10 Tips To Become a Better Graphic Designer

1. Intro: Hello, everyone. My name is Haley Powers. I'm a brand strategist and designer. I run Bad bitch branding where help designers and small business owners grow through brand education and design. You can learn more about bad bitch branding at Bad Bitch branding dot com. I really wanted to make this course to give some insight into the things that I think can make you a better graphic designer. You may be an experienced designer or you may be a beginner. This course is great for everyone because we all have room for improvement no matter what Sage mark where we happen to be in. I love this quote by Salvador Dali, he said. Don't their perfection. You will never reach it. We all have something to work on, and I think these 10 tips can help you improve. I believe that these tips will truly help you see your job as a graphic designer in a new way. Let's be really sometimes design is easy. You have an easy client, loves everything you touch the logo concepts flow effortlessly, and then some days it could be truly hard. You struggle to capture the essence of your client's brand in a strong logo mark. You can't seem to communicate in the way your client understands, and it can feel challenging. We are creators, and creating is no joke. It could be fun, yes, but there is another side to it. Creating can also be very challenging. But that's half the fun. Well, sometimes it's half the fun. Graphic design is interesting because we are artists but artists on strict deadlines with concise concepts to communicate through a specific style. There are so many constraints on our work, which can sometimes help and sometimes hinder. I've created these 10 tips that I think you should take to expand your horizons and become a better graphic designer. So let's get started. I personally hate long intros, so we're gonna end this intro right now. 2. Tip#1 | Work Outside Your Comfort Zone: tip number one. Work outside of your comfort zone, Richard Branson said. If somebody offers you an amazing opportunity, but you aren't sure you could do it, say yes and then learn how to do it later. I think it is great to get out of your comfort zone and to create something you have to learn how to create. Perhaps a client approaches you, and once a logo that's a bit different from your typical aesthetic. I believe you should say yes and learn how to execute that style in the process. It is impossible for us all three to be prepared for anything and everything and client may want. So sometimes you must learn on the job. I take a workshop with Annie Atkins early this year. If you don't know who she is, you should. She's a graphic designer who has worked on many high profile films. You may know where work best from some of her Wes Anderson films, where she crafts props on screen graphics and more, and he told us that many times you cannot know what a client or director will dream up, so it's very hard to be prepared for everything that she may need to do for a set because she can't be prepared at all times. And he talked a lot about how she learns through the projects. Ah, lot of her work seems to be trial and error. While she learns how to recreate different pieces from fictional countries or learns to craft an extinct telegram, she is always learning on the job. Perhaps you are not doing the type of work and he is doing, but maybe you've gotten a few jobs. You're not sure how to execute. Instead of saying no and sticking to what you already know how to do, say yes and learn on the job while I encourage you to learn on the job. It is also important to know that you can truly execute what you've promised to your client . Use your judgment and have a backup plan so that when the time comes and you either didn't execute the design as well as you had hoped, you at least have someone there to give their insight. Whether this be a mentor, a fellow designer with experience in the style you were trying to go out for, or just someone you hire on the side transit out of your comfort zone because real growth exists. When you challenge yourself branch out, say yes to jobs that scare you. But make sure you know how to deliver an amazing product to the client. At the end of the day, you can do it. 3. Tip#2 | Read about design, culture and even science: step to read about design, culture and even science. One thing is for sure. The world is vast. There is so much to learn about science, culture, food, psychology, philosophy, literature, music and the arts. Who, Michael Beirut said. The more things you're interested in, the better your work will be. The best part about design is that it crosses over into many different worlds. Design is about everything. There's inspiration to be found in everything. For example, things that inspire me are traveling, comedy, reading. Jeanette Winterson s A R objects over and over again, listening to music that I love and maybe a little bit of like Caylee 47 1 pumping iron. I'm obsessed with her. Even the small things in life can be inspirational. My cactus in the window grows towards the sun, and I have to remember to rotate the cactus if I wanted to grow up right to me. This is beautiful. There are so many intricate things happening around us daily that we can use for inspiration. Maybe you are inspired by nature, spirituality, hiking or even music. Of course, everyone is inspired by music, right? New studies suggest that music can directly trigger physiological changes like blood pressure, heart rate and respiration, our hearts may be able to sync up to music that is insane. Some McDonald's chains have also taken advantage of this phenomenon, which I think is really interesting. Many chains played classical music at night to combat the rowdy crowds there. Chain attracts. Besides, be able to talk about these cool things at parties while looking like the smartest one in the room. How does reading about design, culture and science make us better? The