How to start a career in Graphic Designing | Step-by-Step Guide

 

Are you interested in art and painting and want to become a graphic designer? But don’t know how to start a career in graphic designing. No worry find career info provides you detailed information which you need to know to pursue your dream as a graphic designer.

(Or) are you just a fresher (High school and college graduate) and just curious to know about the graphic designing career path. Like most of the graphic designing aspirants are inspired by Adobe Photoshop or any other imaging tools; are you one of them?  If yes then it could be a right career option for you.

Here’s how I am going to make it easy for you to decide. Is graphic designing career path an appropriate career option for me or… not?

You will get to know! About these things…

 

What is the exact meaning of Graphic Designing?


 Graphic designing is the way to convey a message using words, images, shapes (circle, triangle, rectangle etc.) and colours.

There is a misconception about the graphic designing. Lots of people think that graphic designing is the intellectually knowing of all types of tools in a graphics software. But this is not completely true a professional graphic designer must be creative. And they also have to know the designing techniques used to make an attractive design.

Therefore, for a graphic designer creativity is the essential knowing thing. So you must be a creative person.

A successful designer must have

Creativity [90%] + Tools and Software [10%] = Graphic Designer [100%]

Why I only give 10% to the tools? Because tools can learn anyone within 10 to 15 days of practice even 12 years old can do that.

Learning lots of tools never make you a good designer it’s your imagination and creativity.

Definitely! Imaging a thing is, not a piece of cake. It is one of the toughest skills in the whole world. But don’t be hopeless, that does not mean you cannot do that or anyone cannot do that.

I anticipate you have heard the proverb “Practice makes man perfect”. So you need practice and practice and more practice to reach that level of others good graphic designer professional. It will take time don’t expect in the initial stage of starting a career.    

Graphic designing is an art of creating something out of the box; to convey the right and clear message in an easy way by using graphic elements (text, shapes and images).

 

What will you learn in Graphic Designing career path?


 Yes, definitely you are going to learn about designs. In graphic designing career path, there are multiple modules and you have to go through all of it. These are the following modules you will learn…

  • Logo and Identity designing
  • Business card designing
  • Advertisement Poster and Promotion designing
  • Brochure, Books and Notebooks cover designing
  • Magazine cover and pages
  • Website layout Designing

Digital Marketing Advertisement Design (The advertisement you are seeing on this page are a digital advertisement)

Along with the above modules you have to learn the design techniques and know how to make a good design. Therefore these are some useful things you should learn…    

  • Different types of logo (Symbolic/Pictorial mark, Lettermark, Wordmark, Abstract mark, combination, Emblems)
  • What are Raster (Bitmap) and Vector images
  • How to choose colors to look design more attractive.
  • What is typography and how to use effectively in the design?
  • Learn the design strategies to deliver right messages using logos, words and colors?

After getting experience in graphic designing industry vast majority of graphic designer choose one or two module and stick to that category. Suppose you have learned all the above designing modules but during your job, you realized I feel more creative and I am enjoying logo designing more than any other designing module.  

 

Education required to become a Graphic Designer


Education 1 (Mandate): You must have to complete your High School in any of the subjects (Art/Science/ Commerce) to start a career in graphic designing.

Education 2 (Optional): Bachelor’s Degree [any of the stream] & Art School

Education 3 (Optional): Diploma or Certification in graphic designing or any related field of Art.

As I mentioned bachelor’s degree and certification is optional. But it is not ignorable because education develops your mind and helps to build a network (not the IT networking) along with other students. Therefore you would get an edge over other graphics designing candidate’s profiles and eventually get more opportunities than others.

However, if you possess set of skills to design and create like no others can do, you are perfect to go without any degree and certifications. What matter most; your understanding of graphic designing techniques and concept?

Where I can learn graphic designing; if I am not going to any graphic designing institutes and schools? Hey, common you are living in the age of Google. Just go and search for appropriate articles and YouTube videos. Along with that, you can follow some graphic designer on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram or any other social media platform.

Watch this video to know Graphic designer Sean Campbell. He is a 17 years old guy, who has self-taught graphic designing without going to any Art School.

Skills required to become a Graphic Designer


  • Colour Theory
  • Typography
  • Creativity
  • Imagination
  • Basic Sketching
  • Photography
  • Psychology of clients
  • Designing techniques

 

Tools used by a Graphic Designer


I only listed out some of the popular tools for graphic designing. You can choose any of them based on your preference and easy to use.

