Didn’t Attend Design School? Oops! Here Is How You Can Still Become A Graphic Designer!

• You can easily visualize the graphic realities on white paper
• Distinguishing the fonts different personalities is as easy as pie
• You love things just for the awesome packaging
• You know the difference between maroon and marsala
• You notice design in everything
• Learning & solving problems is your only mantra
• You spend hours on Pinterest and Instagram
• You browse different websites, download apps just to check the design
• You understand the power of design in branding
• You know design is more than meets the eye
• You create visuals from individuals concept ideas
• You have an awe-inspiring collection of designs

Nodding? So YOU are passionate about designing! However, do barriers like “compulsion for attending a graphic design school” stop you from being an outstanding graphic designer?

But somewhere in the school, I read a fact that “Being passionate is a critical ingredient for SUCCESS” So attending the design school in the tight schedule would ban my passion for becoming a graphic designer?

Today most of us think attending a design school is a must if you want to become a professional graphic designer. However, I am glad to announce the HAPPY news that –

While attending design school has some invaluable advantages, it is not a must do the thing. If you have the creative designer in you, you can still make an outstanding career as a graphic designer. Informal, self-help training and an unputdownable creative pursuit can offer you a great designer career.

Do you want to know what are the steps and measures to train yourself for a professional role of a graphic designer? Well, the objective of this post is only to explain them. But before that, let us explain the typical drawbacks of attending a design school.

• The Drawbacks Of Attending Design School: A design school admission takes a hefty sum of money as upfront fees and following that one needs to enroll in a four or five-year curriculum. With regular fees and expenses, it is a hefty investment that a student needs to bear before getting his desired placement or job opportunity. The kids who cannot bear such expenses and wait for four long years to start their professional career, may not be able to enroll in such schools. But then, is it the ‘end of the road’ for their aspiration of becoming a designer? Certainly no, since there are too many ways one can groom himself as designer outside of design school.

• Start With The Basics: Do paint brushes, easel and canvas really make an artist? Or is it the skill, perception, vision and artistic sense that make an artist? It doesn't take batting an eyelid to guess the answer and we all are aware of that, right? In the same logic, jumping on the Photoshop with all your strength does not make you a graphic designer. You need to start with the basics first.

1. Become skilled at what and how to see
2. Learn graphic design concepts from various samples surrounding you like book graphic, website designs and much more
3. Understand your design relevance with the user experience.

To begin with learning to draw with pencils. No, you do not need to be a master in sketching things as lively as that of great masters. Simple sketching skill for all objects in your surrounding will do. Try some free guides to master the skill of pencil sketch. There are plenty of them available on the web.

Now learn a bit about color, typeface and design elements. The Internet offers a gamut of free and valuable resources. Just go through a lot of web blogs on various topics concerning these and decipher the common trends in them. Know about various trends and effects of using typeface. Learn about the color palette and typical uses of various color shades. Now study the graphic design trends across various websites and interfaces.

Doing all these for months you ultimately allow the designer inside you to flourish. Remember more you see various examples of graphic design, watch out trends, observe their usability and know their importance, better you learn about the design elements.

• Learning To Use Photoshop And Illustrator: WOW! Congrats you have learned the foundation of design! Thus time to master the software.

1. To be precise, both Photoshop and Illustrator are the irreplaceable tools for graphic designers worldwide. If you want to take advice from the experts learn Illustrator first instead of Photoshop. With Illustrator designers basically design logos and icons. There are volumes of free resources on the web for learning Illustrator. Some of the most helpful books that can help you learning and mastering the Illustrator include Adobe Illustrator Classroom in a Book and Vector Basic Training.
2. Now, it is time to learn Photoshop. There are practically millions of them on the web. PSDTuts by TutsPlus is a good one with the detailed guide about platform specific design and website mockups. Every day make a routine of attending one or two tutorials and soon you will be observing the progress.

• Make Yourself A Specialist: Now, it is time to focus on specialties and mastering your skill in a particular graphic design niche. It can be website design, mobile app or more specifically logo design, infographics design, etc.

1. For both web and mobile app design, you need to learn logo design and know the intricacies of branding. For mobile app design, there are too many good tutorials to help you learn to design the prototype and layout followed by actual design elements. There are countless highly commendable ‘how-to’ blogs and guiding resources for app design on both Android and iOS platforms.

• The Day & Clock Demands To Focus On Your Proficiency, Intuition, and Flow: We definitely know the fact that being a good graphic designer means becoming proficient with your tools. Glad you have learned how to operate the software through the time demands excellence.

1. If you can easily sketch down conceptual solutions with the mastery in dealing a pencil, you unquestionably are a skilled designer. No doubt the proficiency with tools will help you to master the intuitive flow, but mark it’s more than that. The more you know about your design expertise, your space and medium to work in, your favorite niche, your toolsets and the workflow the easier you will involve in the mastery space where the decisions will come easily and time disappears. It’s essential aspect to enjoy the flow of creating the creativity and working visually.

• Take Part In Online Graphic Design Communities: This amazing deed of participating in online design communities will help you to augment the knowledge of the field and add up more connections in the industry. Try to attend the conferences and connect to people whenever required.

1. Not only that in such design communities you can not only get the feedback of your work but promote your work even.  Any business or freelance work starts with interaction, right? You definitely need to find places where people can tear apart your work and ultimately you can learn and develop your own critical eye. A young design is to be improved by knowing what things will make it worthy and different. Eventually, this deed prepares you for the professional work and helps you to nurture in visual and creative problem-solving aptitudes.
2. For web design, you have an array of quality resources to learn both the principles and effective tips. It is important to read blogs on various web design topics and visit online tutorials and forums. Mastering HTML5 and CSS will be crucial at this stage.
3. Study art and develop your ability to create graphics. Study marketing and develop the art of placing conceptual solution in the context of business and customer needs.

Good luck pals with learning graphic design.