way that knowing many things and being interested in many things can make a designer better is allowing you to make conceptual connections in your work? Knowing and being inspired gives your brain a huge file cabinet to pull from. Whether you're creating brand strategy work or even just a logo design, you now have MAWR inspiration and reference to pull from. The great thing about the energy you put out to learn more is that you will always get it back. Do you want to earn more money as a graphic designer? Well, guess what? Those who take time to learn about all the different facets of life are the ones making good money because their work is at a different caliber. They're worth the money because of their giant inspiration and knowledge bank they're pulling from in their brain. They're also highly educated and value knowledge because inspiration is born from knowledge . Now go read some books. 4. Tip#3 | Create Conceptually: Step three create conceptually, we have amazing, complex and beautiful brains far too complex to be creating logos for restaurants that feature of fork in the design far too complex to be creating logos for fitness brands that feature a dumb bell as the logo far too complex and beautiful to be creating the obvious and the easy. Moving beyond the obvious is something I learned to do in college by force. My professors were adamant about us learning how to communicate conceptual ideas rather than portraying literal logo marks. I can tell you that learning to create conceptual design could be quite a struggle, even for me. Today. It proves itself to be a challenge because it takes a lot of problem solving and brain power. You may be confused about what the word conceptual truly means. It is defined as relating to or based on mental concepts Michael Beirut's that their two schools of thought, progress and portfolio, or Swiss and slick. The Swiss schools focus more on problem solving in the conceptual, whereas the slick schools focus on creating a portfolio that sells in general, both schools dislike each other for different reasons. The Swiss school dislikes the slick school for being shallow and is tastefully commercial, whereas the slick school dislikes the Swiss school for being overall meaningless to the general public. In Michael Beirut's essay. Why designers can't think he states that each student from the school gets hired anyways, So that's great news. But it leaves the choice up to you. Would you rather be Swiss or slick? I personally lean more Swiss with my thought, process and design, but I do not think it's bad to combine both into one. Try to be balanced and always push for conceptual ideas. To me, the Swiss thought process is a bit more meaningful and fun, but it is totally up to you. Live your life. Remember when I said we're too smart to be designing Fork logo's? Here's what I mean. You may get a restaurant client, which I often do through my restaurant brand studio Romeo, and they need a logo. In reality, this little could be anything from a fork to a slice of pizza if it's a pizza place or even a glass of beer. If it's a brewery, yes, thes logo's work. What are they compelling and different? Are they truly branded to the restaurant. While including the brand strategy you strive so hard to complete. Perhaps you haven't done any brand strategy for the brand. If you haven't, you may opt for a literal fork logo to illustrate the brand, but you are missing out on so much fun. Let's take a look at the case study to illustrate my point. Here is a brand, a design called Wild Belly that I created through my company, Romeo. You can learn more about Romeo at Romeo branding dot com Wild Belly is a restaurant catered towards a young, professional, outdoor loving and charitable target audience in order to start defining wild belly. I sat down with my client and took a lot of time to understand what he wanted at Romeo and make deep connections through conversation in order to better understand my clients. Why the why is the driving purpose behind the client sis decision to create their new brand ? We uncovered a lot, but in general the client wanted to create a mountain lodge in the city. He wanted this brand to feature a snowboard or a mountain logo. While I shared the enthusiasm for this new brand, I knew we had to push the concept further and take it to the next level by being less literal. Through research, I found countless restaurants in the city that resembled a mountain lodge, either by interior design or concept. Keep in mind we're located in Colorado, where this is common. If you decide to create a brand that doesn't have a unique selling proposition, you risk being second or even third best in the category. This is simply bad. Branding and bad branding is detrimental for business. If Wild Belly chose to keep the U. S. P the Mountain Lodge in the city, it would be almost like every other bar and restaurant, and that would be a poor strategy. I really had to look at what competitors were doing and create a new type of mountain lodge . The brand transform from the mountain lodge in the city to the new, unique selling proposition, which was focused more on being an altruistic, intentional yet wild restaurant in the city. It is so important for a brand to reflect its unique selling proposition. If you spend all of your time creating and positioning a new brand, it would be crazy for you not to put the work in and make sure that your customer sees, hears, feels and even smells this difference immediately through the design. Instead of creating a logo that resembled a lodge or mountain, we tried to work past the literal and create something that has deeper meaning while still being relevant. Wild Belly is focused on giving back and choosing wildness and danger as a part of a life well lived. The manifesto I wrote reads. Wild Billy believes life is best lived intentionally. We know there is freedom and risk, reckless abandon, kindness and compassion