Beginner Design - How can I improve my graphic design skills as a beginner?

practical and achievable ways to help you improve your graphic design skills.

Study design theory. A proper understanding of concepts such as grid theory can transform
your work.

Learn how to get more from feedback.

Start a side project.

Experiment.

Talk to other designers.

Read books.

This may be something to keep in mind:

"Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do
creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first
couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s
not.

But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work
disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do
interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this
special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this.

And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know it's normal and the
most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every
week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close
that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions.

And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile.
It’s normal to take a while. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.".

I never had any formal graphic design background or education, yet a big chunk of my monthly
income comes from designing social media graphics and other digital products, templates, etc. I
sell my digital templates online, and I also sometimes work with clients, and the ride has been
quite exciting so far.

But as I said, I never learned how to design anything, not properly in a professional setting
anyway. So, how did I manage to create an income stream as a graphic designer? Well, here
are some practical tips for you if you’re in the same shoe as I used to be just a couple of years
ago.

Learn the Basics..

Design, like most things, has some rules—these rules are the backbones of any good design.
Like any creative work, designers also thrive in breaking these rules, but to break them, you
must first learn them, know how to implement them, master them, and only then can you know
how to skillfully break or bend them. My advice? When you’re just a beginner and don’t really
have a good handle on what constitutes good design, learn the rules and then stick to them.
Learn how to combine colors (starting out, keep things simple), learn about white space, design
hierarchy, and object alignment, and learn about type pairing. Just these few things can
drastically improve your designs.

Get Lots of Inspiration.

Nothing fuels the creative mind more than creative work. Often writers say that to be a good
writer, you need to read a lot. Similarly, to be a good graphic designer, you should look at the
work of other designers. Let their work influence yours. But don’t just look at other designers’
work. Graphic design inspiration can come from a lot of different things.

I remember walking down the street one day and seeing a woman wearing a pale blue skirt and
a bright orange crop top. That day I came home and designed an ebook template with a similar
color palette. Train your eyes to observe things—whether on the internet, in other designers’
work, or just out in nature.

Start Learning Graphic Design - Build a Graphic Design Career Master the fundamental skills needed to become a graphic
designer through visual examples

Practice, Practice, Practice….

You need a lot of practice. At first, your designs will be crap. But don’t give up. Learn from the
crap, analyze your work, think about how it could have been better. And keep practicing. Also,
keep learning. The more you do it, the better you’ll become.

And now, a few practical tips…

When I first started, I had set up a few things to help me with my work.
Create a few color palettes. This helps me when I need to design some templates quickly. I
don’t have to search for inspiration every time—if I don’t have a new idea, I can fall back to one
of my premade palettes.

Similarly, create a couple of font pairings. This also saves time. They can be my go-to fonts if
I’m out of ideas.

Figure out what type of designs you like to work with. Do you want to design logos, Create
brand collateral, Design print, Focusing on the type of things you want to design will help you
improve faster as all these different things often follow different sets of trends and rules.

Learn your tools. Having a good handle on design tools will streamline your work process, and
this process is just as important as knowing how to design. Do you use Illustrator, Procreate,
Photoshop, Something else? Know your tool like you know your name…

People have great ideas, but then they get stuck at bringing their ideas to life because they
don’t know how to use the software. Don’t be that person!

These are some entry-level tips for beginner graphic designers. I hope they’ll be helpful to you
as they were to me when I first started out.

It doesn’t matter how good you are today. What really matters is how fast you progress and
what steps you take every day to improve your design skills.

Recently, I tried to sum up my last couple of years of being a graphic designer in order to
discover what really brought me to the level I’m at today. Nothing happens overnight. It takes a
countless number of hours, plus practice and patience.

I tried to select five actions and routines I’ve been doing regularly for the last few years in order
to become a better designer.

1. Learn to identify good design

If you want to create great designs, first you need to learn to recognize a good design from a
bad one. It usually comes with experience. The more experienced a designer you are, the faster
you can perceive a better design.

Every artist was first an amateur.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

You should train yourself in order to hone this precious skill every day.
The rule is simple: browse design projects every day. Start your day by going through the most
recent design showcases and examining the work of other talented and experienced designers.

Study well-designed pieces and try to answer the question: “What makes it so good?” Focus on
specific design elements (like navigation bars, search fields, buttons, etc.) and compare them
with other examples. Try to guess why the designer made certain decisions. At the end of this
process, sketch your own ideas as often as you can.

