Graphic design requires patience and practice and for you to be a great graphic designer requires a combination of technical skills, creativity, and a strong understanding of design principles, as well as the capacity to effectively communicate and cooperate with clients and team members, stay current with industry trends, and constantly improve and refine one’s craft through practice and experimentation.
In this article, I’m going to be listing out the necessary tips needed to help gear you up to becoming a great graphic designer. Hopefully, when you are done reading this article you will be confident enough to take on any project and also sharpen your graphic design skill.
How to be a great graphic designer
Learn design principles
Studying graphic design principles will help you get familiar with the ethics of graphic design follows. Graphic design principles give you the foundational basic knowledge of what makes up a good design, how a good design should look, and how to figure out a good design as a client and it’s simply by following the graphic design principles of contrast, balance, emphasis, proportion, hierarchy, repetition, rhythm, pattern, white space, movement, variety, and unity.
Embrace criticism
We are naturally built to react and feel bad whenever we get negative feedback or criticism of our work from people, that’s a natural human emotional reaction. With that made clear, you should have it at the back of your mind that you will be getting a lot of criticism of your from people.
Often, you will get frustrating client feedback like- “Can we make this more …?” “Can we make it pop?”, Can we add mountains on top of the logo?
Accepting criticism as a great graphic designer is a healthy mindset not defeat, it’s a matter of no pain no gain. When you embrace criticism with an open mind, you tend to see what the errors are and improve upon them, thereby making you better.
Now think of it this way, if you are commended for a bad design every time, how will you notice your mistake and correct them immediately to avoid you being a global laughing stock? We are talking about you becoming a renowned great graphic designer, you shouldn’t overlook those mistakes or else you will be seen as unprofessional.
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Practice
Mastery comes with consistent practice of the various techniques and applications of graphic design principles. As a graphic designer aspiring to be one of the greatest, you will need to learn about the principles of design such as color theory, typography, layout, and composition. You can find books, online courses, and tutorials that cover these topics.
Constant practicing applies virtually across every skill acquisition and graphic design is not an exception. Practicing your graphic design skill is what should be done from time to time, at least 4-5 hours daily.
As you practice your graphic design skills ceaselessly, it will be hard for you to forget all you have learned over time. It will also make you feel confident to handle difficult projects and acquaint you with your favorite design software.
When you practice graphic design principles over and over again you will always find something new that you failed to notice previously, there is always something interesting for you to learn. As you constantly adhere to those principles of graphic design, you subconsciously start habituating the design principles and begin applying them to your designs to make them appealing.
Attend design seminars and conferences
Graphic design seminars and conferences are great events to attend if you want to gain more network and information to help you be a great graphic designer. Whether you are a beginner that is just starting a carer in graphic design or an oldie who is just brushing up on old knowledge, a graphic design conference is the best way to gain information and knowledge about graphic design.
A graphic design conference is a meeting point for graphic designers who want to interact and share the knowledge they know in graphic design. Graphic designers from various ramifications come together to share ideas collectively.
Graphic design conferences often feature keynote speakers who are leaders in the industry, as well as workshops, panel discussions, and exhibitions that allow attendees to learn new skills, discover new techniques, and explore the latest trends in the field. These events are an excellent opportunity for designers to connect with other professionals, gain inspiration, and expand their knowledge and expertise.
It is also a place to meet and connect with other designers who might land you your next graphic design project or recruit you into their team. It’s simply a marketplace where you can find so much value at a lesser cost.
We have some popular graphic design conferences that come up annually-
Adobe Max
The American Institute of Graphic Arts Annual Conference
The 99U Conference
Create a strong portfolio
Whether you are working as a freelancer or as a member of an in-house graphic design team, you definitely need a place to showcase your best work for prospects or clients to see and approach you for hire or for long-term recruitment.
Graphic design portfolios aren’t difficult to create nowadays, you can still own a portfolio even if you do not own a personal blog or website where your works can be uploaded for people to view. There are free graphic design portfolio platforms like Behance, Dribbble, Pinterest, Facebook, and Instagram.
These are free portfolio websites and platforms you can use for free without paying a penny but my advice is to follow other users in the community for better networking and potential jobs.
I suggest you follow other designers because there are some cases where other designers might contact you for collaboration and they will offer you a chance to join their team after they have checked out your portfolio, when you join them as a team, you will be given task according to your specialty after every successful job, you instantly get your payment.
