What skills should graphic designers master? Ten Necessary Skills for Graphic Designers

Graphic designer is a way to express his design concept and image by using the combination and arrangement of various visual elements in two-dimensional graphic materials. The graphic designer known to ordinary people is the art of properly processing and typesetting visual elements such as words, photos or patterns and displaying them on newspapers, magazines, books, posters, leaflets, signs, VI and other paper media, that is, designing and typesetting on paper media.

Nowadays, more and more people are studying graphic design, but many people still don't grasp the true essence of graphic design ~ in fact, it is essential to master skills to become an excellent graphic designer! What skills should graphic designers master? Let's say:

Young people's favorite self-study design platform! Learn design! Introduction to software ~

First, style is relative to no style.

Style can be used as a designer's trademark. If your design has a specific audience. Then the familiar style of the audience will give you an important design tool. Every designer should have his own style. Because every project you participate in is unique, your style will leave a deep impression on the audience. Most designers (especially novices) have many different styles to show their comprehensive skills. But the unique style that can bring design inspiration is the designer's dream. If you want to master a certain style, you must study its history deeply.

Second, project management.

Many designers want to arrange their work in an orderly way, but it is very useful to master the foundation of project management in larger projects. Designers who can manage some projects well have an advantage over those who just sit and wait for arrangements. When managing a project, leadership is one of the key elements of design. To undertake a new project is to manage your authority reasonably and make your project operate reasonably and effectively. When you start a new project, make sure you have reasonable permissions. As a leader, you should be flexible enough to know when you need to change your plan. When you determine the direction of a project, the plan should not stop, but should continue. When your plan is implemented, you should consider the war plan and file all the strategies. A bad plan will lead to failed execution and chaotic results.

Third, typesetting.

Now typesetting, as a design skill, is underestimated by people. In fact, top advertising companies regard typesetting as the most critical element in their design works, which is usually the time when excellent designers and excellent designers divide water. Layout design needs to have enough knowledge of fonts, proper line height, kerning and kerning. Advertising is originally used to convey information, so it needs a clear and well-designed layout. Experienced designers will tell you that it is impossible to know the names of all the words. However, if you can learn to distinguish some main fonts and express the content clearly, then you will feel more confident. Layout design can be easily attributed to the official language of graphic design. If the layout appears alternately, most designs will become irrelevant or outdated. Letters appear in different shapes, colors and styles, which endows graphic design with uniqueness. Although there is only good technology, if a designer doesn't know how to express it fluently.

Fourth, creative thinking.

For graphic designers, a very important ability is to turn some incomplete materials into an amazing work. Designers should be able to express clearly what others want to express in words with pictures. At first, the image may not be clear enough, but this is usually the time to be creative. It is feasible to think aimlessly and endlessly. In fact, every project hopes to have such an idea. If we can jump out of the normal mode, new ideas will come into being. With creative thinking, we can find the intersection of different ideas. If you can find similarities in different ideas, you may find a new perspective of design.

5. Printing design and layout.

In addition to skills, employers also attach importance to designers' understanding of electronic printing products. Using typesetting software is a very important skill, which usually refers to desktop typesetting software (Adobe, InDesign, orQuark). Printing design usually needs to know about color separation, grid layout and master page. Every professional designer should have a thorough understanding of the printing process. Although you don't need to know how to operate the print button, you need to be familiar with the whole printing process. The most basic printing knowledge includes the understanding of color space. Color space is a combination of different colors, which describes how some colors are combined into other colors. There are two color spaces: ligh and pigmenk. Light color space is composed of red, green and blue, or RGB for short. Paint color space consists of cyan, magenta, yellow and black, or K for short.

Sixth, web design.

For graphic designers, web design may be the most valuable skill. Countless doors will open for you, and you are facing a huge customer base. You can update your exhibition as much as possible if you want. If you are proficient in web design and several different programming languages, you can not only work from home and get a stable income, but also bring you potential employers, because employers want to find a generalist to reduce their expenses.

Seven, photography.

If you want to be an all-around graphic designer, you will get involved in photography sooner or later. If you are lucky, the company provides you with a camera. Make good use of it. What kind of camera can meet the needs of designers, a camera that can provide enough light to fully expose the objects you shoot. This can be achieved by a built-in flash or an external flash. It is a good method to use a digital camera to get higher pixels. 6M pixels or less is not suitable for generating high-quality pictures, which can be modified by image editing software such as Photoshop.

Eight, interpersonal network.

It is very important to get guidance and support from others. Especially for designers, they need to spend most of their time in offices and studios. This will be an effective way to build a network of people who are interested in your career. These people can be: other designers, marketing experts, web designers, design blogs, design magazines, photographers, search engine optimization, magazines, publishers and so on.

Nine, communication.

_ In fact, communication is the most important skill in a designer's career. Expression ability is the basis for a designer to do anything (please refer to the typesetting chapter above), but it is not limited to visual communication. Designers must be able to communicate their ideas and ideas clearly and smoothly to employers and customers. At the same time, graphic designers should be able to write well the introduction and copy of text organization. In order to complete a new project, you need good communication skills 90% of the time. As long as you are working on a project, it is very important to communicate with customers or other team members. From refining requirements accurately, discussing changes and different options, explaining how to use a tool and why this method doesn't work, you need good communication skills. Nowadays, successful designers can often write clear emails, organize people from different regions and cultures to have skype conversations, deal with countless communication problems and communicate with their own communication art.

X. Social media promotion.

In today's market, for any individual, marketing and promoting their own brands and services are essential skills. Companies that understand the value of social media include Weibo, Renren, Facabook, Twitler and Dig. How to use this media correctly, establish the relationship with users and build brand awareness in the future will become more and more important and valuable. If you know the market rules, you will get more jobs or a new start. Studying market art and science will help you design targeted works. Think about it, many web designers' final works are aimed at getting more attention, building brands, selling products or bringing endless business.

In fact, to tell the truth, to be an excellent graphic designer, it is not enough to rely on simple design operations. It's really hard to compare with other excellent graphic designers without all kinds of skills ~ finally learn graphic design! ~