particular niche and also attract the rightful client you deserve.
You shouldn’t be a jack of all trades and a master of none. You should always master a particular niche that will enable clients to identify you as a specialist in that niche and also help differentiate you from other graphic designers in your group.
Here are various steps you can take to help choose a niche in graphic design:
Identify your market
Only clients who are interested in what you sell on your graphic design portfolio are the clients who patronize you. When you create your designs, you should have information about the kind of clients you intend to work with.
Preferably you can go ahead to create a portfolio “About” page which includes a piece of brief articulate information about yourself and the kind of work you offer. This way you save clients tons of headaches, they could easily read and know what they buying from you. Moreover, having the moral of stating who you are in your profile, creates trust in the mind of your clients.
When you identify your market, you simply will have a clear idea of what kind of design you want to market to your clients.
Develop your skill and knowledge
As a self taught graphic designer, frequent development of your knowledge and skills in graphic design is key. Especially as an independent graphic designer with no formal education, all work is done by you.
Honing your skill from time to time is how you level up your design game. Moreover, self taught graphic design doesn’t require rocket science in terms of finding graphic design resources, you can get them mostly for free nowadays.
There are so many free resources at your disposal on the internet. You can read graphic design books, blogs, and online courses, attend conferences, and also watch tutorials on youtube as well as listening to the best graphic design podcast on the internet
Doing this will keep you up to date with the latest graphic design trend that will enable you to serve your clients better.
Seek motivation
As a self taught graphic design student with no formal education, you should always find ways to be motivated and keep improving your graphic design skills. Setting goals for what you want to achieve will stimulate you to keep improving.
Whether it’s creating a portfolio to showcase your work and land your next client, learning new graphic design software and the tools that go with it, taking on new graphic design challenges, or working on a personal design project to flex your creativity.
However, motivation becomes present when you have self-determination, you are both a teacher and a student of “yourself”. You should be disciplined enough to set goals and always be willing to accomplish those goals.
You should always keep your fire burning by finding what motivates you the most and also help improve your graphic design skills.
Seek inspiration
Get your creative juice flowing by getting inspired by the things you observe around your environment. You can get inspiration for your next graphic design project by observing portfolios of other graphic designers, reading blogs, or even a few minutes walk in your backyard could get your new ideas coming in.
But always move along with your sketchbook or a note to put ideas down because when they come in they could slip away so quickly in no time.
However, inasmuch as we seek inspiration every time, there are times we get burned out and can generate ideas or get inspired. This is known as “creative block”.
A creative block refers to a condition characterized by an immense sensation of being trapped in the creative process, impeding one’s capacity to forge ahead and produce fresh and innovative ideas. In such a scenario, an individual may be caught staring at their computer screen or a blank page, endeavoring to proceed with the next phase of the creative process.
For graphic designers, this is not something to panic about, it is absolutely normal. When you get trapped in a creative block, you should move away from your screen and take a break, you can also take a stroll, or even take a cold shower. Doing so will get your creative juice flowing once more and new inspirations will emerge.
Learn graphic design principles
Regardless of the method of how you acquired your graphic design knowledge, whether as a self-taught graphic designer or a formal student of one of the renowned graphic design schools, you must adhere to the principles of graphic design if you want your design to succeed.
Knowing the principles of graphic design is a prerequisite that guides not just graphic design but also Design as a broad field. You should master the proper application of the various graphic design principles of how to effectively apply color, typography, hierarchy, contrast, composition, and layout.
Practice makes perfect
Developing and improving your graphic design knowledge requires constant practice. Whether it’s for the sake of developing your knowledge about a particular design style, mastering design tools, career promotion, or just for personal interest. Practicing is important.
Constant development should be made on various areas of your design knowledge, you could be practicing how to master a newly released graphic design software, a new graphic design trend, or upgrading your skillset by learning an entirely new field in graphic design.
Moreover, it can be added to your resume or portfolio and can be used to identify you as an experienced graphic designer.
Practicing builds you up and makes you have a good eye for design because as you practice, you develop a third eye for good design and you begin to see errors that you couldn’t see earlier.
These are reasons why you need constant practice to help develop your graphic design skill and knowledge:
- Speed up the design process
- Develop additional skills that can make you a more competitive candidate
- Provide you with the skills you may need for a promotion
- Ability to participate in something you enjoy
- Improve your ability to create engaging designs
- Help you build your creativity portfolio
Appreciating the growth that comes from failure
After having sleepless nights practicing how to master a particular design style that has been challenging to you, there is every certainty that will fail more than you succeed. Gladly it shouldn’t bother you at all, because the one who falls and gets up is stronger than the one who never tried.
You failed because you gave it a shot, if you keep taking trials upon trials, one day you will get it right.
During the time of your trials and errors is when you might think that “Oh may be graphic design is hard as rocket science”. But interestingly, as you fail over and over, you are subconsciously learning from the mistakes you made and I believe you will try not to repeat those mistakes.
As a self taught graphic designer, you should see this as an opportunity to boost your motivation. Mistakes are simply stepping stones set as tests to help improve and make you a better graphic designer.
As you fail, you continue to know what works and what doesn’t, we get the chance to get valuable knowledge from those mistakes we have made.
Attend design conferences
Design conferences are great meeting places you can attend to learn more, they will provide you with highly valued information, the latest design trends, and updates, and also meet people from far and wide who are willing to share and learn new ideas just like you.
Glady, this isn’t exclusively for just graphic designers but also for content managers, product people, design-obsessed people, and graphic designers like you and me that are willing to upgrade our skill pouch.
