TIPS TO IMPROVE AS A GRAPHIC DESIGNER

TIPS  TO  IMPROVE  AS  A  GRAPHIC  DESIGNER

Graphic design is a field that is quickly changing, both creatively and technically, and while it is easy to get caught up in learning new technical skills, it is just as important to focus improving and pushing the limits of our creativity.

While in design school, it was easy to surround myself with inspiration and engage in activities that helped my understanding of effective design. Once I graduated I feared losing it, since I was no longer surrounded by a learning environment. I made it a point to continue educating myself as much as possible and become more active in the field of design. I was determined not to let my designs grow stagnant, but rather transgress and improve with time. Here are a few tips,EXERCISES and practices that have help me continue learning, strengthen creativity and become an all around better designer.

STEPS

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   Become a collector. Each time you see a design that inspires you, collect it, bring it home and file it away. You can stack them in boxes or folders, allowing you access to them. They're a great resource of inspiration when needed. Even Starbucks gives out creative weekly mini-newspapers. ^[1]
   

   • You can also do this online. Download work which you like. Make a new Map on your computer and name it 'Inspiration'. Save everything you like there. Every time you're stuck or have no idea what to add more into your work, you can always look in your 'Inspiration' map.
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   Buy books. Having an extensive book collection is essential to learning. Try to buy a new book at least every few weeks. Look for a range of inspirational, educational, fun, and technical topics.
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   Read design-related blogs. You will learn a lot by reading other designers' blogs.^[2] The web in an invaluable resource of information -- take advantage of it and actually use it.
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   Look out for tutorials. These will teach you new techniques, and will expose you to new methods and useful tricks. Work through them and then apply the learned techniques to your own designs. There are a lot of great tutorial sites out there. You can also find some on personal blogs. Constantly improve your skills by looking for tutorials and completing them.
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   Start a design blog. Starting a blog will make you more aware of the design community and make you more analytical toward your own work. If you blog well enough, you may also attract attention in the community.
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   Join and be active in the design community. As a freelance designer, joining an online design community is a must. Not only does it keep you up-to-date in the design world, but is also great for feedback and critique. Being your own boss is great, but not having anyone to answer to as a freelancer also has its down sides. If you work alone, there is no one to criticize your work and help you improve. A site you might like to become a part of is DeviantArt. There you can.
   

   • Collaborate with other designers.
     
   • Enter competitions and contests, that will motivate you to become better.
   • Seek comments and advice from other designers to see where you can improve, your own assessment may not be the best.
   • Seek out designs that pique your interest and find tutorials that explain the techniques involved; you can also contact artists and ask about their techniques.
   • Critiques. It’s so helpful to artists when someone critiques their work. Even reading critiques of other designs is helpful.
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   Take lots of photos. Photos solve the problem of not being able to take home designs you like. Camera phones are great for this. Just snap a photo and file it away for later. You can use Evernote for this type of thing; pictures of building designs, textures, shapes of shadows on walls, etc. Take photos of anything that interests you from a design standpoint.
   

   • Photography is also good forEXERCISE in composition, lighting, and color, and your photographs can fuel your artistic designs.
   • Remember to respect copyrights when taking photos. In particular, do not reuse or republish others' copyrighted content without permission.
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   Create sample projects whenever you find free time. Create a fake brand for a company. Design logos, stationery, brochures, websites, the whole nine yards. It’s good to do this once in a while because it keeps design fun and lets your creativity run wild without limitations. It’s often easy to get caught in a rut when clients start dictating and your work no longer remains "yours".
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   Or create a 'real' project for 'free' rather than a fictional project. Get as much information about them as you can and re-brand them. Logo, business cards, letterhead, mock website. It keeps you on your toes. Plus, you might even end up using it in your portfolio. Or, donate free design work to local community organizations, school groups, whoever. they’ll appreciate it, and designing an effective community meeting flier or something gives you great experience and feedback on effective, moving work.
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    Redo other people's designs. Don't want to create a fake brand to design? Try redesigning other people’s projects. This helps you evaluate what "they" did wrong and what you could do better.
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    Redo your old designs. It is important to keep your old work. It will help you see if you’re moving forward and improving your skills. Instead of throwing away or deleting old projects, try reworking them.
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    Attend lectures and workshops. Every few months, make it a point to attend lectures of other designers speaking at local schools and universities to learn new things.
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    Visit exhibitions of visual arts and graphic design.
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    Network with other designers. Attending lectures and events is a great way to meet other designers. You should always try to search out the designers that have more experience and talent than you do. It’s hard to admit someone else is better than you, but networking with people of higher skill levels will push you to work harder and learn more.
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    Take classes. Many local colleges allow you to register for classes without enrolling full-time. It will not only teach you some new things technically, but also put you back in a classroom of your peers.
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    Interview other designers and studios. You can learn a lot from asking questions to experienced designers and design studios. You can also get answers to questions your design school could never answer.
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    Travel. Experiencing new cultures and seeing their artwork opens your mind to a whole new world. It is good for inspiration.
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    Sketch, sketch, and sketch some more. Sketching helps you work through ideas quickly and without limitations of design software. Sketching is a most excellent way to quickly explore ideas and concepts. You can sketch for multiple hours and work out lots of possible variations to the design at hand. This is an essential step in the design process. It will save you time to work through concepts on paper before going to the computer. The process of sketching then moves into digital drafts. Remember,draw first, click later.

