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How I Became A Graphic Designer – Jenna’s Story
My path started when I decided that the next logical phase in my future after graduating from university would be to apply for work. But that’s precisely what I did. I worked on my portfolio for weeks, planning, redesigning, scripting, procrastinating, and pondering. I searched for jobs for months and received no responses.
Like I previously said, the most difficult thing is getting underway. I felt I needed to improve my skills and obtain more attention, so I joined Blue Sky Graphics online graphic design course and started training, copying, refining, asking input, and finally sharing my polished designs. Before I realised it, I was getting offers from clients to help them with their designs. Within a few months, I was a completely fledged freelancer!
1. Begin tiny with a clear decision.
There are too many distinct areas throughout the architecture continuum, and the majority of them wind up overlapping. If you want to be a designer, you’ll have to start studying about the topic right away because the area is so thin. Since UI and UX go hand in hand, don’t be shocked if things get technical. For eg, if a company’s brand colour is grey, using that colour on a button can lead users to believe that the button is disabled when it is not.
UI and UX are not entirely distinct disciplines.
UX is a subclass of UI, and the two will also work together.
These are the types of obstacles you will encounter when you start out. So, before you embark on your adventure, make sure the design is what you really want to do.
That is perfectly acceptable, but at this early point, avoid becoming a master of all trades since spreading yourself so thin can result in you losing the consistency of your work and learning ability. You can, of course, experiment on the other, but losing concentration too soon can result in lost momentum and wasted time. If you’ve learned the remaining points in this post, you’ll be in a far stronger place to venture out into other sectors due to your recently acquired transferrable skillset.
How do you decide if a career in architecture is good for you?
It’s that simple. Dip the toes into as many areas as possible, such as UX, interaction, and motion design. When you catch yourself forgetting about time, you realise you’re on to something.
Whether you’re a college or a full-time job, don’t, I repeat, don’t want to practise as much as you can in your spare time. You will finally exhaust yourself. When I first started freelancing, I made the mistake of taking on every job that came my way. My lack of stamina and judgement overload contributed to exhaustion, and you will fail in the end when you will need to quit functioning to refuel. You may tend to despise design and might even question why you started in the first place.
Instead, follow the 1% guideline. 1 hour of practise a day can add up with time. It may take longer, so you would not be jeopardising your life.
2. Consistency, momentum, and practise
You might waste a lifetime thinking about architecture and consuming thousands of listicles about best practises, such as the 10 design commandments. However, reading alone can not help you become a designer. You must strive to think on your feet, with actual individuals who have needs, in diverse situations, and with unfamiliar edge cases.
I realised I’d need a source of motivation and a support network to help me get through the challenges and tribulations of learning about architecture at the outset of my freelancing career.
The Beginning
First and foremost, there is no right or wrong way to start. The first move is to train your brain to think like a designer. My favourite learning method has been to first master the fundamentals, then dive into the deep end, start making, and then learn about the issue while you move. After all, if you were studying a new programming language, you wouldn’t start by mastering the structure, would you? No way! You’d learn when you went, or you’d be reading all the time and never making.
There are no shortcuts available here. It is permissible to copy as long as you do not assert their job as your own. It’s how most designers, including myself, got their launch.
You’re currently talking about production methods. That is the goal. When practising, consider the following reasons to attempt to figure out whether the designer took those decisions.
Is there motion or are the forms static?
Depending on the nature of project, there could be so many various phases and stages involved for solving a design challenge that deciding on the right solution may be daunting. Usually while I’m working on an app.
At this stage, we are primarily relying on visual thinking for learning purposes, and no user data is available. As a result, starting at stage 5 or higher is preferable.
If you don’t like this approach, you should take the Regular UI challenge instead. I haven’t done it yet, but it seems that other artists have had some progress in developing their design abilities. You may even try your hand at redesigning a famous app, which is a pretty regular design task from organisations including Google and Facebook. You may even try your hand at redesigning a famous app, which is a pretty regular design task from organisations including Google and Facebook.
Don’t Give Up Trying
At first, the job would be terrible. Don’t be discouraged; it happens to everybody, even the designers you respect. Persistence is what can make you improve. There are no tricks or shortcuts. You’ll return to your job one day and ask what the heck you did. That’s fine; it’s natural, and it means you’re getting better. Suffering is a kind of education. Your aim should be to bridge the distance between your abilities and the perceptions of others.
