Graphic Design is a field that, if you are talented, innovative and are dedicated to your craft, can possibly be financially rewarding. There are design needs across every industry, so Graphic Designers have many opportunities to take on a range of new and exciting projects.
What Is Graphic Design?
When did you think of graphic design what comes to your mind?
A logo?
A book?
How about a cool poster?
If you search for the definition of graphic design, you’ll most likely find a generic unhelpful definition. Online dictionaries define graphic design as the art or skill of combining text and pictures in advertisements, magazines, or books.
Graphic design is all around you. It’s about expressing an idea in the best way using visual story telling.
Graphic design focuses on communicating a message visually. Each project a graphic designer works on will have a unique message and the desired result of that message. The message may be to provide information, invoke thought, sell a product or even stimulate meaningful conversation.
Importance of Graphic Design in today’s world
“Humans Are Visual Creatures”
Do you know? Humans are visual creatures. We respond and process visual data better than any other type of data. In fact, the human brain processes image 60,000 times faster than text, and 90 per cent of information transmitted to our brain is visuals.
When you think of memories that stand out, it’s rare that you’d imagine a block of floating text. Visuals allow for instant recall. This is what makes graphic design important in today’s world
Career As Graphic Designer
“A picture is more than a thousand words” is a famous saying that has been reiterating its relevance time and again. Pictures, rather visuals in general, are the most effective means of communication and this is implied wonderfully by graphic design.
The works of Graphic Designers can be found everywhere, in the websites you visit, the games you play, the advertisements you see, the movies you watch, in fact even in the packaging and logos of the products you buy.
The digital era is here to stay and graphic designing has already become an indispensable part of this age. To imagine any brand or company without using graphic design at all is impossible today.
Graphic Designers can easily find a job in almost all sectors of the industry. After completing a professional graphic designing course, several avenues in the industry will open for candidates to explore. While some people give preference to working for companies and media houses, there are some who choose to be their own bosses and opt to become a freelancer. Graphic design provides stable career opportunities in different domains.
Roles for Graphic Designers
Graphic Designing can choose from several options of career choices for themselves. Some of the most popular job roles for graphic designers have been listed below.
• Art Director
• Creative Director
• Industrial Designer
• Logo Designer
• Illustration Artist
• Layout Artist
• Brand Identity Designer
• Banner and Poster Designer
• Web Designer
• Visualization Artist
• Design Consultants
• Multimedia Artist
• Animator
• Campaign Manager
• Architecture and Engineering Drafter
• Video Editor
• Flash Designer
• Film Editor
• Product Designer
• Visual Merchandiser
Where Can You Work as a Graphic Designer?
• Advertising companies
• Marketing companies
• Newspaper, Periodical, and Book, Publishers
• Web development/Mobile APP development companies
• Printing and Publishing
• Studios
• Freelancing
Will graphic design become obsolete?
Obviously, the graphic designer won’t be obsolete. Graphic design is an incredibly tricky career because it frequently has to adapt to an ever-changing environment. New tools and skills are continuously being developed to adjust and navigate this complex progression.
Don’t stick to your way of working only — make sure to understand how the world is changing and how you can adapt.
Software / Tools of Graphic Design
If you are a graphic designer, you need a lot of tools to perform your daily tasks. It is important to choose the right set of tools to make your day productive and work wonderfully.
Check out the list below
• Notebooks and pencils/pens
• Creative Software – Example: Adobe Creative Cloud tools
• Color scheme generator – Example: Coolors, Palleton
• Web sites that provide images/vectors – Example: freepik
Adobe Creative Cloud
Adobe Creative Cloud gives you the world’s best creative apps and services so you can make anything you can imagine, wherever you’re inspired.
Creative Cloud is a collection of 20+ desktop and mobile apps and services for photography, design, video, web, UX and more.
No list of design tools would be complete without mentioning Adobe Creative Cloud.
Three important apps of Adobe Creative Cloud
• Photoshop (raster graphic editor)
• Illustrator (vector graphic editor)
• InDesign (page layout program)
Adobe Photoshop
Photoshop is an extremely powerful program for creating prints and patterns to be the best you can be in the designing world. For graphic designers, it has countless options, tools, and settings to open up new opportunities, to create a design that is more authentic with proper guidance.
Photoshop for Designers allows you to:
• Build confidence in your design skills
• Enjoy the new insights
• Create digital artwork based on your drawings
• Learn from step-by-step instructors
• A wonderful way to learn and remember
• Speed up your design process
• Bring your ideas to life
Adobe Illustrator
Adobe Illustrator offers 2D or 3D graphics manipulation to increase efficiency in the design workflow. Designers including both professional graphic designers and digital artists can use Illustrator to create many different types of digital products.
Adobe keeps rolling out exciting features in Illustrator like variable fonts, faster document creation, easier image cropping, stylist sets to texts, stability enhancements, and modern user experience and many more to make it one of the best and most handy tools for web and graphic designers.
Adobe InDesign
Adobe InDesign is the industry-leading layout and page design software for print and digital media. You can create digital magazines, eBooks, and interactive online documents that draw people in with audio, video, slideshows, and animations.
Remember, being a good designer is not just about having creative ideas and execution but also having the right equipment/tools. If you as a designer use a handful of tools, it will provide a solid foundation for communicating the ideas and simplifying the work.
I hope this article gave you a clear idea of the career in graphic design. If you like this article, please comment here and share it with your friends.
Jinu Varghese