12 Traits of a Seriously Creative Graphic Designer

1. Highly Motivated

Creative graphic designers are motivated by the task at hand rather than by material rewards. They find motivation in the challenge that a task presents rather than allowing the material benefits to dictate what they do.

2. Very Imaginative

They stand out from the crowd. While others follow the latest trends and find inspiration in other people’s work, the creative graphic designers find inspiration in everyday things and themselves.

3. Brutally Honest

Self criticism is a quality many people fail to find a balance in. They either end up being too critical of themselves or become over confident about being the best. Being brutally honest with oneself requires asking the right questions throughout thecreative design process. This is one of the leading traits of successful designers.

4. Truly Passionate

Passion tends to be the main driving force behind creativity. You have to love what you do in order to do it well. Unless you are passionate about what you do, you will not be able to completely focus on the task at hand and soon get tired of it.

5. Adore Challenges

Creative graphic designers do not shy away from challenges. They let their curiosity get the best of them, allowing them to ask questions and discover things most of us overlook. This curiosity gets them intrigued by challenges and they are able to tackle them head on.

6. Manage Time

Time management can become a challenge for many graphic designers who take on multiple projects and fail to deliver on time, leading to a lack in creativity. A good graphic designer would assess his/her current workload and is realistic in his approach towards work so every project s/he takes can be given its due time.

7. Find a Balance

Creative designers know how to strike a balance between being play and organized. They know how to be fun enough to experiment with various concepts and serious enough to implement them professionally. They combine the carefree fantasy with the right amount of realty based perspective.

8. Good Communicator

Being a good communicator plays a major role in the success of any designer. Prompt interaction with the client and keeping them in the loop regarding the developments and new ideas is critical to a project’s success. Doing so will help strengthen your designer-client relationship.

9. Professional Attitude

Good graphic designers know that there is a fine line between being confident and being arrogant. They don’t let their confidence get the best of them and are open to suggestions and ideas given by the client.

10. Can Take Criticism

Criticism is just another person’s opinion. Learn to take it positively as it will help you grow and understand things better. Successful graphic designers know how to accept criticism and understand that it is part of the learning process, not to be taken personally.

11. Keep Learning

Designing is a lifelong process. It is not something you can learn in a few months or a couple of years. As the graphic design industry continues to evolve, only the ones who keep up with the developments can stay ahead in the game. The minute you stop learning is the minute you sign yourself up for failure.

12. Push their Limits

Pushing your boundaries, thinking outside the box and allowing yourself to experiment is all part of the learning experience as a creative graphic designer.

All these traits are part of a successful graphic designer’s personality and play an imperative role in transforming an individual into a designer extraordinaire. Can you think of any other trait a winning graphic designer might have? Be sure to drop in a line. We love to know your opinion!

