What expertise is needed by Graphic Designers?
The goal of BrainStation's graphic designer career guide is to assist you in launching your graphic design career. Continue reading to learn the most important soft and technical abilities for a career in graphic design.
Technical Skills
Design ideas
Any graphic designer must have a solid grasp of design concepts. They will deliberately employ a variety of aspects to deliver desired messages throughout their work. To develop visually appealing and well-structured designs, graphic designers must understand how to combine lines, color, shape, space, texture, typography, size, dominance and emphasis, and harmony.
Concept
Ideation, sometimes referred to as idea generation, is the creative process of coming up with, refining, and sharing new ideas. When starting a new project, a graphic designer must first complete this task. There are several processes involved in ideation: analysis, creation, testing, and implementation.
Graphic designers employ a wide range of methods and abilities throughout the brainstorming phase. Moody boards and thumbnails are two instances. Mood boards are collections of images intended to convey the tone and direction of a project as well as to explore novel concepts. Quick, rudimentary drawings called thumbnails roughly depict a design's layout, including important components like headlines, copy, and photos.
Identifying/Branding
Building or maintaining branding for a client or workplace is a common task for graphic designers. When collaborating with a brand, they must have a thorough comprehension of what sets that brand apart. Then, using logos, colors, typography, illustrations, photography, visual components, and more, they must bring that brand to life. The work that graphic designers produce should be able to speak to the appropriate audience and be consistent across platforms.
Fonts/Typography
One of the most crucial components of graphic design is typography. While poorly designed typography might repel customers or be obtrusive, well-chosen type can evoke meaning and feelings. Graphic designers must be proficient in typesetting, kerning, tracking, leading, and choosing the appropriate font for a certain project.
creating print-oriented designs
Even if digital design is expanding quickly, print design is still a valuable ability to have. In addition to ink restrictions, dot gains, and transparency, graphic designers should be conversant with bleeds, slugs, crop marks, and fold marks. In addition, they must be well-versed in the various file formats, color schemes, paper weights, and stocks.
Technology
Because they use a range of tools in their daily work, graphic designers must become proficient with specific graphic design software. Graphic designers should be conversant with a variety of technologies, such as Sketch, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe InDesign, Adobe Photoshop, and Adobe After Effects. Learning to code, being familiar with content management systems like WordPress, and programming languages like HTML and CSS would be beneficial for graphic designers who create material on the web.
Soft Skills
Originality
Creating fresh, original concepts is an ongoing challenge for graphic designers. They need to use a lot of creativity in their designs in order to both draw in viewers and convey the necessary message.
Interaction
Since graphic design is a visual form of communication, a graphic designer's job mostly involves communication abilities. Graphic designers must connect with clients and colleagues in addition to conveying ideas through their designs. Sometimes, designers have to give non-designers an explanation of a design choice or reasoning. For proposals and presentations, they will also require the ability to communicate verbally and in writing.
Methodology
As strategic thinkers, graphic designers must take into account how various design aspects complement one another and how to effectively communicate ideas while upholding design standards. Researching the market, coming up with ideas, creating thumbnails, creating concepts, and assessing designs are all part of this process.
Solving problems
Consider a design brief as an issue that needs to be solved. A customer has to express something, and the appropriate design will help. Throughout the design process, graphic designers apply their problem-solving abilities. This could entail fixing design flaws or changing designs to satisfy client requirements.
Time management
Graphic designers may have various clients with deadlines to meet while working on multiple projects at once. The ability to prioritize tasks and manage workload is necessary for graphic designers.
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