STARTING OUT NEW DIGITAL SKILLS (1)

Being A Graphic Designer

Remember our post on 10 skills you should learn, that good old post? A lot of feedback came on that post with people saying, don't just tell us what we should learn, help us on how we should learn it here. So we decided to do a series this month on the skills that we listed in that post and we're starting off with graphic design. In another month, we would cover more skills, of course, just stay with us.

In this post, we explore who a graphic designer is, what a graphic designer does, what graphic design entails, and how you can be a graphic designer.

A picture is worth a thousand words - Napoleon Bonaparte

Before you proceed, take a second to imagine that everything on the internet was just plain text, and codes, pretty much like a lawyer’s brief, or Shakespeare’s plays; just that, text. How boring the internet would be. Fortunately, it isn’t so, and who do we have to thank for that? Graphic designers, that’s who.

So, who’s a graphic designer?
A graphic designer is a person who creates, designs, and styles graphic content using either text or pictures, or a combination of both, which is usually the case. Whether they are building from scratch or working on an already created work, a graphic designer’s duty is to communicate messages with visual works of art.

A graphic designer paints, draws, designs, and even writes in style, in a bid to either pass across his message, or the message of a client. Billboards, posters, flyers, newspapers, magazines, and even blogs, everyone with a message to pass to a group of people find their task easier with a graphic designer

In a world that is becoming increasingly focused on aesthetics, every firm or business, whether large or small, requires the services of a graphic designer, as much as they need a content creator to pass across messages in a catchy and attractive way. This means that as a graphic designer, whether you are a freelancer or you desire to be stable, you cannot be without a job, hence an income.

Anyone can be a graphic designer, irrespective of their nature, background, or qualification. You just follow our guide below and you are good to go.

5 Must-haves for a Graphic Designer

1. Get a Passion

If you want to be a graphic designer, you first have to develop a passion for it. Without a strong passion to learn the skill, you will likely run out of steam within the first two weeks. In the course of your learning, just like every new thing, you will meet blocks, especially at the beginning. New words, new terms, and new methods could shake your balance, and you could so easily give up. Developing a passion helps you navigate this and stand strong.

If you want to give yourself over to being lazy you will never be a good graphic designer but if you commit yourself to learn, the sky would be your starting point. Our post on achieving greatness is an excellent guide on how you can prepare yourself excellently to be an outstanding graphic designer.

2. Get a Device

To be a graphic designer, you need a device to work with. This would serve primarily as your office, your workspace, where you make the magic happen. The ideal recommendation is a high-powered laptop with a good video card. If you have a laptop with at least 4 GB RAM, 500 GB HDD, 15.6” screen, 2.30 GHz processor speed, and about 512 MB VRAM, I’d say you’ve got an ideal device for the job. Lower specification devices could still do, but you might not enjoy working with them, as much as you will with a laptop that matches or exceeds our recommendation.

You could also use a tablet or a smartphone, but owing to the nature of their screens, the display is limited, and as a designer, believe me, you need all the space you can get. If you’ve attained a level of mastery, you can do almost anything on any device, but for starters that are aiming for the perfect learning experience, I suggest you get a laptop. If you insist on learning with a phone first, a Samsung A20 or its equivalent or higher would be fine for an Android user, and if you use an iPhone, an iPhone 8 or higher would do.

3. Get Your Preferred Tool

If you've got your laptop, tablet, or phone, the next thing you need is a tool or an app. Now, there are three basic tools or packages that graphic designers use. They are:

1. Adobe suite
2. CorelDRAW
3. Canva

4. Get Learning Materials

I am a firm believer that I am my first and best teacher on anything I want to learn, and so should you. You only have to stir up this teacher by acquiring materials necessary for learning. The graphic designer has a unique advantage; everything he sees is material. Every image, every item, nature, tech, abstract, whatever, you have the chance to grab everything you can see and represent it in your work when the time is right.

If you want to be an excellent graphic designer, get books of all kinds and read them, it builds your knowledge base. Get videos, instructional videos, and other educational videos, watch movies, visit museums, zoos, etc. Clients could come from anywhere, and if you are not familiar with what they represent, you would do a terrible job, because a beautiful image that communicates a wrong message is a big failure (imagine a military-themed design for a psychologist client).

5. Get a Tutor

You might take free classes online and that’s fine, we even have a post on where you can learn digital skills for free online, but you absolutely NEED a tutor. A tutor isn’t just a teacher; a tutor is a mentor, a coach, and an expert in the field who is there to hold your hand as you learn.

Free online classes are not tailored to a particular audience, they are for anyone and it’s a good place to start. A tutor is one who especially attends to your needs, personally tracks your progress, and of course, helps you learn in the best way possible.

You can have physical or online classes with your tutor, and it is best you take as many paid courses as possible from such a person, because that’s where the true and absolute value lies. You can ask anyone who has taken free and paid courses, and they would tell you the difference. If we use a culinary analogy, free online courses teach you how to make tea, and at most cook noodles, and they tell you that you can now cook. A paid class with a tutor guarantees you a full cooking master class session in both local and international cuisines. I hope you get the message.

If you want to be a graphic designer and you are in the city of Jos and you’re looking for a tutor for extensive and professional learning that would have you earning in less than a week after completion, I would recommend Roy.

Roy is our recommendation when it comes to learning how to produce outstanding graphic designs. Some of his graphic designs are displayed below and don’t you just love them?

If you want to be this good, then he’s the man for you. It just so happens that right now, he’s offering a special training program for interested persons, details to come. Meanwhile, you could reach out to him on LinkedIn, just search Roy Ameh-Wealth.

So, that is that for graphic design. If you’ve read this, you’re good to go, our graphic designer. I hope I've inspired someone enough to be a graphic designer and I hope someone is interested in learning this, it would do you a whole lot of good so drop your comment, and real soon we'll have another post on another skill for you.

Stay smart.