Top 10 Qualities of a Great Graphic Designer

Graphic designers are responsible for some of the most famous images of American consumerism. Everything from corporate logos to cereal boxes have their images created by designers. Some of the qualities the greatest graphic designers share include:

1. Artistic Ability: A great graphic designer must be talented and have a variety of artistic skills and ability.
2. Client Oriented: A great graphic designer is able to work easily with clients to ensure that designs meet specifications.
3. Communication: A great graphic designer is able to effectively communicate with clients and other members of the design team to ensure they are on track with deadlines and other goals.
4. Creativity: A great graphic designer is very creative and can come up with new and exciting ideas for designs.
5. Knows Audience: A great graphic designer understands that different audiences respond to different images and can integrate this understanding into their designs.
6. Manages Priorities: A great graphic designer is able to work within boundaries of deadlines and changing priorities and can effectively manage a workload to meet deadlines and satisfy clients.
7. Open to Change: A great graphic designer hears all criticism with an open mind and is willing to change designs based on the needs or wants of a client or opinions of members of the design team.
8. Strategy: A great graphic designer understands how strategy plays a part inMARKETING and advertising, and is able to develop strategic ideas and work within the scope of a client's strategic plan to execute top notch designs.
9. Teamwork: A great graphic designer works well as part of a team and recognizes that all team members must work well together and communicate openly to get a project completed.
10. Technology: A great graphic designer is well-versed in a plethora of desktop publishing software and is able to quickly learn new programs and incorporate them into his or her work.

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BETTER DESIGN BY BRUSHING UP ON YOUR TECHNIQUES

I often fall into the trap where I limit the scope of my design capabilities by what techniques I have learned for my design tools (in this case photoshop, and illustrator.) You may not realize it, (and I often do not either) but the techniques that you don’t know actually hinder your overall design capabilities.

Even if you have been through graphic design school or experienced in fine arts, you will still suffer from a narrow design capability if you don’t work to learn more about these tools. This is because there are techniques youcould use but don’t even realize are an option while creating a new piece of work.

Photoshopers vs Designers

I see two different skills related to this subject, “Photoshopers” and “Designers.” I used to be very specific about calling myself a “designer” over a “photoshop guru.” The reason being that photoshop gurus tend to be amazing at altering photos, or developing incredible works of digital art in photoshop (sometimes making the surreal look real.) Where design requires functionality, usability, balance, and finesse. These are two different and specific skills, however it pays greatly to have both.

Getting to my point

When you are working with a design, even if you have done sketches, thumbnails, etc… chances are you are not even considering some great design accents because you simply don’t know how to do them. Maybe you don’t even realize that they exist as a possibility. If you were to know about them, in the right moment you would realize said technique would be worth trying and it would raise the quality of your work.

You may be looking to create a specific look, feel, or develop a specific mood. Naturally you will be thinking in terms of “what can I do to achieve this goal?” However “what can I do?” is actually “what can I do to achieve this goal that I know how to do?”

This is why it pays to take time to continually expand your skills and capabilities with your tools so that you have a wide range of available technique and have more to select from. Eventually you will have thousands of techniques and capabilities to create a wide range of moods/impacts/feelings/etc, and won’t be limited to the basic techniques you have used in a hundred of your old designs.

Long story short, you should have the skills and capabilities of a photoshoper with the design fundamentals of a designer.

Some Examples

You can often tell which designers have not only mastered the fundamentals of design but the tools used to create the work as well. N Design Studio and Veerle are two excellent examples of this. In the case of N Design Studio, Nick La clearly has a great sense of design. His work is balanced, the typography is well crafted, and the color scheme communicates a specific message. However he is able to take the design to a whole new level by some of the advanced as well as stunning techniques he has learned.

If you take a look at Avalon Star you will notice the same trend. Again the designer has a clear mastery of design fundamentals. So much so that the site would be very well designed even with out the level of detail put into it. However he is able to create a truly memorable, high impact design through his understanding of photoshop.

So what am I saying?

If you have time it is worth while to practice your photoshop/illustrator skills as often as you can. With so many great tutorial sites available, there are always new techniques and methods to learn. Below is a list of the ones I follow,

• PSDTuts
• VectorTuts
• Smashing Magazine
• Verlee
• Web Designer Wall

What sites do you follow for tutorials?

YOUR DESIGN MAY BE BEAUTIFUL, BUT IT MIGHT STILL SUCK…

I want to preface this post by first saying that I believe one of the great strengths of our industry is that we have people from such diverse backgrounds. The evolution of the personal computer and the sophistication of design programs like Photoshop have created a low barrier to entry in the development of graphics. This means that even people who have very little experience, knowledge or skill can make some pretty nice look imagery.

