So, you have decided to become a graphic designer. Design jobs can be fun, stimulating, creative, and at times dreading. But for the creative minds who like to think from the right side of their brains, designing is a lucrative career to opt for. The starting salary for most graphic designing jobs is around $60,000 according to most salary survey websites.
In addition, these professional can go on to become creative directors, art directors, and communication directors in magazines, newspapers, movies, and even tv shows. So, in short, the possibilities for a graphic designer are endless.
But what are some of the essential graphic skills that you should know about? As an emerging individual, you need to know the following set of skills:
Be full of Creativity
First of all, you need to be creative. Whether you know the basics of graphic or not, but if you are not creative you won’t go a long way. Graphics are all about expression. And, when it comes to expression through drawings, animations, and even images, creativity matters. You can get high quality graphics made for your business by a cheap graphic design services company at affordable rate.
Master the Adobe Suite
Have you mastered the Adobe creative suite yet? Every company out there, where small or big, uses Adobe suite for creating graphics. So, master the essential software such as Illustrator, Photoshop, Premiere, and Afterworks.
The internet is full of free courses that you can use to master these software. Simply run a search on YouTube and you will get many videos. Or, you can also search for relevant software on Udemy. The benefit of learning courses from Udemy is that they will offer certificates after you complete the course.
Learn to Code
Not all designers need to learn to code. But if they learn to code or at least understand the basics such as HTML, CSS, and Javascript, they can help the developers produce quality designs faster. This will not only help them move forward in there career, but it will also help the company get things done faster. And, of course, the higher ups will appreciate the efforts.
You can learn the basics of coding and development on YouTube as it has many free courses available. Or, get a book on development from Packt foundation. They have books on everything from the basics of development to machine learning. Also if you are in a business city like New York, you can easily get your code work done by top web agencies like Globex IT Solutions.
Market Yourself – Work On Your Resume
As a creative individual, you should understand how important a clean and clear layout is to grab someone’s attention. HR managers don’t have a lot of time to look at every resume. They skim through the resumes and look for keywords to shortlist the designers for an interview. So, make resumes attention grabbing and attractive. Display your skills properly to make sure hiring managers move you to the top of the pile.
There are many free resume evaluation experts online that you can use for your service. If you are not sure which one to get, then go for Globex Content Writing Experts, they are at the top of their game.
A Course in UI/UX Can Do Wonders
Research shows that graphic designs that have an understanding of UI/UX earn $7k more on average. Business Insider gave UI/UX one of the top spots on its list of top skills in 2017. And, today, more agencies are looking for UI/UX experts rather than graphic designers. So, if you are a mix of two, you can ask a salary of your choice.
99 Designs put the salary average of a graphic designer between $40,000 and $50,000.
However, the salary of a UI expert is far higher. It is around $75,000 for starters (Skillcrush).
This simply means that you should aim for more courses that align with graphics design field.
Learn About CMYK, Grids, Tracking, and Typography
As a designer, you need to know about the following before you can apply for any job in the industry. Luckily, understanding these concepts isn’t too hard.
CMYK vs RGB
CMYK colors are used in magazine, newspaper, flyer, brochure, annual report and so on. These are printer friendly colors and stand for cyan, magenta, yellow and key.
Key is the reference for ‘black’ color because in four-colour printing, cyan, magenta and yellow printing plates are keyed with black key plate.
RGB colors are the red, green, blue colors used for screen display. CMYK colors have limited colour gamut than RGB – essential for how eye sees screen output. You can experience a loss of colour when converting RGB to CMYK.
So, the rule of thumb is: Use RGB colors when creating graphics for the web. And, use CMYK when using colors for print.
Grids
Grids are important to edit and create images pixel by pixel. If you zoom-in in a photo editing software, you will find that the image is formed over hundreds of grids. These help the designers to draw precise illustrations without ruining the overall image.
Grids are used in all types of graphic settings including those made for web, screen, and print mediums.
Typography
Typography is the technique of arranging type. It is an essential skill for a designer and is about much more than making the words legible. The typeface you choose says a lot about the design and the choice of the person. The layout, grid, colour scheme and also create a huge difference between a good, bad and great design.
Bottom-line
That’s it.
We hope this list of essentials will help you learn all the basics you need to become a professional in no time.
Nina Smith 
Nicola Holder