How to Start a Career in Graphic Design: Skills, Tools, and Tips.

Skills for Graphic Design

Starting out in a graphic design career requires more than creative skills. We begin assuming little to no familiarity, so all you need is a desire to learn some of the core principles of design. Colour theory, typography, balance and composition, etc. This kind of stuff really ought to be first nature—or second nature at worst—to any great design.

Tools for Graphic Design

Next, train yourself up on the most common industry software programs, not just the Adobe suite but also CAD programs, ArchiCAD and Sketchup.
In addition to Adobe-specific tools, there are free or inexpensive design tools such as Canva or Figma that have quickly become the fundamentals of today’s design workflow. Web-based platforms, such as Coursera, Udemy, and YouTube, offer thousands of short tutorials and course modules specifically tailored to introduce you to the tools and techniques at play.

Build Attractive Portfolio

If ever there was a time when bringing together a truly deep and super-competitive portfolio of projects was the order of the day, that time is now. After that, it’s all about finding hands-on experience through speculative work, through polished portfolio mockup work, and through commissioned freelance work to build up that portfolio that speaks to the sets of the skills and the new tools that brings you to the table.
It may be the ability to innovate genre or form; it may be innovation in style and form through the articulation of a unique vision or aesthetic idiom; and/or it may be the ability to solve aesthetic problems creatively.
Craft narratives that convey to your evaluators a direct, engaging story of how you got to your design and why you went in particular directions in each project.

Develop Technical Skills

Beyond the technical hard skill set, I think just the ability to communicate effectively, time management, and attention to detail are huge soft skills that are very critical.
Since many designers like us are forced to double down and work with simultaneous internal and external clients, the ability to read the room and create compelling visualisations while producing clear and easily digestible visualisations turns into some form of an art form and craft.

Career Development Tips

The third secret ingredient to rapidly skyrocketing your career is networking. Working alongside local design firms and coming into organisations and workshops in the community and bridging networks with other creatives in the community, we’ve found other creatives through social media platforms like Behance, Dribbble, and LinkedIn have really helped to get the juices flowing.
Learn on the job — look for internships and entry-level opportunities in this quickly expanding data science field. Equipped with these traits and a willingness to learn on your own, you too can create such a graphic design career that both earns you a nice living and links you inextricably to what you care about most.

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