to us, the world is a sanctuary for everyone to call home. This notion could be experienced in powder days, campfire nights, belly laughs and those friends you love so damn much it hurts for wild belly. The only way is forward, which includes sacrificing for others and standing up for what we know to be true. While some are hoping for a revival were living one come get wild with us. Let's look at how the concept has come to life in the design. The wild Billy logo is inspired by the black diamond you may see at a ski resort. For those of you that do not know, a black diamond signifies the steepest or most hazardous slope in the ski resort. We always take into account the target audience when designing, and we knew that the audience would associate this mark with something they love and understand immediately. The local may appear to be literal at first, as it is referencing mountains and snowboarding, but it is taking on a double meaning of intention, risk and wildness that anchors the brand and creates a solid and compelling difference. Color is very important for the brand development, and we do not choose colors based solely on the fact of what we like or do not like. The desired perception for Wild Billy was to communicate wildness and intentional calm in the brand colors. Interestingly enough, color is closely associated of culture and religion. The association's a guest may have, with a certain color may different from country to country. Orange is the most sacred color in India. Where's Orange isn't even acknowledged as a color in Zambia, Green is also viewed as a sacred color for Muslim and cults. Color for wild Billy was going to be extremely important in communicating the meditative wildness we were going for through research, I found that Dutch orange and avocado green were the best options to communicate this thoroughly. In America. The color orange signifies electric wildness, which is exactly why we use it for wild belly. Orange is confident, urgent and warns of potential danger through surveys, we know that orange is historically the color of amusement in Europe and America. Orange is also associated with the unconventional warmth, energy activity and danger. And for the green, despite being associative, envy is often perceived as peaceful and organic. Green also symbolizes safety and permit IDs, which really creates a strong juxtaposition to the orange. Chosen for wild. Billy Green was chosen to ground the brand, and while Wild Belly is Wild, were selling the idea of an intentional calm presence found in nature. Do you see how these associations and research take the brand further? We could have just chosen the color blue and added in snow covered mountains as a logo. But we would be missing out on so much. And of course, that description is just scratching the surface of all the work I did for Wild Billy. While creating conceptually is hard. It is incredibly valuable, and the depth in which you can create a logo designed to signify the core of the brand is just a beautiful practice. Thinking conceptually is an art, and it takes time to build up those muscles. But it's worth the extra work. Remember, it is important to meet the client's needs. It's a client. Once a literal fork logo, you must provide that for them. If my client wild belly is this is that the name? Be the City Mountain log and insisted on a mountain logo or a snowboard as a logo? I would have to agree. I just love giving them conceptual options first and foremost because it pushes the boundaries and allows me to be challenged as well. I can't say that all of my local designs have been conceptual rather than literal, but it's what the client wants, and it's most important to please them 5. Tip#4 | Kern like You Care: tip number four current like you. Care Stop right now. Are you cutting corners? Are you taking the easy way out of a project or you showing up daily to create the best project? Yet? I've worked with some designers in the past that are just trying to cut corners and rush the work they're doing, resulting in some big errors. Some of these errors include wonky logo designs, misspelled words, bad photos, bad turning. Oh, just name a few. Would you be cool if you bought a couch that was delivered lopsided and he felt a one side every time you tried to sit on it. What about a meal you were looking for? Two Not made correctly? I don't think so. You want the people making your work to show up and do it correctly. The same is expected of graphic designers. If you hate the project, you're working on so much that you can't bear to take your time or give 100%. Quit that job. You are not serving the client. You are doing a disservice to both yourself and the client. Let's face it, At times it can be easier to be lazy to not smooth out those busy curves or do not triple. Check your typography because the client won't see the difference. But you will see the difference and your peers will. Is it worth cutting corners? What's that? I can't hear you louder. Did you say no? Good answer. Do not cut corners. And if you are not sure if you're cutting corners, ask a fellow designer for a second. I always over deliver. 