Transcripts
1. Intro: In this video, I will go back in time to when I'm
just starting out as a graphic designer with absolutely zero
design background. So I will share with you
the exact roadmap that I will take to be the
designer that I am today. Over the years, I
have experienced the ups and downs of
being a graphic designer. And as someone who has
no formal design degree, I had to learn everything
myself through online courses and I have to carve my own path in this field. In many years of
trying things out, I have figured out
the things that have made the biggest
impact in my career, and I plan to share this
with you in this video. For those of you who just
started your design journey, I hope that this video
serves as a guide, and for those who have already
started but are struggling to stay motivated and
keep pushing forward, I hope that this video can
get you back on track.
2. Start with the Fundamentals: Just like any other
things in our lives, I think we should all
start with the basics. Many designers rush to learn
Photoshop or Illustrator. But before you even try to master all the tools
and the program, I'd like you to take
a step back and focus on learning the
fundamentals of design. I cannot stress enough
how important this is because the basic
rules of design will be your ultimate guide to every design decision that
you will make as a designer. In my opinion, mastery
of the fundamentals is what separates a good designer
from a great designer. Over time, you'll experiment
with more designs and realize that it's okay to break the rules occasionally. But before you get there, you got to learn
the basics first, like shapes, lines, colors, and typography, and you don't have to look
far because there are already plenty of free
resources here on YouTube. Vato Tutorials has a free video explaining the basic
elements of design. This video of Learn Free
also does a very good job of explaining the elements
using animations. As you progress, I encourage
you to dive deeper and do more advanced studies to help you expand your
design vocabulary. So you can look at some topics, things like learning the color theory and
the color wheel. Understanding the different
types of typography, knowing what is
visual hierarchy, and learning how
to utilize space and create a balanced
composition, and the list goes on. While it might seem
very overwhelming, remember that you learn
these things as you go. So even today, there are still things that I
have yet to learn, but you just really
have to embrace the process of learning and make it part of
your daily habit.
3. Learn the Design Tools: Since we are on the
topic of learning, the next step is to
know your design tools. And for new graphic designers, I think the two best
softwares to get yourself familiar with are at the We
Photoshop and Illustrator. So you might be wondering, where can I learn these tools? Well, the truth is the Internet
is already saturated with free resources that you can
use to study these programs. So here are some of
my recommendations. Adobe Photoshop, this video
series by Pix Imperfect. We'll walk you through
the essential tools. And for Adobe Illustrator, I love the Tutorials by Daniel
of Bring your own laptop. This is an extensive four
hour course for free. There are other YouTubers like Satori graphics, Will Patterson, Abconi, and this
channel, of course, who regularly upload
design tutorials, so you can check
their stuff as well. Have a little bit of budget, you can consider taking
courses on skill share. Graphic design courses in this platform usually
has better structure, and they have specific
projects that you can work on as you go
through the lessons. So if you want to try that, I have a lik below in your description to
try skill share. One concept that I want you to implement is called
active learning. So I want you to
create as you consume. Don't just sit there and
watch the videos passively. As you take in all
these learnings, you have to come
up with something. You have to create an artwork, maybe do a poster design or
design a specific layout. I think the best way to
instill all the lessons is to have the habit of constantly
putting it into practice. And as you practice, allow yourself to make mistakes. You have to remind yourself that the great designers you see on social media started
exactly where you are, and it probably took them years to be good at their craft. Be at peace in doing crappy designs when you
are starting out and give yourself permission to design or create without the pressure
of it being perfect. Another tip to practice your design tools is to know
how to reverse engineer. This is basically a
backward approach in figuring out how a certain
piece was designed. So the operating
question here is, how did they do it or what steps did they take
to come up with a design? So, for example,
try to get a design or an image from the Internet
and try to recreate it. So the steps that
you will take may be different from what the
original designer did, but this will really challenge you to be
created with the tools or the things that you know and explore on things that you
may not have discovered yet. And if you encounter a
very specific problem, you can just do a quick
Google or YouTube search. Initially, it will take some time for you to
work on projects. But as you keep
practicing your tools, you'll become more
efficient and faster in your workflow while continuously discovering new tools to try.
