4 Important Ways To Become An Efficient Graphic Designer (Important Things You Need To Know)

If you are confused about how to become a better graphic designer or you are a beginner in the process. In this article, we are going to outline the step-by-step process on how to better your skills and understanding of the industry, and also how to get regular clients more frequently.

Steps on how to become an efficient graphic designer

Step 1

Passion: In my opinion the first thing you need is passion, if you are trying to become a graphic designer and some designs don’t get your creative juices flowing, or if you see typography like the ADIDAS logo or see back of magazines and don’t stop to examine it with appreciation then you are going to find it difficult to get far in this industry. Passion is something powerful it drives us to push the boundaries and put in the extra time and effort needed to gain success. If you love, live and breathe the things you work in, you will likely go a lot further than most people around you. So as passion is important, what next?  

Step 2

Graphics design principles: You can easily be good at using software, but if you don’t understand what methods make an effective design, then you are pretty much lost, so research and study the principles when we are talking about contrast, hierarchy, colour, balance, typography and so on. You don’t have to master the principles before starting to design you can learn them while learning the next few steps in this process.

Step 3

The software:  As graphic design principles are very important, it also important to note that you cannot make quality food if you can’t use the utensils properly. It doesn’t matter the type of software you use either Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, CorelDraw or InDesign, whatever programs you use to get the job done is fine. It is just what you like to use and you are comfortable using, just understand that sometimes you will need to use vector-based graphics and other times raster images will be fine. Make sure you know the software and when to use it, this also takes time but it’s the same in any professional skill set.

Step 4

Step: this is really important but most designers skip this or don’t even think about it, that’s probably why most people don’t succeed as graphic designers. In the early stages of your career, you should be looking at existing examples of graphic design made by professionals, and deconstructing them. What I mean by that:

Take knowledge of graphic design principles and try to apply them to the work you are seeing online or in magazines or professional designers, study the design and see how they use a hierarchy or has the designer used symmetrical or asymmetrical balance. How has colour been used to convey the intended message to the client? Is there contrast found in the typography? 

Ask all of these questions and more and just apply all these principles to the designs you see.  In doing this you will see how the principles play such an important role in effective design and you will learn how to apply them in your own projects. And you are going to elevate yourself above so many other graphic designers.

The previous steps can be worked on simultaneously that is you can better your knowledge of principles, software and the application of principles at the same time. It is time to apply all of them to actual briefs. If you cannot find design clients to work with, then it’s a good idea to either sign up for graphic design competitions or to work with mock briefs. 
Mock briefs are good because they give you the chance to take on projects and practice your skills. It’s one thing to know about contrast and hierarchy but it’s a completely different thing working those ideas into a client’s brief guidelines. Although it takes time it’s a process of improving your graphic design skill.

Conclusion: How to become an efficient graphic designer

Having a graphic design process is extremely important, it’s how you Research, Creation of ideas, Refinement and so on… but if you take all the processes in this tutorial seriously, you will better understand what it means to be a designer, and you will become more efficient in your approach. From here you need to start marketing yourself and compile your work into portfolios.

Read more on how to write a graphic design portfolio.