Tips on how to learn Graphic Designing from beginning to advance.
Getting to know the basics of Graphic Designing can give you the necessary skills needed for an entry-level graphic design job. In this article, I will walk you through the basics of graphic design, and some of the tools used by professional graphic designers to get you started.
What is Graphic Designing?
Graphic Design according to Wikipedia, “is the profession and academic discipline whose activity consists in projecting visual communications intended to transmit messages to social groups with specific objectives, using an applied art consisting of the use of text and graphics to communicate visually.”
What is the purpose of graphic design?
Graphic design can be used by a company for many purposes. It may be used to create visual advertising, brochures, marketing resources, or materials that are compelling, or for illustrations. Graphic Designers normally combine lots of visual tools or elements in order to make their work meaningful. Let’s explore these elements below.
- Typefaces: Professional Graphic artists create fonts that express a tone or a mood.
- Illustrations: Illustrations are strong ways of communication written communications by Graphic designers. Most designers include digitally or manually produced illustrations to communicate to the right audience.
- Photographs: To create beautiful designs, Graphic designers make use of photographic material to make their works stand out.
- Color palettes: To make their works so beautiful, they adjust the color properties of colors, including saturation and hue, to produce palettes that express emotions.
How To Learn Graphic Designing from Scratch
To learn Graphic Designing from scratch, kindly follow these simple steps:
1. Start Drawing
Illustrations are a significant part of graphic designers’ work. They might begin their work by drawing on paper with pencil, ink, pen, etc., then later convert it into digital format. They may also use digital tablets to convert their work in order to produce meaningful images.
If you have a passion or interest in becoming a Graphic Designer, it is advisable you start taking art lessons whilst on campus. If you are not enrolled in school, make a list of the essential skills required for quality illustration and devote time to learning them.
These basic concepts include; line, texture, and form. A daily routine can help you stay on track as you move from stage to stage. You might consider apportioning 30 minutes per day for practice or setting a goal such as watching a certain amount of videos every week.
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2. Learn Graphic Designing Software
Nowadays people don’t even step into a class to learn how to draw even before using the software. They start right away by learning the most popular graphic designing software used by experts. It all depends on your creativity and consistency in practicing your preferred tool. You can manipulate text, shapes, pictures, fonts, and many others and also combine elements to produce different forms of your work. The tools below are used by most professionals:
- Adobe Illustrator: Adobe Illustrator lets you scale your drawings to any dimensions and adjust the details of your image to avoid pixelation. It is used by graphic designers to create logos, infographics, and fonts.
- Adobe InDesign: InDesign can be used to create a page-based layout. It is used by graphic designers to create posters, magazines, or brochures.
- Adobe Photoshop: Photoshop allows graphic designers to create web graphics and edit images. Graphic designers and clients can use tools such as animation, mock-ups, and three-dimensional editing to visualize how their projects will look in the real world.
- Adobe After Effects: After Effects is a tool used by graphic designers to create motion graphics or add visual effects to photos and videos.
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3. Learn graphic designing theory
Graphic designers are able to understand the visual, artistic, and communicative principles that govern how people see and interpret images. Graphic design theory allows them to make creative decisions quickly, aligning every element of a graphic with its overall purpose. Graphic design theory can be studied in the following foundational elements:
- Alignment: Graphic designers want the text and elements to be in a consistent alignment. Visuals that are well aligned make it easier to understand.
- Repetition: Graphic designers use design elements that are repeated in one graphic or in a series, such as in branding and marketing campaigns. To associate an image with an organization, the public relies upon the repetition of distinct features.
- Contrast: Contrasts in properties like scale or color create a visual emphasis upon the themes a design is trying to address.
- Hierarchy: Hierarchy is the arrangement of design elements to express their relative importance. Hierarchical design is what viewers use to understand the main message of an advertisement, poster, or graphic.
- Balance: Graphic designers use it to balance the elements of a graphic and create tension or harmony. These elements influence how viewers feel when they look at an image. They encourage viewers to form emotional associations such as calmness and security or excitement and energy.
4. Consider formal education
As an undergraduate, you might choose to study graphic design. You can choose to major in marketing, graphic design, animation, web development, or studio art depending on the offerings at your institution. These courses are valuable if you already have a major. You could also pursue graphic design as a graduate degree if you have a bachelor’s.
Online courses are a great option for those who want structured education, but cannot enroll in a full-time program. Online courses can be taken to improve your graphic design skills and earn a certificate after the program.
5. Create a portfolio
As with learning graphic design, you must practice drawing and then continue your development by practicing higher-level skills. A substantial portfolio of work helps you define your style and allows you to see how it translates into work.
Conclusion
You don’t need to study arts or Graphic Design in school before becoming a professional graphic designer in our time today. There are lots of online courses on Udemy, LinkedIn Learning, Coursera, and many others to get you started.
The most important thing to do is to be consistent and apply a little bit of consistency, and connect with other colleagues in that field to learn more skills. Graphic Designing is all about continuous practice. The more you practice, there more you become familiar with the design tools and the more you become creative.
Do you have any comments or questions? Let me hear from you in the comment section below.
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