Treat your ability to identify good design like a muscle. Like every muscle, you need to train it to
make it stronger and better. Don’t think it’s something you need to be born with. You can learn
it.

Also, look around – there are great designs everywhere around you!

A list of great sources of beautiful designs and inspirations:

Dribbble.com
Creattica.com
Designspiration.net

2. Study design theory

Everything moves so fast and if you want to be in the game, you need to know your stuff from
the source. Read about new design techniques or trends. Study the design theory to find a
sense in what you’re doing.

Don’t focus too much on how to achieve trendy visual elements in your designs. It’s very
tempting to look into those “step-by-step” Photoshop tutorials. However, it won’t make your
design skills better.

A good design doesn’t start in Photoshop, it starts in your head and on the paper. Understand
the design theory first and add a visual skin later. Do your homework.

3. Have a sandbox

Create a place for yourself where you can try new things. Your own website or some other
personal projects are usually a good place to start.

Treat it like an experiment and don’t be afraid of using unusual layouts or colors. Don’t settle
with the first idea that comes to your mind. This is your playground and you’re your own boss.
Have some fun with it and be creative.
If you don’t have any personal projects, create a fake one and pretend like you’re doing a job for
someone. If you’re a beginner, those fake projects can be really helpful to build your portfolio
and show off.

4. Improve your style

Sometimes a designer is like an actor and has to play different roles depending on the project
that he or she is working on. However, it’s good to settle around a specific group of clients that
we feel confident with and that fits with our design style.

For example, I definitely prefer clean and minimalist designs because I feel that approach is
perfect for businesses, corporations and content-heavy websites. My portfolio is full of these
kinds of projects and people usually know what to expect from me.

Try to find your own style that you feel good with. If there is a relatively big group of clients
(even if it’s a niche) that finds your design attractive, you’re on the right track. Keep improving
your design style and introduce new elements to every new project.

Think about your personal design style as your trademark. You want people to recognize your
work and the best reward is when other designers try to copy you. It’s annoying but you can be
proud of yourself!

5. Teach other people what you know.

This is a very important step. I always felt like I was not someone who could teach other people
because I’m still learning too. However, I discovered that sharing your knowledge is a great way
to learn as well.

These five tips are not steps that you should take and move from one to another. They are more
like actions that you need to take regularly and repeat them over and over. Even if you’re an
experienced designer and you feel like you’re on a really high level, you still need to study other
design projects, refresh all the design theory, learn new techniques, improve your style and
share with others what you’ve learned.

It might be difficult to objectively say if we’re making progress in what we do. If you love your
design at the moment of creation and hate it next month when you compare it to your new
projects, it means you are making progress. If you see a difference with every new project, it
means you have made progress really fast and are moving in a good direction. Keep it up!

There are many aspects I can discuss here with such details that it will take hours and hours to
answer this question but I will stick to the basic small one with a solution.
You have to understand that almost 99.99% designers don’t invent anything new, they just
incorporate multiple ideas together that they have got from their past experiences. They have
experienced, researched & practiced all that previously which they use for all of their new future
designs. Like they use a curve from an advertisement they saw with a rounded box they saw
somewhere in seminars and then color it with the idea they had for the past 6 months. This is
how almost all designers work. Now some may think they have invented/visualized something in
mind first and then on the paper or software but all of the references and ideas we get are
reflections of our past experiences.

To all beginners, get a design from Google (Copy other people's work) and then replicate. Try to
get as near as possible to the target design, Keep repeating this until you find it difficult to find
something you can’t replicate.

I know these have some flaws, but, in my opinion, this is not bad at all. Don’t you think so?

keep up with the trend, be specific, and analyse each design like and dislike, then apply it to
your upcoming design.

For example, you want to design a book cover, so you're going to take a look at tons of the best
book covers. (don't forget to see book covers in recent years), so you will pretty much know
about the trend. And then come up with your own design.

Let other designers review your work. Show your work to other designers, they can and will tell
you what's wrong, get opinions with the work you've done. But don't read it like the bible, accept
what they say and try to actually change your design from it.

You need a killer attitude that you are all in. Whatever it takes, whatever the sacrifice, whatever
obstacles—its total commitment to God, family, with graphic design a close second.

Focus and read as many things you can and you will find out the depth of Art & Design.
Becoming creative isn’t an easy process, you have to put your brain deep in thinking and
experimenting.

Read & follow - Follow graphic design blogs, buy books about graphic design and watch videos
about it. This keeps you on the map all the time and you get great inspiration and techniques.