6. Tip#5 | Value Criticism: tip number five Value criticism. If you cannot take criticism, you were in the wrong business. I know it can be hard to face your shortcomings as a graphic designer, especially for students learning how to take criticism from professors or classmates. Hearing that your typography or your latest project is bad, it is hard to take. We often think that the design we make is an extension of us. If someone criticizes something we've sent months on, it can hurt. Separating yourself and your value from your work is important. We all start somewhere, and some of us, myself included, started as bad designers. And that's okay. It's okay to not be perfect at designing when you were learning and creating. If you can free yourself from your ego in time, you will get better because of the criticism. Separate your worst from your work when you were learning. You, my friend, have permission to be a shitty designer who I said it doesn't that feel good. Repeat after me. I have her mission three bat at design sometimes because when I'm bad, I can get good. Does that make sense? No, but that's OK because I have the permission to not make sense. Sometimes constructive criticism is good. To be able to stand in front of a class or even a client meeting and see a different perspective on what may or may not be working is a gift. Now this may take some time to get used to. If you're new to getting your work critiqued, start to see your work objectively on its own. It is, after all, just a piece of graphic design. It's not you or even your talent. I know that you are bad ass enough to accept constructive criticism and grow from it. It is also important to look at your work with a critical eye on your own. Don't be too easy on yourself. Truly examine your work and make sure that you are hitting the mark. To do this. Try looking at talented designers and tracing the discrepancies between your own work. And there's maybe your logo Design looks very large and crowded, but when you look at another talented designer, you see that they give their logo designs a lot of clean white space. Maybe you're topography is off. How did the designers you love and admire choose their topography. Try to examine your work next to your favorite designers work and imagine what they would change about your work if they have the chance and try to make those changes on your own. You will not always have people around you giving you critiques. So take all that you can with these people are around and make sure to give back as well. It's also nice. Just have a friend to text late at night to ask for a critique before a big client meeting , kind of like a booty call, but and said a critique call. 7. Tip#6 | Know the difference between an enemy and a competitor. & Tip#7 | Unplug: tip number six know the difference between an enemy and a competitive er. I know a lot of designers feel bad about calling each other competitors. It seems that some designers do not want to be friends or simply can't be nice to each other because they are competitors. Remember, your competitors are not enemies. You could be best friends of your competition. The best thing about being a graphic designer is that all of us have a different style, especially when you've taken the time to brand your design work and I've owned and on your craft and your specialty see my class brandy for creatives land the work You want to learn more about branding yourself as a creative. A conservative doctor's office will probably not want to work with a company called Bad Bitch branding, but they may hire a friend of mine because she has branded herself to attract wellness brands. Every client is looking for something different, and life is too short to make enemies with the people who could be there to support you and to understand the type of work you do on a daily basis. It is also important to know that competition can be healthy. When you have competition, it can raise the bar for you personally. Maybe you're slacking a little bit or working below your skill level. A competitor who puts out a breathtaking project will help you raise your standards and start designing something amazing pretty quickly. Having competition is great and it is even better when you can collaborate with those competitors and maybe even grab a drink with them to talk shop. We all have something to learn from each other, so let the friendship begin. Tip number seven Unplug The Internet is an amazing resource. Look, we're here together and I am teaching you 10 tips to become a better graphic designer. You're probably sitting in your pajamas in your bed, soaking up all of this knowledge. That is amazing. But of course, if something is good, it can also be bad. Most of us designers are being constantly on computers, which can also hinder our creativity at times, or allow us to feel stuck on a single problem for far too long. While I love my work, my computer and scrolling through Instagram as much as the next person, it could be negative being so plugged in at all times. Allowing yourself to get out and away from the computer is beneficial. Play is so important. I remember there have been times where I've been so stuck on a concept that I had to force myself to forget about it and get out refreshing. Your brain is necessary. And Lamont said almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes, including you. So take some time to unplug from your design, work and technology. I know it can seem like graphic design is the most important thing in the world, but it isn't if you are struggling with a design problem, stop thinking about it and unplug for a little while. Go to your cities, Botanic Gardens, the art museum. Get outside or maybe going out with your friends and see some live music. Or maybe just spent some time daydreaming. Scientists have found that when we spend time daydreaming and letting our minds wander, our brains are actually doing a lot more work beneath the surface, our brains of subconsciously making connections and problem solving for us, even play is work in a sense so you can't feel guilty about doing nothing. It is very hard to problem solve. When you're spending hours and hours staring into a computer screen, getting stressed out, take time to breathe and to slow down. Even napping is good. If you're into that sort of thing. I love naps. 8. Tip#8 | Recognize your Power for Good and Act on it: tip number eight. Recognize your power for good and act on it. Graphic designers hold immense power to create change in the community and in the world. Do you realize that you have the power to create change and you have the power to make an inclusive and beautiful world through brand strategy and design? When I started designed, I did