A new year and a new beginning. Don’t tell us you’ve decided to study graphic design? That, as design lovers we are, makes us very happy !! But first of all, we let you know. This is not going to be an easy road at all.
There are moments in life when you have to make decisions. Sometimes we make wise decisions, sometimes not so much. There are people who one day get up (or lie down, that you do not know when it survives you) and realize that they have heard the voice of Massimo Vignelli, Saul Bass or Milton Glaser, and decide that they want to devote themselves to graphic design.
If you are one of those people who, arriving at a crucial moment , decide that they will use their life in this noble world of color, typography, shapes, and structures, today we bring you a series of practical tips that can serve you to make you an idea of what you are facing, help you get started and see if this is really what you want to do.
TIPS TO STUDY GRAPHIC DESIGN
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. It is not worth using 5 Photoshop and 3 Illustrator buttons. Ideally, look for 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 surely 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 safe to surround yourself with good professionals who teach and demand you.
2. Educate your taste
In the previous point, we were already talking about drinking from the right sources. This is important. You can listen to Don Omar or Bob Dylan, both are equally legal in this country, but if you ask a professional musician he will advise you to listen more to the second than the first. Don’t you think Designing is something like composing music, so it is better that your references are good?
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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 order 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 motivational 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 so as not to fall into doing the same thing everyone does. Take a little from here, take a little from there … And in that process of “theft” gradually acquire your own style. It is one of the best tips to study graphic design.
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4. The cover needs and pampers the details
Throughout your career, you will reach a conclusion: the success of the good graphic design is based, in a high percentage, on performing precision work. Being strict with distances, spaces, sizes, measurements … Making a correct and error-free design is not art, it is rather a 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 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, is not so much the same. Or it is, but it is not the best for the job you are doing. You have to be open to constructive criticism (and destructive too, because there is a lot of heaters loose) and changes in your work. Your idea is not always the best and you have to know when to say “I’m not here”. There are times that do not happen. It is one of the best tips to study graphic design.
6. Be a sponge
The study of graphic design and especially that of being a graphic designer is a major career, like almost all. It is not worth studying a year and living on income. You have to train day after day because trends change. What today is a brand structure with which you are sure to succeed, tomorrow is more upset than saying “you don’t know, 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 have nothing to do with each other, and that the programs are updated every two days … Well, that, Even if you don’t live in a pineapple under the sea, you have to be a real sponge
7. Reaction capacity, routine, and constancy
All jobs that need a certain dose of inspiration have a maximum: routine and perseverance. First, because creativity is a muscle that you have to train every day, and only working without hurry but without pause, every day, you will know what key you have to pay to get it to work. Not for nothing, if not because it is curious that everyone who orders a graphic design job is very urgent, it is always the same as before yesterday. That’s why and because time is money, and you have to optimize yours. You know success is 10% talent and 90% hard and tireless work. It is one of the best tips to study graphic design.
8. Don’t come here to get rich
Designers is a career that needs a vocation . Of a lot of vocation. The beginnings are hard, you have to get tired of working and work a good portfolio, and then get tired of working even more. After that, when you find a job, it is quite likely that serving hamburgers earns a little more money, and 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!
If you are willing to follow all these tips, you are ready to start studying graphic design. If you see that it is not, that this is not your thing, pay attention to the teachers: let yourself be a mustache, sell drugs or buy a coconut. But … 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.
