As a non-designer, it must be fascinating as well as mysterious to watch a designer working. Tons of thoughts cross your mind asking how they know which font goes well with which one? How they choose colors that fits so well with the design? How they create such poster that excite the consumers? Well, the answer to all this is their practice and experience along with some useful graphic designing hacks.
For new designers who have just stepped into the world of Graphic design, everything seems a bit difficult and complex to understand.
Explore Graphic Designing Hacks that will Make You a Designing Pro Today
There is no hard rules in the design to define the right and wrong and thus it becomes mystifying task for novice designers.
Today in this blog, we have decided to talk upon some interesting things that looks so common. Yet these interesting things play a crucial role in the development of designers. We’ll be discussing top hacks that professional artist adopt and employ while working on different projects.
1. Visualize Concepts
Sketch things before you go directly on the software. This will help you to get a low fidelity idea about how your final product will look alike. Visualization is necessary for designers. If you can’t communicate what you think, representation of that idea will become slightly difficult for you.
When you learn graphic designing, it is the basic concept to understand. Also, it is taught by the mentors by examples and few projects that shows the concept of visualization. It comes before starting any work and its importance in this industry.
So it is better to visualize and plan things in advance to avoid chaotic results.
2. Select Color Theme in Advance
There are several elements that require attention on priority basis and color selection is one among that. Designers usually select a color theme before deciding the other aspects. Colors play a dominant role in selection of other elements. It is because not every shape or typography blends well with each color combination.
Every project based on different topics and criteria, demands different color schemes. Because all the colors are best defined on the basis of their nature.
Different natures of the colors go well with all topics like food, corporate, apparels, fashion, beauty etc.
With the right color scheme, the design looks professional, clean and uniformed.
3. Use Grid System
Grids provide a systematic balance to the design. The scattered images are an outdated concept. Human brain responds well to visual hierarchy. If images, text or other elements are aligned properly; viewers find it easier to connect with the design that looks more relatable to them.
The grid system is an aid, not a guarantee. It permits a number of possible uses and each designer can look for a solution appropriate to his personal style. But one must learn how to use the grid; it is an art that requires practice.
Josef Müller-Brockmann
Importance of the grid system can be seen in both graphic and web work. There are no hard and fast rules defined for the grid system. Although this is up to us how to take its help to align and fix the size of the object in the given format. Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator use the traditional method of using grids.
Types of Grids: Column grid, hierarchical grid, and modular grid.
Gutenberg Bible—uses a two-column grid. It was the first western book that was printed using movable type.
Varies with layout and type, grid style changes and the overall design looks changed. Unaligned, scattered and chaotic elements are usually neglected by the audience.
4. Justify Your Ideas
You are not just a designer. You are the sales manager for your designs and you have to sell your designs to the target audience.
While presenting your ideas, you cannot say it looked cool “or this in trend” to justify your design. Provide an overview for your designs so that they understand the idea behind your work.
Justifying your ideas about the concept and design well shows your authority over it.
Before you create design, you present your ideas. Your ideas should be based on latest trends, better concepts and effective to understand, are considered as the best ideas.
So, I’m sure that this one is going to be one of your favorite graphic designing hacks.
5. Bookmark Your Sources of Inspiration
With the internet changing dynamically every second, there are tons of good artistic ideas available on the internet.
Read and observe work that normally does not interest you because you never know where you’ll get the creativity.
Bookmark all the great content you have. You don’t have to search again. You can go back and easily learn what you want.
As a designer, you must develop a habit of scrolling as much as you can. And it’s good to save whatever looks like you can use in your design as a concept.
Collecting relevant sources will help you gain better knowledge about the skills. This hack actually saves a lot of time.
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6. Save Your Fonts
When you save the project, also save the fonts along with it. Designers usually shuffle or change their font library and there are chances that you won’t be able to find the same fonts that you used in a particular design, a year after.
With a variety of projects you go through different concepts that need unique and irregular fonts too so you should always save fonts you like and think it will work with future projects too.
This has been seen many times, the design looks bad only because of the font but your experience and study of fonts will save your work.
7. Use Keyboard Shortcuts
You can easily tell the difference between a novice and a professional graphic designer only while looking at their keyboard. Students who just begin with the software tend to perform their task by using every tool through click.
They operate through a mouse whereas if you look at the professional artists, they opt for a mouse. Keyboard shortcuts should become designer’s best friend.