it because it was what I enjoyed doing. I could get stuck for hours and hours on Microsoft paint as a child until I got photo shop in high school. And, of course, in college, I loved doing graphic design work. It wasn't until later that I realized that design can create powerful change in the world designed concrete change and better the world through navigation systems, humans that are designed, activism and teaching nonprofit work. Those air Just a few things. Recently I was in Tokyo traveling, and I had to navigate the subway system. Imagine navigating such a huge subway system in a foreign language without any graphic design. How could you even exit the subway? Graphic design and typography guide us through the world with visual language. This language and iconography are what truly allowed me to get through Tokyo. The subway maps are color coded and often feature Japanese and English for the stops. There are arrows and colors used for the exits, and the graphs also allow you to see exactly which subway card you were on and where you are headed. Next. We take advantage of such things in our hometown. But as a traveler, I relied heavily on the color and the number systems to navigate as well as the iconography that had been created to be universal. For example, the color red is often used to tell me when something is prohibited, and the color green often allowed me to see where the exits were. Tokyo had a great way finding system that allowed me to navigate with ease. As you may or may not know, way finding systems can be a life or death matter. In 1996 many people lost their lives due to a faulty escape routes. Sign it in the Dusseldorf airport. Fire design matters, and I believe each designer should understand their power to do good. Whether you choose to teach design work in the nonprofit world, create way finding systems or just work to make design that makes people happy? No, your power and use it for good. A great way to start working for good is to volunteer some of your time to a non profit. Many nonprofits rely on designed to get their message across in a powerful way. And few smaller organizations have great designers on staff. I think it's important to find personal meaning in your work. Whatever sets your soul on fire, whatever you want to fight for, put some of your time and energy into these things. 9. Tip #9 and #10 | Show Up and Simplify: tip number nine show up every day. This is so important. I can't tell you how many times I've worked on a project that I felt lost with some days. Like I said before, Graphic design comes easy and some days it does not. Creative work is no joke, and it can seem like the well has run dry at times. Sure, throwing together something an illustrator or photo shop is as easy as drawing a stick figure for most of us. But some of the concepts and tips we've spoken about are actually hard to do, despite feeling lost with a project which could happen often. Get comfortable with the uncertainty, show up and start. The best part about anything is that if you show up and practise enough, you will get better. Tried to not focus too much on perfection all of the time. Allow yourself to create quantity over quality as you're trying stuff out. There was an amazing story in the book Art and Fear. A ceramics teacher announced on the first day of school that he was dividing his class into two groups, all of those on the left side of the studio, he said would be great is solely on the quantity of the work they produced. All of those on the right side would be graded on the quality. His procedure was simple. On the final day of class, he would bring in his bathroom scales and weigh the work of the quantity group £50 of pots rated on a £40 a B and so on. Those being graded on quality, however, needed to produce only one pot, albeit a perfect one, to get in a came greeting time, a curious fact emerged. The works of the highest quality were produced by the grouping, graded by quantity. It seems that while Quantity Group was busy turning up piles of work and learning from their mistakes, the quality group had sat theorizing about perfection and in the end, had little more to show for their efforts than grandiose theories and a pile of dead clay. Let go perfection and show up, Rebecca Solnit said. So many of us believe in perfection, which ruins everything else because the perfect is not only the enemy of the good is also the enemy of their realistic, the possible and the fun. The most evil trick about perfectionism, though, is that it disguises itself as a verse. You tip number 10 Simplify. I spent a lot of time compiling these tips on how to be a better craft designer. I have nine good ones and nine I truly believed in which we have just covered. But I needed 1/10 1 So had a long, mediocre list of things. Could possibly make someone about a graphic designer because I needed that 10th tip, and this is where I stopped myself. Design is about simplifying. I do not have a tentative for you other than to take away the things that are not needed and simplify. Design is about elimination, and I have just eliminated the 10th tip. 10. Conclusion: Thank you guys So much for stopping by and hang out with me. I hope you're able to take some of these tips and use them to challenge yourself to be a better graphic designer. You are on a journey every day. Just remember to show up and work hard. And for crispy chips sake like oh, of perfection. I'm telling myself this as well. If you want to learn more of many other courses on brand and a course, I'm branding yourself toe land the work you want as a graphic designer, that course follows the process. I used to brand myself and get great jobs that pay. If you want to make sure you never miss a video or a contest giveaway free called patients and fun stuff all the time make sure you follow me here on skill share. Click followed. Do it, Do it. You can also follow me on Instagram at Bad Bitch brand. See you guys soon