If you’re a creative person with an eye for colour and detail, a career in graphic design could be the perfect fit.
Graphic designers will always be in demand, for everything from visual branding to website design. The work can be hugely varied, where you’ll be working on adverts one day and product packaging the next. You can work for an agency, or carve out a reputation as a talented self-employed designer. You could even start your own design agency, and eventually move into teaching or lecturing. The possibilities are endless.
But what does it take to become a graphic designer? If you’re just starting out, we’ve put together a guide to some of the most critical skills you’ll need to hone.
Successful graphic designers need to have a broad skill set. This includes visual skills such as ideation, spatial awareness and colour sensitivity, right through to digital skills so they can work with design software.
Let’s run through six of the key skills you’ll need to have as a graphic designer.
It may seem obvious, but creativity is arguably the most critical skill you can have as a graphic designer. It can’t necessarily be taught, so either you have a creative mindset or you don’t. However, people who have creative characteristics can learn to enhance and expand this valuable skill.
Creativity is what enables designers to come up with new and innovative ideas, and to approach projects in a unique and original way. It shapes the direction of each project, and helps the designer to think beyond limits.
Crucially, creativity also helps with storytelling, where a design can bring the client’s message to vivid life. It’s what turns a beautiful design into something much more engaging.
Graphic designers are far more than artists. They are essentially project leaders, who need to overcome challenges and solve problems along the way. The process of designing is very similar to any other kind of project – involving stages of information gathering, research, strategy, conceptualisation, implementation and revision.
Clients hire graphic designers because they have a unique problem in need of a solution. For example, they need to define their brand identity or reach a new target audience. The designer is the person who develops the solution. As they do so, they must overcome hurdles, such as unclear briefs, client concerns and objections, or elements of the design that don’t turn out as planned.
Another critical skill for a graphic designer is ideation. This is the process where ideas and solutions are generated, and it can be the most exciting part of any project.
A good designer will be able to draw on their creativity and innovation skills to generate a large number of ideas. These can then be filtered down or further developed, or they can even be used to inspire new or better design solutions.
Ideation skills also go hand in hand with team working skills. If you’re working as part of an agency, the ideation process will often be done as a group. This collaborative process can produce exciting results, and designers with open minds and strong ideation skills will be valuable contributors to these sessions.
Up to this point, we’ve mainly looked at ‘soft skills’ such as creativity, problem solving and ideation. But graphic designers also need to work on improving certain ‘hard’ technical skills. One of the most important is typography.
Graphic design is all about communication, through all kinds of visual elements. For most campaigns you’ll work on as a professional designer, text will play a major part. Designers need to have the ability to make language legible and visually appealing.
But more than this, they need to be able to communicate the client’s message powerfully, in a way that will engage its target audience.
Typography involves an understanding of font style, appearance and structure. It can be used to elicit certain emotions and reactions, and convey emphasis. It’s a vital part of user interface (UI) design.
Graphic designers will need to learn about fonts and typefaces, including best UI practices for using fonts. Other key areas to focus on include contrast and white space, alignment, hierarchy and colour.
Much of the work you’ll get as a graphic designer today will relate to digital design. You’ll need to understand concepts such as UX (user experience) and UI (user interface), and be able to design for websites, social media and other digital formats.
You’ll also need excellent IT skills as a graphic designer. You’ll be using design and photo editing software on a daily basis, including tools such as Adobe InDesign, Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Photoshop.
It takes time to learn how to harness this kind of creative software, but you really can’t do the job without it.
Additionally, it can potentially be useful to have coding skills as a graphic designer. A working knowledge of HTML, for example, can help you in projects involving website design.
The last key skill you’ll need as a graphic designer is print design. While digital design is growing in popularity, it’s still a good idea to have all-round skills.
You’ll need to know how to design for printed media, including magazines, posters, brochures and more. There are technical details to master, including different file formats, paper sizes and colour systems. You’ll need to get to grips with the terminology, knowing all about fold marks, print bleed and much more.
Clients rely heavily on designers to know these crucial details, and mistakes can be expensive to rectify.
The best way to develop the technical skills you need as a graphic designer is training.
An online graphic design course can give you a grounding in print, digital and web design, typography, digital illustration, tools and software and colour theory.
Once you learn the technical basics, you can then start putting them into practice.
Gladys Mae serves as the General Manager and Head of Student Services at the International Career Institute. Gladys holds a degree in Mass Communication - Broadcast Media from the University of San Jose-Recoletos. She joined ICI in 2010 and has over the past 12 years been instrumental in providing leadership and guidance to staff and students alike. Prior to joining ICI Gladys led a multifaceted career with key roles in the banking and business process outsourcing industries.
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