Beginner’s Guide To A Career In Graphic Designing

“Design is where science and art break even“

-Robin Matthew

What is Graphic Design?

Graphic Design is expressing your artistic ideas and creativity using technology. It’s basically used to express your thoughts or share some message using words or some images. Concept of Graphic Designing is used for advertising, websites, books, logo designing, computer games etc. It’s all about creating a unique design depending on the product or any idea to give a clear message.

Graphic design is about more than just appearances, and provides many more benefits than simply making something look good. Its importance is often underestimated, but good design can bring many significant business benefits. When used effectively graphic design can boost your company’s marketing and messaging through visual communication, giving it greater power to inform, educate, or persuade your audience.

Work of a Graphic Designer

The role of a Graphic Designer varies depending on where they work, the common role is brainstorming creative ideas. Some designers may work selecting photos and typefaces, developing layouts, and designing logos. Graphic Designers may specialize in a particular area, such as motion graphics or print media.

Graphic Designers often need to communicate with clients and consumers to develop designs that portray the message they want. They also collaborate with other graphic designers, marketers, business analysts, writers, and programmers to create successful product ads and websites.

• To study design briefs and determine requirements
• Advise clients on strategies on how to engage target audiences
• Identifying ways to determine and illustrate the client’s message.
• Select colors, images, typography and layout for communication materials, including websites, logos, signs, books, magazine covers, annual reports, advertisements, and social media posts
• Collaborate with other team members, such as marketing, sales, and business operations, throughout the various phases of a project
• Review designs for errors before they are printed or published
• Keep up-to-date with the latest design trends, tools, and technologies
• Evaluate the time and cost to complete the work.

Why study graphic designing

Graphic designers are always demandable in every organization and industry, particularly those with digital skills. One will be able to add value to any workplace and design is something which is necessary for every other business.

• Get paid for being creative

Graphic designers express their creativity every day, as well as picking color palettes and choosing images and they also have to think ‘outside the box’ to solve challenging briefs, allows you to make you own mark, whilst working with your clients needs. With freedom and creativity comes variety and this makes things fun and sharpens your skills in a variety of visual styles.

• Work from anywhere in the world

Armed with a pencil, mac and the right software, a designer can work anywhere in the world. Nowadays many companies and clients don’t mind where you work as long as you produce the goods.

• Be your own boss

There are lots of opportunities for designers to work for themselves, from freelancing to setting up your own agency. Some designers even launch their own commercial brands using their marketing and artistic skills to promote their own product ranges.

• Plenty of job opportunities

Graphic designers are always in demand, particularly those with digital skills. The amount of in-house designer jobs have increased significantly in the past year all investing in their own talent and creative agencies are always on the look out for fresh new designers.

• Always something new to learn

It’s a challenging field with new work projects and assignments all around. The life of a graphic designer is never dull, they always get a new task every day it could be like you will be designing for a social media campaign or a design logo for any business tycoon.

• Work across multiple Industries

Every industry looks for good designers who can help them in conveying the message through arts and designs. Either you work with different types of clients holding various projects or specializing in a particular field which appeals to you, there are endless opportunities for designers.

• You can learn by yourself

Several amazing graphic artists learned on their own. If you practice enough you can learn on your own. However, with an online course, you can learn very quickly and often in less than half the time. The big benefit of going to an online school is having teachers to support you and critique your work.

Eligibility of a graphic designer

A degree in graphic design is not essential to succeed in this industry, there are plenty of graphic designers working in this profession who did not receive a design degree, but it is necessary to have design education to gain fundamental knowledge and it involves learning at every stage of your career.

You can gain the knowledge and skills that you need by doing bootcamp courses to online classes and books, there is a lot of information available to gain knowledge and skills that you need.

Attending universities can help to connect with industry professionals, immersion in a creative community with classmates and teachers and get guided feedback on your work. Employers won’t be looking at your degree in design to determine if you are qualified for the job. Employers want to hire people well-versed in the most up to date graphic design software programs.

Types of graphic designer jobs

Graphic designer jobs depends on your skills, career goals and values, given are the related jobs:

• Creative Director

Creative directors are the creative leads at advertising agencies or in-house for the marketing department of a company. They work with the creative team to create, plan and deliver a strategic vision for clients.

• Art Director

The art director is a high-level executive responsible for guiding the design team’s vision, directing the theme concept and overseeing all design artwork. They can work in a variety of industries including fashion, print publications, advertising, television or consumer products.

• Art Production Manager

An art production manager oversees various tasks related to different aspects of a production to turn the ideas of a producer into reality. They can find work in TV, film, music videos, gaming and other industries that require production of art-related materials.

• Broadcast Designer

A broadcast designer develops and maintains a visual corporate image for an electronic media company, such as a television station, advertising agency, film production facility, or broadcasting corporation.

• Logo Designer

Logo designers develop graphics or symbols to represent a company, product, brand or service. They research symbols they find appealing and memorable. This designer then chooses distinct colors and shapes that relate to and establish the brand identity of the company or product. Logo designers must also be aware of other designs in the marketplace so they are not copying or recreating a trademarked logo.

• User interface Designer

The user interface designer is responsible for ensuring every webpage or operational step of the final product follows the user experience (UX) designer’s intent. They typically have basic coding skills and are able to develop the designer’s vision by working with software programming experts.

• Web Designer

Web designers assist in developing websites by creating individual web pages, designing page layouts and developing graphics for the website. They are also responsible for designing the navigation menus, drop-down options and the website’s structure. They may have coding and programming skills, which would allow them to completely develop the website on their own.

• Multimedia Designer

Multimedia designers create complex animated images and videos using art and computerized animation programs. They plan out the animation by sketching, creating scale models and developing computerized graphics to build the story. They are responsible for developing the graphics for the story’s characters, background scenes and props.

Scope of a graphic designer on social media

Social Media is basically defined as a collaborative platform where people come together to share their unique views. A web and social media Graphic Designer needs to understand and involve themselves in market surveys. This would help them study the prevailing brands and how their social media marketing takes place. Web and Social Media Designers must be creative enough to understand which idea will stay in the minds of people. Graphic designers can also start their own business on social media, also social media helps a graphic designer to portray his or her work to the world.

Conclusion

We live in a time where millions can see your work online, in newspapers, magazines and on packaging. It enhances your decision making skills and helps you use your creativity in the real world. You can also get into business, freelancing or entrepreneurship. So, if you are a creative person who is looking to make design layouts then this career is totally for you!