Start creating your professional graphic design portfolio, do not wait until a client’s work is done before you upload them to your portfolio. You can practice or go solo with a personal project, or flex your skillfulness by redesigning or trying out new ideas with popular logos and posters.
Doing this will help showcase your skillfulness as a great graphic designer. In no time you will start getting a good impression on your portfolio stats and clients’ attention will start getting drawn to you.
Develop your skill
Becoming better at graphic design requires the constant practice of the theories, principles, and dos and don’ts of graphic design. Doing these helps in the overall development of your graphic design skill.
If you inspire to be a great graphic designer that stands out uniquely, there is a need to develop your skills and find better ways to use the various graphic design elements to solve problems, my advice is to find your niche angle and develop the skillsets needed to help you into the type of designer that you aspire.
Developing your skillset is limitless you never can tell where your next job would come from. It could slightly be different from the usual or it could be totally different from what you usually specialize in. With this said, it’s beneficial to add up new skills to your skillsets even if they are out of your specialty. Who knows you might just need them at some point, you never can tell.
Have a strong work ethic
Having a strong work ethic is an ingredient every designer should have throughout their graphic design career. When you have a strong graphic design ethic you adhere to, the path to success becomes clearer. Most designers take this aspect of graphic design for granted because they feel it doesn’t matter so much.
In the actual sense we have ethic and regulation that guides us in everything we do as humans so does graphic design, when those ethics are not obeyed there will be a violation that causes dysfunction, your attention gets divided, you lose focus, and probably you might just end up opening another tab on your browser to watch funny cats videos on youtube.
Having a graphic design work ethic is one way to be a great graphic designer that sticks to the routine plan. Several ethics while working is may decide to switch off your smartphone, have a design routine, sketch ideas before opening your design software, and so many others with few said already, feel free to check out these graphic design ethics to stick to as a graphic designer.
Be organized and meet deadlines
Ensuring every single graphic design project that has been given to you is delivered early enough to the client is a healthy practice. It gives a good impression about you as a graphic designer, in fact, it is one characteristic you should have if you want to become a great graphic designer.
Setting out time to meet up with every other graphic design task and even other general life matters. Organization requires discipline to stick to your daily schedule, when every schedule is met, more time is created for pending graphic design projects to be settled and delivered to their respective owners. When you are organized and meet deadlines, clients tend to develop a certain trust towards you because they believe you are reliable and always will deliver their jobs on time.
Develop a signature style
As a graphic designer, you should have a unique signature style people should know you for. Using your unique design style to stand out from the crowd is a sure way for you can use to promote your design or get more clients. You could have a cool way you layout texts or the way you play around with colors throughout your work.
As long as you are doing it like no one else is doing it, and it looks appealing, then you are on the right track. Finding a unique style is simply finding what you love doing with graphic design-the type of imagery you use, the genre of font, and also color choice.
Also, with the yearly increase in the demand for graphic design, graphic design has become challenging, common, and filled with amateurs claiming to be professionals. while in the real sense, they just know how to click buttons in photoshop and illustrator. But when you own a signature style, your designs will always stand out from the crowd, and also highly valued clients will come after you.
Take online design challenges
Becoming a professional graphic designer that wants to regularly hone his or her skill comes with a lot of prerequisites. Having steady practice and getting into online graphic challenges is how you upgrade your graphic design skills.
Joining an online graphic design challenge is how you test how good you can become. Taking up challenges from any of the graphic design challenges contests is how you get more inspiration. Challenges may come in different shapes and sizes but no matter how difficult it seems, always give a trial, because there’s always something new you can take home.
Graphic design challenges are also mediums you can use to acquire new clients regardless if you win or lose those challenges. But if you win, there is always a prize for you.
There are fun-filled graphic design challenges out there, you can find graphic design challenges like the bright sparkle design challenge 2023, and 99design contest sign up and test your potential.
Have a pinch of everything
Graphic design is a broad career that has so many subsets and we are always advised to stick to a niche and be known for it, that’s how we get better right? But having an all-around knowledge of graphic design is beneficial. These days you never can tell the situation you might find yourself and your knowledge of other graphic design niches might come in handy
It’s okay to step outside of your favorite graphic design niche, read design theories of other niches, or even learn how to use other graphic design software.
