How Long Does It Take To Learn Graphic Design On Your Own?

How Long Does It Take To Learn Graphic Design On Your Own?

What a title, graphic designer, right? It is a dream career for some of us, one for which we were destined. But it is not something that is going to happen overnight, as for a lot of destinies. It is anything on which you are going to have to work, but how long? Well, a variety of variables depend on the period it takes to become a graphic designer. For you, let us break it down.

Factors which affect the length of time

There are many distinct variables that can influence how long it takes you to become a graphic designer. Not all of them are going to be important to everyone, but we figured we might add as many as possible so that you can decide just how long it takes you to become a graphic designer.

To Learn Graphic Design On Your Own
To Learn Graphic Design On Your Own

What you plan to train, the present level of ability, the resources you will devote to the process and the duration of the work quest are the multiple variables. Now for you, we will delve deeper into each of these considerations.

1. What you want to read

The wonderful part about being a graphic artist is that there is not only one direction to learn how to do it. There are literally lots of different ways to read. Right now, we are going to break down how long university/college, self-teaching and bootcamp-style courses take each of what we deem the three key paths to become a graphic designer.

Undergraduate degrees in Graphic Design
Undergraduate degrees in Graphic Design

Up first: University. Via the university degree path, a number of graphic designers became graphic designers. A college degree is, of course, a well-founded, conventional means of being a graphic designer, so how long would it take if you take this direction to becoming a graphic designer? Up to four years, depending on where in the world you are. Undergraduate degrees in Graphic Design require four years in the USA or three years in Australia and the UK. They may, however, be longer. If you want to pursue a Graphic design course in the UK, for example, before going down the graphic design route, this applies an additional year to the period it takes to become a graphic designer.

Teaching yourself is another approach to become a graphic artist.

Teaching yourself is another approach to become a graphic artist. We also seen a spike in the number of designers in recent years who have learned themselves all the skills and experience required for a job in the design industry. And this has only been accelerated by the Twitter! When you want to train yourself, how long would it take to become a graphic designer? Ok, how long is a string piece? When you are training yourself, it is very hard to decide how long it would take to become a graphic designer. It depends greatly on the strategies and practises that you use to educate yourself and how much effort you will commit to educating yourself. Later in this post, we will expand on this more.

Teaching yourself is another approach to become a graphic artist.
Teaching yourself is another approach to become a graphic artist.

Finally, taking a quick one-to-one style course, such as the creative graphic design course we give at BSG, is an even more common means of becoming a graphic designer. Courses like ours are a perfect place to practise graphic design and, in record time, become a graphic designer. How long has it been?

You will leave with a diploma saying that you are a graphic designer and an all-important portfolio to help you go out and find a career after you graduate. This is considerably better than the university path and is therefore expected to be faster than being self-taught!

How you plan to study graphic design, as you can see, has an immense influence on how long it takes to become a graphic designer.

2. Your current degree of capacity

Your present ability level is another major aspect that can influence how long it takes you to become a graphic designer. By this, we mean what talent you already have in graphic design.

Do not fear, though, whether you will become a graphic designer or not, your current ability level will not play a role, it will only create a difference of how long it would take you.

Then, first of all, if you are a total novice, please! You have an interesting and intriguing ride ahead of you. As you have already read, in order to become a graphic designer, there are a few different avenues to discover what you need to do. Starting your graphic design education again ensures that before you go on to the nitty gritty of programmes like Adobe Creative Cloud, you would have to learn stuff like the Design Concepts and other basics of the graphic design process.

Of instance, if you are a total novice and because you need to learn more, it may take a little longer to become a graphic designer. If you have chosen to educate yourself, this is especially the case. But it is also necessary to state that becoming a novice does not actually mean that it would take a long time to become a graphic designer, like we said before, in as little as three months, courses like BSG’s will catapult you into being a graphic designer.

In the other side, if you have any design expertise already, the road to the stardom of graphic design could look a little different. If you have a degree under your belt, however you feel that your talents are not up to par or your experience has any holes, so the way to go may be to self-teach.

It should just take a couple of months to get back on top of your game if you realise just what it is that you need to tune up.

If you feel like anything is desperately missing, however, then retraining from the ground up might be worthwhile. In three months full-time or nine months part-time, whether you wish to stay working at the same time, you will get all the experience and information required to function as a graphic designer. This is where a quick course like BSG’s will also come in really handy.

In brief, how long it takes to become a graphic designer is influenced by the present ability level, but there are various options you may take to reduce the period, both based on the next aspect.