15 Tips to Become a Creative Graphic Designer
Designing is all about creativity, and being a Graphic Designer makes you a creative artist. In this profession, you will find an excellent mix of creativity and technology. But often, due to time crunch, creativity has to step back, and presenting inspired designs seems like a better option to satisfy your clients.
As a graphic designer, you will be responsible for coming up with creative concepts and unique designs. These designs are used for advertisements, brochures, logos, websites, marketing, packaging, etc. The main goal is to convey the company’s message through product design or advertising. So this is a crucial point to keep in mind while designing anything.
If you are a visual thinker, you will definitely be a talented graphic designer, as you can put your creative thoughts in your designs. But to become a creative graphic designer, it takes much more than just education. Getting proper training and adequate knowledge will guide you to excel in your work field.
How to become a creative Graphic Designer?
With proper knowledge and skills, and keeping up with the latest trends, you can be the best in your work. Here are 15 tips that can guide you to become a creative graphic designer.
- Inspiration can come from anywhere
Wherever you go, keep an eagle eye for anything that inspires you. It can be the color of your aunt’s curtains, some design at the coffee shop, or graffiti. Make sure you collect these things. You can take a picture and collect these in a folder.
The Internet is a place where you can literally find anything. Look for designs or ideas that inspire you. Make a collection of them, so that in case you ever run out of ideas, you can take a look at them. You will be astounded by how many different ideas click your mind after seeing them.
- Read blogs more often
Blogs are a great source of information today. Try reading blogs on creative designing more often. Reading other designers’ experiences and advice will help you generate more ideas and enhance your skills.
- Images are a great way to inspire creativity
Capture as much as you can. Take photographs of things you like or the places you visit. Good pictures will help you boost your creativity and give you the idea of the right color and light composition. But while using these images for your inspiration, keep the copyright issue in mind.
- Keep free samples handy
Once you start working on your creative skills, gather and combine data to recreate some brand’s logos, brochures, business cards, catalogs, banners, or even a mockup website. These samples will be beneficial in gaining your client’s confidence. These samples will speak on behalf of your creative work and commitment.
- Communication is the key
Attend some seminars or events where all the creative minds come together and meet. Communicating with these experienced and talented designers will give you a lot of ideas.
- Explore the reality
Getting inspired by movies is excellent, but creating something like that is off-limits. Not because of creativity, but because of the budget plus technology, you will be provided with as a graphic designer. Instead of stressing over these things, try exploring reality.
Use your creativity in a way that can make the most ordinary things special. It will make people wonder about how great you are as a designer.
- Let your design speak the words
As a graphic designer, you do not have to explain the words that your client gave you. Extract the feeling of the word and let your design say it. For instance, the banner of a horror film will be written in a spooky way to represent the film genre. Similarly, let the design portray the words.
- Play with ideas
It is not easy to use many ideas in a single design while maintaining its aesthetic. However, you can explore your creativity by playing with different ideas and including it in one design. Maybe you will end up making something unique and appealing. But be careful about it, you don’t want to end up making it look like a Christmas tree.
- Focus on the overall appearance
Making the whole design look even is not that easy. A graphic designer’s creativity is put to the test when he/she has to make the statement appear as alluring as the design. Therefore, from the very beginning, ensure that your design aligns with the statement.
- Tutorials can be a great way to learn
In the process of exploring new techniques of designing, you can take the help of tutorials. They are a great way of learning and can explain the entire process step by step. Keep on watching these tutorials by different people till you think you have mastered it.
- Redesign
You can find plenty of creative designs from highly talented and skillful designers online. Try to redesign them and then compare it with the original one. See if you have successfully improvised it or not. If you can create a better one, then point out the mistakes that the designer made. It will help you polish your skills.
- Travelling can inspire ideas too
When you travel to different places, you learn a lot of new things about culture and lifestyle. These explorations can inspire some creative ideas too. All the changes and experiences will enhance your creativity and help you think better.
- Practice makes the designer perfect
When you sketch, you will automatically develop new concepts. Sometimes, out of the blue, some ideas will cross your mind, and these ideas reflect your creativity. Experiment with your sketches. Keep on practicing till you believe that you are a Pro at it!
- Find the solution in the problem
Creativity is all about making boring things interesting. Sometimes, clients may come up with an unclear and rough design. In this case, your job is not to find a new idea but to shape it into an interesting one. Well, this is a challenge, accept it, and transform the dull design into a unique one.
- Getting a degree is a crucial step
Without knowing the alphabet, we would never have been able to learn the words. Education plays a vital role in helping you climb the stairs of success, even if it’s one step at a time. Taking a degree is the first step. In case you do not have one, apply for it now. It will help you understand the subject and also learn about new tricks and technologies.