4. Create a Portfolio: As you learn new skills and
actively do design projects, you have to start thinking
about building a portfolio. A portfolio is basically
a collection of your best works that showcases your capabilities
as a designer. It should show the current
skill level that you have, and it should be crafted to fit the type of
client that you want to work with and the services that
you want to offer. As graphic designers, we
are visual communicators, and our portfolio is one of the most powerful
tools that we have in applying for jobs
and landing design clients. So you might ask, if
I'm just starting out, how do I create a portfolio if I have zero design clients? Now, there are many
ways to go about it, and here are some of
my recommendations. So first, is passion projects. So these are the
projects where you have the creative freedom to do something that you're
highly passionate about. So basically, these are projects that you are
highly interested in. There are no bounds. You are free to design
whatever you want. And this will also give your
potential clients an idea of your interests or
the design style that you prefer to work with. You can level this up by
taking on creative briefs, where there is a set of
guidelines or constraints. This simulates the experience of working with
an actual client, where there is a set of goals to achieve problems to solve
and parameters to consider. Websites, such as good brief or fake clients can generate
random design prompts. There are also accounts on Instagram that create
briefs every week, so you can participate on
those and at the same time, engage with a design community and build your social
media network. You can also include practice projects from the
tutorials that you take. And then some designers also
participate on 30 days of design challenge where you create one design per day
for 30 days straight, and then you can package them in one section of your portfolio, sort of like a collection. You may also ask your friends or family if they have any
graphic design needs. You can also redesign
existing brands, or you can reach out
to local charities, non profit, or even small
businesses in your area. Once you have a decent
amount of work, it's time to narrow it
down to a collection of four to eight projects to
include in your portfolio. You have to treat
your portfolio like a visual representation
of you as a designer. It creates a lasting impression. I would advise you to put
only your best works. One thing that I want you
to do to really level up your portfolio is to work
on your presentation. The best way to create
a stunning presentation is to use mockups. Leverage on the
huge collection of photoshop PSD assets on the Internet that you can
use for your project. Of the files are
very easy to use. It's just a simple
plug and play. You just have to
put your design in a smart layer and then
save it and export. Here is an example of
how you can elevate a simple project into a
stunning work using mock ups. I find that the
best portfolios are those that excel
in storytelling. In presenting your
work, you can put a little bit of background
about the project, what are your challenges, and what are your goals? What are your deliverables and
your roles in the project. You can also include the
behind the scenes and the process on how you
came up with the design. If you need inspiration on how
to present your portfolio, you can go to B hands and
go to their ted section. So these are the projects that B hands hand pick
to be the best, and you can see here
how great designers and how great design
studios present their work. So when you're starting out, I think it's perfectly
fine to feature a variety of projects
in your portfolio. There are different sub
specialties under graphic design, you can do branding, you can do print
design, web design, you can do UI UX, and even motion graphics. Starting out as a generalist
is perfectly fine. As you gain more experience, you'll get a feel of the type of projects that
you enjoy doing. This process may take some time, but give yourself permission to try out different
things first, and then specialize on the field that you
strongly resonate with. For example, I specialize in branding and
packaging design. I think it's important to focus on one or at most two areas, so you can really position yourself as an expert
in those fields. I also figured out that I prefer working with food and
lifestyle brands. So I create my
portfolio to include branding and packaging projects
in those industries only. So I can narrow down the type of projects and the clients that
I want to work with.