It probably sounds like I am framing this in a negative light, but that is not my intent. I actually do see this as a huge strength for our industry. In any field or skill you are going to have newcomers and veterans. Having rewarding early experiences will results in a higher likelihood of sticking with the industry, which results in a greater number of skilled experts. This higher level of experts then leads to a more mature industry and a greater mind pool to help advance and improve everyones work.

That Being Said, There Are Drawbacks

Because the web is so new and fast paced, there are not a lot of great educational programs for design and how it relates to the web. Additionally many designers are self taught, so even if there was a great program they might not get the insights of experienced instructors. Now again, this is not necessarily a bad thing… I will be the first to admit that I do not have a formal education in design and there are a lot of other amazing designers in the same boat.

The major problem I see is that as an industry we are really good at focusing on some things but completely miss the boat on others. This means that those self teaching become very adapt at the “popular” news and information and many educational programs are shaped around these as well. Critically important aspects of design receive very little attention.

What We Are Good At…

There was a time when we were really good at talking about the better ways to “build” a website. You should use web standards, make it accessible and ensure that is usable (OK somewhat design related). As these topics become more common new “sexier” news become popular.

Where we once talked about the importance of accessibility, standards and the like we now are now pumping out tutorials and lists. Tutorials cover how to make fancy graphics, how to do the next cool jQuery trick or integrate a fun WordPress plugin. Lists of “cool styles of design” seem to sprout up every week and are shared around the web at lightening speed.

What We Are Not Good At…

I am always shocked at how little attention is given towards communicating the right message. There are tons of tutorials out there that talk about how to make “such and such” style of design and lists of “such and such” amazing designs. However there rarely is talk about when to use such a style. The web is such a highly visual medium and I think this leads to it. It is easy to overlook the context and the message when you are scanning through sites purely to see what looks good to you.

So we end up forgetting that users make very brash assumptions about our sites based on our graphics. Those assumptions can increase or decrease sales, brand value and the effectiveness of the site.

Design Can Communicate As Much as Words

Every piece of design on your site communicates something. As a whole the design can communicate more than the words you chose to place on your site (especially considering some users do very little reading). If you are communicating the wrong message it doesn’t matter how beautiful your design is, it still sucks (harsh but true!).

I would even go so far as to say that a design that communicates the right message but is not so visually pleasing will ultimately be more effective than a beautiful design that is completely off message.

So How Do You Know if it is On Message?

Determining how “on message” a design is can be tricky for a few reasons…

1. As the designer we are often too close to the design
2. We are also rarely the target market of the design
3. Design is subjective
4. The client (who ultimately gives approval) suffers from the same issues

However there is a great way to find out. We have usability testing and we should have design testing as well. It is much easier and less expensive than usability testing and can have a huge impact. The process is very familiar to usability testing as well:

1. Identify your target market so you can get qualified test subjects
2. Develop a list of specific questions
3. Develop a set of instructions to get the highest quality feedback
4. Perform the tests, record the results

Crafting the Questions

Obviously getting people with in your target market that will be using the design is a critical step. However the quality of the questions and instructions is equally important. Because people are so opinionated about visuals and design there will always be a tendency to just starting freeform talking about what they like or dislike about the design. However this is not helpful, what you want to know is what the design communicates to them.

I find that it is best to identify what you want the design to communicate then craft very specific yes or no questions around it. Sometimes you can get away with short answer questions as well, but the more freedom you give the further out your answers will be.

For example if you want the message to be “Child friendly restaurant with classic american food” you could develop a whole series of questions around it, such as:

• Would you expect to see this design used for a grocery store?
• Does this design feel like it is targeted at adults?
• What sort of food would you expect to find here?

Now the first few questions might have thrown you off, but a high quality question shouldn’t lead the test subject. You wouldn’t want them to think “Oh they said restaurant so of course it must be a restaurant.” By asking a question that you WANT them to answer false too you will really know if the design clearly communicates your message.

Something is Better than Nothing

Simply being more aware of the design message and crafting the right design, but I really do encourage you to take it a step further and do some testing just to see what reactions you get. I bet you will be surprised. Furthermore it will make you a much stronger designer as well.

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