How To Become a Graphic Designer

People have several skills, some existing as innate talents while others are learned skills. One of the many skills is design; the world implements it in different fields to improve quality and appearance. There are widespread misconceptions about graphic designers, and you wonder if your choice to become one is wrong. These misconceptions can stop you from pursuing your dream career and earning from high-paying clients. Let’s clarify some of these misconceptions and see how you can become a graphic designer.

Importance Of Graphic Design to The Tech Industry

People believe that graphic design doesn’t count among the tech-related skills you should currently learn. However, it connects to the tech industry even more than many other skills that you might come across. Graphic design stands to be a superset of supporting skills and careers, just like how content writing exists. It’s a career that connects art with technology and gives an outlook on the various interface for different digital products. The designers are responsible for creating visual deliverables to pass information and connect emotions across various industries satisfying different requirements. Your journey as a graphic designer will lead you to select a field that includes but is not restricted to tech. Let’s check out the learning time and income margin you are open to when you become a graphic designer.

Learning Time and Income When You Become a Graphic Designer

The time it takes to learn skills varies depending on the kind of skill and the rate you assimilate. It might take up to six months to start creating standard fliers, while others may take six months. Despite that, you will still achieve your goal, so all you should do is create an efficient learning schedule. You don’t just learn better with a learning schedule, but you also get to track your progress effectively while learning. The income margin is also pretty encouraging if you are going along with your decision to become a graphic designer. You stand the chance of earning between $40,000 to $70,000 depending on your proficiency and work hours with your clients. You now know that you can earn high with graphic design so let’s learn how to become a graphic designer.

Walkthrough To Become a Graphic Designer with No Experience

1. Learn the fundamentals
2. Acquire the required tools
3. Test yourself with projects
4. Build a portfolio
5. Apply for jobs

Learn The Fundamentals

The first step in any career path is to learn the basics that the field requires you to know to practice. It consists of knowledge of skills, principles, theories, and many other pieces of information to aid your development in design. You need to understand the essential design elements to start as a graphic designer in training. These elements help you create incredible designs, and understanding them improves your design proficiency as you learn. To start, you can equip yourself with this knowledge by enrolling in some graphic design courses or watching YouTube videos.

Acquire The Required Tools

Here is a step that goes together with the learning stage since you need to practice as you learn. Every skill has the tools that help you work from the basics to the advanced level, and design isn’t different. You need command of these tools and access to them to begin your design journey as a newbie. Some of these tools come as software; others are resources you implement in your designs as you work. You can find some separately or in a bundle, of which one among the few software bundles is the Adobe collection.

Test Yourself with Projects

Learning is not the only thing you need when walking through your journey to becoming a graphic designer. You practice with every class you take to learn graphic design, but you still need to challenge yourself. The best challenge you can give yourself is to satisfy real-life requirements relating to design based on clients’ requests. It might be tasking, but that is the point since it helps you improve your quality and versatility in design. Learn how design is implemented in real-life situations and complete projects based on different client briefs as you learn.

Build A Portfolio

Testing yourself lets you know your proficiency in design, and your success means you are prepared to take real jobs. Your next move is to show your skills to prospects, and you can only do this by building a portfolio. A graphic design portfolio contains projects you complete during your testing phase but must only include the best among them. The plan is to show them your quality, proficiency, and range, so you need to have different types of projects. You can use portfolio websites like Behance or get a personal portfolio website for yourself, depending on your choice.

Apply For Jobs

Your course is complete, and your portfolio is ready, so you can start searching for jobs from this point. Several brands need a graphic designer’s services regardless of whether it is a startup or an existing business. Several startups need graphic designers to create the brand identity, which is a dealbreaker for you as your debut. However, there are still other jobs you can handle for different companies if you don’t get a brand identity contract. Optimize your social profiles and start reaching out to companies, so they notice you and hire your services.

Conclusion

Graphic design falls among the careers that earn high in our current world despite not being in high demand. You not only get the chance to express your love for art but also earn while creating different designs. The journey to becoming a good graphic designer will give you several benefits as you go. However, you need to work and keep improving if you want these positive changes in your proficiency. Only great graphic designers earn the upper margin of the graphic design salary globally, and you can be among them. So, don’t hesitate to take those graphic design courses and work towards achieving your goal as a graphic designer.