 

How to start a career in Graphic Designing [Step-by-Step]


[Step 1] Education

Complete the above-mentioned education requirements and skills set to move further on step 2.

[Step 2] Find a Mentor

Follow some designer on social media to get to know how they are doing. And learn the concept behind the design they have made.

[Step 3] Style Building

While learning graphic designing; try to forge your own designing styles. This is definitely not an easy task, but at the end of the day, you will get it.

Create your own styles, don’t copy of others. This will make you a strong player in the industry, and so you can run a long race. 

[Step 4] Portfolio

Portfolio plays an important role for a graphic designer to land a job. In the portfolio make sure you only add the best Artwork. And add each of the modules you have learnt during your education. Include two or three of your design in the portfolio.

The portfolio must contain samples of logo design, Infographics, Business cards, Advertisement Poster and Promotion designing, Website designing, etc.

These are the following well knowing platform to build an online portfolio

[Step 5] Marketing

Make online presence. Upload your design on the social media to know what others people think about your artwork. And from there you will get some honest review of your design.

{Optional} Build an online website to show the artwork to the clients.

Online marketing makes your work visible to all around the world. And this will help you to get the job more easily.

If you want to be a good designer and want to recognised by your style. You have to follow the above 5 steps to get succeed in this industry.

Also Read:

 

Where a Graphic Designer find an Employment


These are the following major industries where a graphic designer can go for the employment…

  • Packaging Industry
  • Offset Printing
  • Animation Studio
  • Video Game industry
  • Advertising companies
  • Website development
  • Entertainment industry
  • Newspaper agencies

 

Working Environment for a Graphic Designer


After learning all the above graphic designing stuff you have to go and face the real world competition. So as a graphic designer you can find the employment and make out of living in three ways.

[1] Office jobs: Typically 9 to 5 job. The best option for fresher graphics designing graduates. So if you are going to start your career in graphic designing then you should definitely consider going for the office job.

Here you can learn many important tips which would be a great help to grow further in this industry; like how to complete the project in a short period of time and how to deal with the clients and many more.  

[2] Freelancing: Vast Majority of graphic designer work independently, they work from home. As a fresher in the designing industry get a freelancing project is a bit difficult. But if you make your online presence and have amazing skills then you are the king of the graphic designing industry. 

[3] Business: Open your own graphic designing studio is very common for the graphic designer. They usually open his own studios after attending Art schools and getting certification in designing. Most of the designer is preferred to go along this path after spending 5 to 10 years in the office. So they build a network and can easily grab the clients.   

 

Graphic Designer Job Description


  • Talk to the clients to know and understand the project requirement. And translate the same into the appropriate visual communications solution with a high level of creativity.

 

  • Find a creative solution and interpret on the paper in the form of the sketch to share the strategies with clients and companies.

 

  • Do market research and find what is actually trending in the market; you don’t want your design to look old-fashioned.

 

  • Collaborate with other colleague and team to know what they thought about design.

 

  • The modification is an important process in graphic designing. Therefore you have to work throughout the various phases of pre-production, production and post-production and be ready to make changes according to the demand.

 

  • Suggest the clients about the design options and provides the best possible solutions to the problems.

 

  • As a designer, you would be responsible for designing attractive marketing media such as presentations, newsletters, postcards, posters, banners, Infographics, multimedia videos and any other types of branding material.

 

Career Scope in Graphic Designing


Graphic designing is used everywhere, have you ever imagined if YouTube and Facebook don’t have proper structure layout design, perhaps they would be not able to make it that far. In every single place who wants to make a visual presence all around the world or just in local, they all need a graphic designer.

Like you are reading this article “How to start a career in graphic designing” on find career info. As you can see the whole website, here the layout and logo design is actually made by a graphic designer.

So if you are a creative person and love to do artwork then graphic designing career path might be a good career option to choose.

However, it is true that; the competition is more in this field. But if you are really good at designing and have skills set, then you don’t have to worry. Although every career path has competition, so you can’t escape from it.     

 

I hope this article is able to help you in knowing how to start a career in graphic designing and add a great value to your knowledge.

If you have any queries regarding career, you can Contact Me. Please feel free to ask anything about graphic designing in the comment section below!