Data from IBISWorld found that last year, in the United States, more than 130,000 talented people were employed as graphic designers. With your keen eye and artistic spirit, you want to pursue this career path as well. What skills do you need to be a graphic designer?
With so many graphic designers out there and many more to join the workforce, if you want to stand out to hiring managers, you should bring a specialized skill set to the table.
Your skill set should include hard and soft skills and technical abilities specific to graphic design.
As an aspiring graphic designer, you must master various design principles. In other words, you know the exact elements that go into a good design and how to harmonize those elements.
You can introduce white space, determine which elements need dominance, are scaled appropriately, and select the right typography. You work according to a hierarchy so that your projects stay organized. You can introduce repetition where it needs to go to save time but without sacrificing the appeal of the design.
As a graphic designer, you’ll work independently or as part of a company where you’ll accept various projects or briefs. When a client issues you a brief, how do you handle it?
Graphic designers should have a strategy in place that they utilize for every brief they accept. For example, they’ll have to do market research on the client and the client’s products or services to get a feel for what the project should entail. Then, they have to brainstorm the design, sharpen the concept, and change it according to client feedback.
This strategy is something that beginner graphic designers will learn to sharpen through repetition. As you expand your client roster, you’ll naturally develop a process that takes you from the research through the delivery phase.
Sometimes, the client will come to you and ask what you think the design should be.
Ideation is your method of creating fresh ideas that will please your current clients and allow you to expand your client roster. Through market research, you can begin to narrow your ideas. When you bring them to the client for an evaluation, you’ll work collaboratively with the client to determine which ideas meet their brand vision. Then, applying those ideas through your design is up to you.
Everyone only has 24 hours in a day; how you use them is important.
Whether you’re a successful solo graphic designer or you work for a bustling design firm, you may have a handful of client requests that you’re juggling at once. On top of the projects you’re currently doing, you may have to edit drafts that were already sent to the client.
Another reason to balance your workload is to prevent yourself from getting burnt out. If you’re fatigued, your ideas can suffer, and your creativity can come to a screeching halt.
Graphic design is about taking an idea and making it into a visual representation. Beyond your gift for visual communication, you must excel at verbal and written communication.
You need to be able to express your ideas clearly so you don’t confuse your clients. When a client requests a design element, you two must be able to talk about it so you’re clear on what the client wants.
No job field is without its problems, and that’s true of graphic design too.
When a problem arises, you must know how to solve it. Whether that’s overlapping deadlines, a client who’s not happy with your design, or internal conflicts, you should be able to mediate the issue without inflaming it.
Creativity is one of those must-have graphic design skills, but it’s also something you can’t fully teach.
Being creative entails ideation, communication, and strategy. It’s a skill that graphic designers must have in spades.
Another technical skill hiring managers will want to see when hiring a graphic designer is portfolio management. In the field of graphic design, a portfolio is arguably even more important than your resume.
Your portfolio showcases the breadth of your work. It’s how you prove to clients that you’re immeasurably talented and can work in several styles.
Your portfolio must be neat, tidy, and appealing. Portfolio management skills can help achieve that. At BU, you create a professional portfolio as part of our Associate Degree in Graphic and UX/UI Design.
You must know how to establish your brand, especially if you are self-employed. Your brand is the version of you presented to your clients. A brand is about the colors your website displays, the tone of voice you use to communicate, and the chosen typography.
Your brand must be consistent on social media, your website, and through emails.
Finally, you must know your way around graphic design software.
Although such software exists at every level (paid versus free, beginner versus more experienced designer), you need to prove your proficiency in at least the most well-known graphic design software options.
These include Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop, and Adobe InDesign (and other programs within the Adobe Creative Cloud).
If you want to learn graphic design online, Bryan University could be just the college you want.
Start with your Graphic Design Undergraduate Certificate. This component of your education will teach design principles, user experience (UX) and user interface (UI) design foundations using Figma, and design technologies using Adobe Creative Cloud.
Additionally, you’ll have the opportunity to earn an industry certification!
You can stack the Graphic Design Undergraduate Certificate with an Associate Degree in Graphic and UX/UI Design, working on both simultaneously.
Bryan U’s Associate Degree in Graphic and UX/UI Design program paves the way for you to start working as a graphic and web designer after graduation.
Learn more about Bryan University’s graphic design programs online today!
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