So for a self taught graphic design student that is planning on attending any of the annual graphic design conferences, here are awesome conferences to attend.
- The Adobe MAX
- The Brand New Conference
- The 99U Conference
- The Smashing Conference
- The American Institute of Graphic Arts Annual Conference
Network with other designers
Graphic design networking is an essential aspect every self taught graphic designer has to consider at some point in time because networking has so many benefits that help uplift a graphic designer’s career as he connects and shares ideas with other designers from different backgrounds.
Having a network of other graphic designers that are in and out of your niche is always beneficial. For example, you never can predict when you might need assistance to successfully help you carry out a job that might be too big for you to handle,
Moreover, collaborating with other designers to carry out jobs will allow you to learn and share skills with your collaborating team, bring up new ideas, and also speed up the design process.
Networking also creates a relationship with local and international clients, connect you with top designers in the industry, gives you more reputation or even earns you a referral.
Have strong design ethics
As a graphic designer, having design ethics means you hold yourself accountable for creating work that is not only aesthetically pleasing but also morally responsible. It involves being mindful of the impact their designs can have on individuals, society, and the environment, and striving to create work that is respectful, honest, and socially responsible.
Some examples of design ethics for a graphic designer may include:
- Using images and content that are respectful of cultural and religious beliefs.
- Refusing to create designs that promote harmful or discriminatory messages.
- Avoiding plagiarism and respecting intellectual property rights.
- Considering the environmental impact of their designs and choosing sustainable materials and practices.
- Disclosing any conflicts of interest to clients and avoiding unethical business practices.
- Upholding ethical standards in all aspects of their work, including billing, communication, and confidentiality.
By practicing design ethics, graphic designers can create work that not only looks good but also contributes to a positive and responsible society.
Take on personal projects
As a self taught graphic design student, you need to find ways to sharpen your design skills even without the client’s work. In your free time, you should consider sparring with new design styles that truly inspire you, layout, composition, and other principles that guide graphic designs.
As you practice with personal projects, you should set goals of what you want to achieve after every project completion. This way you track your development over time and also see where improvements need to be made.
Taking on a personal project is important and also a clever way to generate content for your portfolio making them available for prospects to hire you for work.
Working on a personal project gives you the opportunity and liberty to do whatever you want without the instruction of your boss or brand director. It allows you to freely demonstrate your versatility and the ability to work with different mediums, it lets you explore never-seen skill that has been secretly kept by you that might even be the solution to clients’ problems.
Create strong portfolio
Having a charming portfolio should be on your checklist. Self-taught graphic designers especially should have a good-looking portfolio that will be used in showcasing their previous jobs made for clients or from personal projects.
Your graphic design portfolio is an important asset of your brand that serves as a visual representation of your abilities, skill, and styles. It showcases your skillfulness in how you manage the various elements and principles of graphic design which are color, typography, layout, composition, negative space, and so on.
A well-designed and thought-out portfolio can showcase your skills and personality and make a lasting impression on potential clients or employers.
As you work on clients or personal design projects, always upload the best-looking content that you previously created for your client or from a personal design project.
In case you are looking for where to create a good portfolio for your brand, there are several free portfolio hosting sites like Behance, dribbble, Pinterest, and even social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.
Accept criticism
You should normalize accepting criticism from clients because it helps you improve your design skills and also helps you create better-looking designs.
Accepting constructive graphic design criticism gives you a second chance to fix your mistakes by learning what caused your design to be ineligible and then you try to correct them in the future.
Criticism from clients could also help in building trust with your clients because they would want to work with a transparent graphic designer that listens to their No! and always put himself in their shoes by seeing things from their own perspective.
Accepting criticism is a natural process of graphic design that you shouldn’t take personally or make you think that your work isn’t good at all. Every designer goes through it, it’s how you accept criticism thrown at you that differentiates you from the rest.
Be patient, consistent, and persistent
As a self-taught graphic designer, patience, consistency, and persistence are crucial qualities to have. Learning graphic design can be a challenging and time-consuming process, but with these traits, you can overcome obstacles and achieve your goals.
Here are some tips to help you stay patient, consistent, and persistent as you pursue your passion for graphic design:
- Set achievable goals: Start by setting realistic goals for yourself. Break down your larger goals into smaller, more manageable tasks that you can accomplish in a reasonable amount of time. As you improve over time, you can begin tuning up the number of goals you can at once.
- Practice regularly: Consistency is key when it comes to learning graphic design. Try to set aside a specific amount of time each day or week to practice your skills. Even if you only have a few minutes, use that time to work on a project or experiment with new techniques.
- Learn from others: Seek out inspiration and guidance from other designers. Join online communities, attend workshops, and take online courses to learn from the experts.
- Embrace failure: Don’t be afraid to make mistakes or fail. It’s all part of the learning process. Take note of what went wrong and use that information to improve your skills moving forward.
- Celebrate successes: Celebrate your successes, no matter how small. Recognize your progress and use it as motivation to keep going.
- Stay motivated: Keep your passion for design alive by staying motivated. Find ways to stay inspired, whether it’s through exploring new art forms, attending conferences, or collaborating with other designers.
Lastly, becoming a skilled self-taught graphic designer takes time, you will need to be consistent, persistent, and patiently practicing all that you have learned over time to help make you become the best version of yourself.
We all have our unique method of learning whatever we want to learn but the most important is how we arrive at the final result. You decided to teach yourself graphic design because you believed no matter what you can still be a graphic designer with a formal education.
I bet if you take every tip listed here into practice, you will start developing a good eye for design as you will become the graphic designer you desire in less than a year. Personally, I am a self taught graphic designer and this is how I started my design career.
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