Be humble - Even though you think that you have made the best work you have ever done,
don't ever think it's too good to be criticized. And then we get to the next step: Get Criticism,

Design is never an easy thing, whether you are an UX/UI designer, product manager, graphic
designer or logo designer, you should keep on learning. And there are many learning resources
out there which are good, books are also a way to absorb the knowledge. The more quality
design books we can read, the better it is for us. As the saying goes like ”an apple a day, keep
doctor away”, I’m gonna say: a book a day, make your design “blow away”. Here comes a book
list which is best for all kinds of designers to read. Hope it is helpful and useful to you.

Graphic design books

1. Thinking with Type

— by Ellen Lupton

This was one of the first graphic design books I read. The design of the book adds to its
usefulness, giving beautifully illustrated examples of exactly how to implement the concepts
discussed in the book.

FROM THE PUBLISHER:

“Ellen Lupton provides clear and focused guidance on how letters, words, and paragraphs
should be aligned, spaced, ordered, and shaped. The book covers all typography essentials,
from typefaces and type families, to kerning and tracking, to using a grid.”

Buy eBook Thinking with Type by Ellen Lupton

2. Steal Like an Artist

— by Adams Media

Unlock your creativity.

An inspiring guide to creativity in the digital age, Steal Like an Artist presents ten transformative
principles that will help readers discover their artistic side and build a more creative life .

Nothing is original, so embrace influence, school yourself through the work of others, remix and
reimagine to discover your own path. Follow interests wherever they take you—what feels like a
hobby may turn into you life’s work. Forget the old cliché about writing what you know: Instead,
write the book you want to read, make the movie you want to watch .

And finally, stay Smart, stay out of debt, and risk being bored in the everyday world so that you
have the space to be wild and daring in your imagination and your work.
Buy eBook Steal Like an Artist by Adams Media

3. Now You See It and Other Essays on Design

—by Michael Bierut

Michael Bierut is a partner at Pentagram Design, with work in the permanent collections of
everywhere from MoMA to the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum.

FROM THE PUBLISHER:

“In more than fifty smart and accessible short pieces from the past decade, Bierut engages with
a fascinating and diverse array of subjects. Essays range across design history, practice, and
process; urban design and architecture; design hoaxes; pop culture; Hydrox cookies, Peggy
Noonan, baseball, The Sopranos; and an inside look at his experience creating the “forward”
logo for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign.”

Buy eBook Now You See It and Other Essays on Design by Michael Bierut

4. Show Your Work!: 10 Ways to Share Your Creativity and Get Discovered
—by Austin Kleon

Not every designer is great at self-promotion. But without effective promotion and marketing, it
can be nearly impossible to get enough clients to stay afloat. Austin Kleon’s Show Your Work!
gives designers tips and strategies for sharing their work and being seen.

FROM THE PUBLISHER:

“From broader life lessons about work (you can’t find your voice if you don’t use it) to the
etiquette of sharing—and the dangers of oversharing—to the practicalities of Internet life (build a
good domain name; give credit when credit is due), it’s an inspiring manifesto for succeeding as
any kind of artist or entrepreneur in the digital age.”

Buy eBook Show Your Work by Austin Kleon

5. Designing Brand Identity: An Essential Guide for the Whole Branding Team
— by Alina Wheeler

Graphic designers who understand the fundamentals of creating those identities have a
competitive advantage in the marketplace and can better serve their clients. This guide covers
not only the theory behind branding but also the actual process of designing an identity and
case studies illustrating how it’s done.

FROM THE PUBLISHER:

“From research to brand strategy to design execution, launch, and governance, Designing
Brand Identity is a compendium of tools for branding success and best practices for inspiration.”

Buy eBook Designing Brand Identity by Alina Wheeler

6. Work for Money, Design for Love

— by David Airey
If you’re just getting started in your graphic design career, particularly as a freelancer, this book
is an excellent resource. David Airey, author of Logo Design Love, breaks down the business
side of design in Work for Money, Design for Love.

FROM THE PUBLISHER:

“Unlike other dry business books, this refreshing, straightforward guide from Logo Design Love
author and international designer David Airey answers the questions all designers have when
first starting out on their own…With this book, David finally answers their pressing questions
with anecdotes, case studies, and sound advice garnered from his own experience as well as
those of such well-known designers as Ivan Chermayeff, Jerry Kuyper, Maggie Macnab, Eric
Karjaluoto, and Von Glitschka.”

>>You can get graphic design eBook here<<

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