Have you decided to study graphic design? As design lovers that’s makes us happy a lot! But first of all we warn you. This is not going to be an easy road at all.
There are times in life where decisions have to be made. Sometimes we make good decisions, sometimes not so much.
Today we bring you a series of practical tips that can help you get started and see if this is really what you want to do.
1. Study, study, study and study again
The first and most important thing is that if you want to dedicate yourself to graphic design you have to train yourself. It is not worth using 5 buttons of Photoshop and 3 of Illustrator. The ideal is to find a good school in which to train you because, although the self-taught method is very valid if you drink from the right sources , many of those who learned alone would have paid because someone told them in their day “this is done like this”, “This is not valid” . It is much faster, more efficient and safer to surround yourself with good professionals who teach and demand you.
2. Educate your taste
In the previous point we already talked about drinking from the right sources. This is important. You can listen to Don Omar or Bob Dylan, both things are just as legal in this country, but if you ask a professional musician he will advise you to listen more to the second than to the first. Do not you think? Designing is something like composing music, so it’s better if your references are good.
3. Steal like an artist
If you are going to start studying graphic design this point is the title of an Austin Kleon book that you should ask for right now at the nearest bookstore. It does not exceed 10 euros and will give you a global idea of what it is to work in this world. It is a kind of motivation and self-help book for designers (yes, sometimes they are necessary). But it comes to say something very important: everything is invented, so what you have to do is go to the most primitive sources of inspiration to not fall in doing the same thing that everyone does. Take a little here, take a little there … And in that process of “stealing” gradually acquire your own style.
4. Covers needs and pampers details
Throughout your career you will reach a conclusion: the success of good graphic design is based, in a high percentage, on precision work. Be strict with distances, spaces, sizes, measurements … Making a correct design without errors is not art, it is rather science. Of course, there always has to be a place for experimentation. But you have to remember that the design responds to some needs and that your client will want to see their needs covered by a lot of artist soul that you have.
5. Do not fall in love with your ideas
When you work and have a moment of divine inspiration, you have to be careful. It can be dangerous. What you think is wonderful, just as it is not. Or it is, but it is not the best for the work you are doing. You have to be open to constructive criticism (and destructive criticism too, because there is a lot of loose heater) and changes in your work. Your idea is not always the best and you have to know when to say “I’m not here.” Sometimes it does not happen…
6. Be a sponge
The one to study graphic design and mainly the one to be graphical designer is a race of bottom, like almost all. It’s not worth studying for a year and living off rents. You have to train day after day, because the trends change. What is today a brand structure with which you will surely succeed, tomorrow is more outdated than saying “you do not know, you contreras”. Between that the fashions change in a matter of months, that depending on the geographical point of the world that you work the color palettes in vogue do not have to do anything with each other, and that the programs are updated every two days … Well, that, Even if you do not live in a pineapple under the sea, you have to be a real sponge
7. Ability to react, routine and perseverance
All jobs that need a certain dose of inspiration have a maxim: routine and perseverance. First, because creativity is a muscle that you have to train every day, and only by working without haste but without pause, every day, you will know what key you have to touch to get it to work. Not for nothing, if not because it is curious that everyone who orders a graphic design work is very urgent , it is always like that before yesterday. Because of that and because time is money, and you have to optimize yours. You already know, success is 10% talent and 90% hard and tireless work.
8. Do not come here to get rich
The designer is a career that needs a vocation. The beginnings are hard, you have to get tired of working and currarte a good portfolio, and then get tired of working even more. After that, when you find a job, it is quite likely that serving burgers you earn a little more money, and it will require less mental effort. So you decide if it compensates you, if you really feel fulfilled with your work, and if this is what fills you in your life.
Luck!
This Graphic Design Toronto office can help you with a number of services that will move your study forward.
If you are willing to comply with all these tips, you are ready to start studying graphic design. If you see no, that this is not your thing, listen to the teachers: leave mustache, sell drugs or buy yourself a coconut. What are we going to tell you? That the design is beautiful and exciting, that you are very lucky and that you never tire of studying, learning and working, but a lot.