5. Show up & Get Work: Now that you have a portfolio, it's time to focus on getting
work as a graphic designer. Now there are two
routes from here. The first one is you
can either apply for a nine to five job or
work at an agency, and the second one is you can
start your freelance work. Draft a resume and then attach
your portfolio as a PDF, then you can look for
job listings online, or you can apply to a
local company or agency. As a beginner, you'll most likely start as a
junior designer, working on simpler tasks under senior designers
and art directors, and the responsibility
to bring in clients is already
out of your scope. The path that I took is
going straight to freelance. I think this one is
more challenging than the first one because you
have to build visibility, and also you have to get
clients on your own. The reality is
that no matter how good your portfolio
and design skills are, If clients can't find you, you won't get hired. I think that's the harsh
reality that we must accept as designers,
especially freelancers. As graphic designers, it is extremely important to
show up and be visible. There are many ways
you can do this. You can either do a
traditional approach. You can do a digital approach
or a combination of both. So the first one is
traditional networking. This is where you build network through face to
face interactions, so you can either go to graphic
design networking events, go to design conferences, or even leverage on your
own personal connections. Right now, creating
visibility through social media and digital
platforms is easier than ever. You have Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Facebook,
and the list goes on. I think it's amazing
that we live in an age where we can easily
connect to other people, like people that we
don't even know, people from other
parts of the world, who could be our next client. In my design career, social media is what really helped me get those
design clients, and it's worth trying to create content for
these platforms to boost your chances
to get seen and hopefully land on
some design projects. Tip here is to be present
in all platforms, but focus only on one or two. Here's what I mean by this. In websites such as
dribble and D Hans, you can do the work one time. You post your portfolio
pieces there. You use the appropriate
tags to help you get seen and just
leave it there. You can try to do even the
bare minimum in these sites, and then maybe be active on Instagram or TikTok
or even YouTube, which is what I do,
which brought in a lot of inquiries for me
in the past few years. You can post your
passion projects, your design practice, your previous client
work, of course. You can create short
or long form content that provides value. These sites are free
and very accessible, like everyone has
Instagram or TikTok, and it could be where your ideal client is
currently hanging out and actively looking for
graphic designers to help. Along the way, I think it
is also important to learn skills like social
media marketing, the principles of selling
and closing deals, and also how to handle
your finances and taxes. I think having a wide skill set as a designer will make you more well rounded and also improve your
financial situation. Personally, I study from time to time how social media works, and I also study basic video
editing so I can present my work either as an Instagram
real or a YouTube video. So these are the
things that I do to create more online
visibility for myself and to market my skills
and my expertise better. So if you are someone who is struggling to find
clients right now, sometimes it may be
necessary to ask, how much have I marketed myself? So always show up and get seen.
6. Play the Long Game: I think in this graphic
design career that we are in, we really have to try
to constantly get better and better a 1%
improvement every day, and it really takes
time to get better, and the key here really
is to play the long game. So playing the long game
for me means three things. So the first one is constantly refining your skills and
also training your eyes. So you have to strive to become the best version of yourself
as a graphic designer. You have to train your eyes
to recognize good design. Over time, your taste will
improve and you'll start to recognize what separates a
good design from a bad design. As you mature as a
graphic designer, you'll start to realize
that it's more than just creating beautiful
or aesthetic things. There's actually a lot of
strategy involved in it, and your goal as a
designer is to use visuals to solve your
client's problems. Also have to keep learning
and be updated on new features or tools in the design program
of your choice, and don't be afraid
to experiment and maybe break the rules of
design from time to time. You know, just to keep
things interesting. Playing the long game also
means getting better clients. I am a firm believer that quality clients
outweigh quantity. There have been
multiple instances in my design career where I
took in so many clients, and I struggled to keep up
with the demands of the tasks. Back then, my mindset is that if you have
a lot of clients, you're basically
winning the game. But having to juggle multiple
projects at the same time really affected the quality
of my work, my mental health. My stress levels were very
high in those moments, and I no longer have a
healthy work life balance. But now I realize that having quality projects is better
for my overall well being. To do this, I increase my prices to match my
current skill level. That way, you don't have
to take as much project, and it will also improve
your financial situation. Of course, our goal
here is to not just be better skills wise, but to be a growing and
thriving graphic designer financially and make this career a sustainable one for us. And last point is to remember to have fun
and enjoy the ride. So there will definitely be ups and downs in your journey. So there will be wins, the thrill and excitement
of closing an ideal client, getting paid as a designer and getting praised
for your work. But there will also be losses. There will be times where you
will have very few clients. Sometimes you will burn out, or you will have
impostor syndrome or the feeling of not
being good enough. And these are the
things that you will come across at some point. But in the highest
and in the lowest, always remember to go
back to your core. So what are your wise? What are your strong
reasons why you want to pursue this career
in the first place? So you have to find the joy
in the creative process, but you also have to balance out your work with your
personal interests. You have to immerse
yourself in this career, but give yourself permission
to take regular breaks and, you know, just enjoy life, because rest is also part
of your productivity.
7. Outro: Thank you so much
for joining me today in this video that is
very personal to me. So keep creating, keep
inspiring and keep designing, and I'll see you
in the next video.
Michael Lubrin, Graphic Designer & 3D Artist