Read graphic design books
Graphic design books are a great way to acquire great information covering graphic design. So many people overlook this to be less important, and both beginners and professionals are guilty of this mistake. Not taking advantage of this rich source of information that set you on the right track in your graphic design career is a wise choice you should take if you want to be a great graphic designer.
Graphic design books have essential knowledge of how to go about the principles and theoretical aspect of graphic design, it covers a whole lot of prerequisites that anyone who wants to be a great graphic designer should adhere to.
There are several books that are recommended you read to sharpen your design skill – Thinking with Type by Ellen Lupton, Now You See It and Other Essays on Design by Michael Beirut, and How to Be a Graphic Designer without Losing Your Soul by Adrian Shaughnessy. These are just a few highly educational books about graphic design but there are so many others.
Work on a personal project
What’s more fun than taking on that personal project that’s been laying in your library for a long time? Personal projects are a great way you can test your creative might and know well creativity has become over time. Working on a personal project is a great way to challenge yourself by taking on an audacious design project that gives you a tough time, it is a great opportunity because you can’t go solo or practice your skill with a real client’s project.
Working on a personal design project also develops your graphic design skills by filtering personal design taste, it will help you focus on those design styles you personally enjoy doing and this is essential to you as a graphic designer because when you find your style early and you develop on it and become a professional in that particular style.
One fun fact about personal graphic design projects is the liberty of not taking orders from your client or boss, you have the absolute decision on how you want your design to look, and you don’t need to worry about meeting deadlines or spending time scrutinizing your work for error.
All the graphic design resources needed like colors, fonts, layout, images, everything! Is decided by you. Supposing that you run into a scarcity of design resources for your next project, you can sure get read our list of best graphic design resources on the internet today.
Critique your work
Critique doesn’t always come from others, it sometimes should come from yourself. Giving constructive criticism to your own work is what makes you unique and also helps in self-development.
You should always strive to be better with your design and this is by learning new skills and applying them appropriately. When we fail to not applying that knowledge to our design, the design becomes lopsided and criticism starts coming in.
Take a break to see the mistakes you’ve made in your past or on the present work and figure out ways you can make them better with your proficient knowledge in graphic design.
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Have a graphic design mentor
We all have that role model we always look up to whenever ever we think of the ambition we want to achieve in life. Graphic designers aren’t exempted from this from having one. Infact, having a graphic design role model is what will always inspire and motivate you to continuously chase your graphic design career.
There are so many great graphic designers that you can follow them on Instagram or Facebook even if you do not have the opportunity to meet them in real life, you can follow them via social media and keep up to date with what they are doing, the style of graphic design and processes they take to achieve their amazing work.
However, role models aren’t only found online, they can also be found around your environment. It could be anyone from your school, workplace, or a friend. As long they know what they are doing and adhere to the prerequisites of graphic design, then I guess you have found yourself one.
They could also be helpful when you want to get additional knowledge of graphic design, tricks, and advanced walkthroughs of a particular design effect. They are sure to always walk you through. They are like your master in Shaolin, lol.
Collab with other designers
Having joint work with other graphic designer colleagues in school or the workplace is a great way to learn more and level your skillset. Collaborating with other graphic designers that are in or out of your niche will help develop your knowledge and will also improve your skills and tricks when using your design software.
Also, a collab with other graphic designers helps create helpful networking with various clients that might need your help either at home or abroad. You might just be the guy they see to be fit to carry out the job at hand.
Collaboration also helps in building your communication skills with foreign graphic designers that reside locally or internationally. Communication with people is most times overlooked by graphic designers. It is an essential skill that you need to have as a graphic designer.
Knowing how to communicate with people will help polish you for business times like when you will need to present your work to a client or the management board of a company, a business proposal, or get information from the client on a face-to-face briefing.
However, design briefing isn’t only done face to face. You can also send your design brief via email which contains all the logo design questions or poster design questions and also essential questions like how much your logo cost, the client’s budget, business info, slogan, business name, and so many others.
With all the tips and advice listed out I am sure will be confident enough to take your first bold step as a beginner or improve upon your skill as an oldtimer. we are all here to share and learn, aren’t we?
Maybe we might have missed some tips on this list. So if you have an awesome tip you want to share, please do not fail to drop it in the comment section; we might add it to our list. Thanks and be creative.