How to Learn Graphic Designing

Graphic designing can be a lucrative and satisfying industry to join. Many companies---public and private---need graphic designers to help establish their unique brand and appearance. A mix of the creative and the technical, learning graphic design can help you to set up your own business as a freelance graphic designer or become part of a larger firm. Whatever your ultimate goal, graphic design can be a great career path.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

1. Look at good examples of graphic design. The most important part of graphic design is knowing what's going on in the design world at the moment. Seeing the work of others will also help you develop your own design style. Smashing Magazine and Inspiredology offer some strong examples of graphic design on a daily basis. Meanwhile, sites like PSDTuts and VectorTuts offer tutorials on how to re-create some popular graphic design techniques. See the Resources section below for links to those sites.

2. Teach yourself the importance of typography. Good graphic design requires strong use of typography. Learn the difference between serifs and sans-serifs, and expose yourself to a number of fonts so you know exactly which ones to use in certain situations.

3. Consider taking graphic design courses. Graphic design courses can help teach you the fundamentals of the craft. Many are available online for those who are on a tight schedule. You can also look into graphic design courses at local universities.

4. Teach yourself the Adobe Creative Suite. Lynda.com offers many tutorials online that will help your mastery of programs such as Adobe InDesign, Illustrator, Photoshop and Flash. All of these programs are key to getting jobs in graphic design.

References

• Online Graphic Design Courses and Certification Programs

Resources

• Adobe Online Training Library at Lynda.com
• Inspiredology---Design Inspiration Lab
• Smashing Magazine
• Photoshop Tutorials at PSDTuts
• Adobe Illustrator and Vector Tutorials at VectorTuts

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