Are you passionate about Design and are looking to take it up as a career? Or do you doubt you will ever get to the level of the great designers you admire? Whatever the case, if you have not given up on your quest to get a design skill, this article is for you.
Below are the top tips some professional designers wish they were aware of before embarking on their design journey.
Learn the Basics
Today, you do not need to acquire a college degree to understand the rudiments of design. If structured learning is what you want, myriads of e-learning resources are available for you, with which you can learn at your own pace.
You can also learn the basics by watching tutorial videos online, trying your hands on the various design tools available, and asking google questions when things get complicated. Fortunately, there are lots of kind-hearted people online who must have answered questions relating to your queries.
Define Your Design Field
A design has an array of disciplines that serve various purposes. These disciplines include Advertising, Brand Identity Design, Web Design, Software Design, Animation, Editorial Design, Book Design, Game Design, Information Design, Interactive Design, and so on.
However, defining your design field(s) would help you have more focused learning and increases your chances of becoming a thoroughbred professional in that field. One cannot learn everything at once. It is best to have a mastery in one before hopping to the other if need be.
Network with Other Designers
One of the best ways to network with other designers is to join Design communities. These communities connect you to many talented designers worldwide and offer answers to questions you may want to ask.
They can also be a great place to put up your work for review and suggestions on how to improve it. Some of these communities put up challenges that can be useful in helping you practicalize your design knowledge.
Build a Portfolio
If you invest your resources in getting skilled in Design, chances are that you are also looking to land a job or other business opportunities afterward. If this is the case, having a portfolio is not negotiable.
A Designer’s portfolio is a compilation of his best jobs. It usually contains details about case studies and approaches involved while projecting the designer's skill.
For a start, social media pages are a great place to promote your design jobs. Still, you can take your branding up a notch by using other creative platforms such as Behance, Dribble, Adobe portfolio, Pixpa, Coroflot, and Crevado to create your portfolio.
You must be able to harness all these materials in a way that tells a compelling story and keeps people coming back for more.
Set Goals
Defining what success means to you is essential in your design journey.
Asking yourself questions about what field you want to work in, what skills you want to get, what social status you want to achieve, what price tag you want to put on your services, what organizations you want to work for, and when you want to acquire all these will give you a sense of direction.
The answers to those questions are the fuel that keeps you going on days when the challenges that come with the job seem overwhelming.
Now that you have gotten these tips to help you start your design journey, we hope you find them helpful on your way to the top. However, you can now launch into the design world by applying to participate in our Product Design training this fall.