They make work slightly easy as you don’t have to constantly switch between keyboard and mouse.
For the long run, it is worth investing a good amount of time to get familiar with keyboard shortcuts. FYI – shortcuts can be customized and changed too in a few software according to your ease.
8. Maintain Visual Flow
Visual flow plays a crucial role in the success of design. It is important for designers to create a focus point & visual flow in the design. Designers have to organize the design elements in such a way that eyes navigate on their own.
When the elements are not organised properly, it always produces a chaotic result.
Design should follow a pattern and step that will take the viewer’s eyes in the systemic way throughout the design. Headings, subheadings, visuals, body copy, one liners etc should have proper weightage.
9. Master the Industry Software
Okay, so this isn’t going to call as one of the graphic designing hacks but yes it is necessity.
To become a successful artist, you should have proficient knowledge of not only one but almost all the leading software of the industry. Versatility is the new skill that every designer should develop in themselves.
Graphic designers basically master applications like – Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop, CorelDRAW, Adobe InDesign, along with art & sketching etc. Still there are few more applications, a designer learns according to the need and project.
Industry needs a unicorn so a good designer never leaves a negative point ever.
10. Practice
This is the biggest hack in the list. Nobody becomes a professional in a single day. It takes a lot of practice and patience to develop the master skills. Not only this industry wherever you go they always demand a learning attitude from the employee. The more you learn the better you become.
Apart from these amazing graphic designing hacks, there are a few important points for a graphic designer to become a pro.
Bonus: Few Important Points to Know for Graphic Designers
Let’s explore them all here.
Create your own style
Remember “we will be living in a drab world if it wasn’t a beautiful and unique design”. Every designer is known with his or her work and every design is known for its impact and concept.
Time for enriching your creativity
Marketing and promotional work has already grabbed the whole industry and designing agencies are skiing their teeth into. Thus, they need smart and creative minds now.
Learn out of the box
We have mentioned a number of good graphic designing hacks above but this is also a fact that – it can’t be applied to every individual. Some might be already working but many of them are still learning. There are many basic steps that can be followed to improve our design senses.
Redesign your old projects
Start practicing more and more, work on your old designs and improve it according to latest trends and styles.
Implement the learned design elements
Learn to use design elements, play with alignments, and use the grid system to your design to give it a professional look.
Find out the depth of every design your come across
Whatever the designs you see in newspapers, magazines, TV etc, find out their stories, creator, concept behind it so that you can explore it deeply and learn.
Make books your best friends
Read as many books as you can, few based on designing, based on rules, color theory, types of layout, design theory, visual grammar etc.
Few strongly suggested books are :
- A designer’s art
- Elements of typographic styles
- Graphic design theory : readings from the field
- Making and breaking the grid
- Designing brand identity etc.
- Read about more graphic designing books
Read the history
Explore and read the history of designs like – How the logo of IBM, starbucks, Walmart, ebay, transformed with the time which is called improvement.
Master the art of communication
Good communication is the basic and very important quality of a graphic designer if he/she wants to interact with people confidently. Good communication helps a designer to understand the brief and demand of the client as well as you can explain your ideas to them.
Check your design sense with competitions
Make your presence or participate in design competitions : Maybe you can master skills and make designs extremely beautiful but who’s going to make your name or your presence in industry? So participate and check your design sense that will help you to get some interaction.
Always be ready to feedbacks
Feedback is important to improve : Whatever the design you make or improve, must get feedback from seniors or mentors so that you will learn whatever your design lacks. Get honest feedback, only then you can get to know what other technique, idea or concept could be utilized.
Practice a lot
Last but not least “Practice a lot” : This is the “mantra of success” if you want to become a designing pro. Regular practice of new and unique design or old designs will develop a sense of design, color, shape, element etc in you. This is the key to everything and conclusion of this big fat blog we started.
So, folks these were basic graphic designing hacks and tips that a designer should follow to become a PRO of course. Dive deeper into what you love the most and explore the offbeat Graphic design courses that ADMEC Multimedia offer.
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Conclusion
We hope this blog will prove to be the best thing for you to learn and improve yourself as a designer. Given courses are the best selected options according to the industry demands and updated applications. Explore to know more.
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So, let’s get started with it. Stay tuned for more informative blogs.
Till then Keep exploring!
