How to Become a Graphic Designer

Graphic designing is a fast growing field with numerous opportunities. The communication industry widely depends upon graphic designs that help create a visual presentation of an element. Advertisements in any form, web design, newspapers, magazines and product packaging are the prominent areas where a graphic designer plays a major role.

You help in designing the products and services to make them catchy and visually attractive to attract maximum consumers. If you are a born artist or a creative thinker this is the field for you! If you have questions like how to become a graphic designer, what does it take or how long does it take to be one, then here are the answers to all your questions.

Before we see move forward, let's see whether you are interested in one of the following. Do you love watching advertisements and get really impressed about the creativity behind it. Do you love working on creative image tools for hours on your computer, like to explore the latest graphic design programs?

Do you just flip the pages while you see a full page advertisement in a magazine or newspaper, or check it out keenly before turning the page? Do you take interest in watching the website designs, advertisement banners or hoardings? Well, if your answer is yes, you must definitely think of entering the field of graphic designing.

As mentioned earlier you need to be interested in visual art and should be really creative to be a part of this world. You can start with Bachelor's degree in arts or design. Further you can enroll for a course in graphic design. This can be an undergraduate degree in graphic design or a 2 year graphic design program.

Though you can get a great job without a degree on basis of your skills, opting for one is beneficial in many ways. Having the knowledge of desktop publishing tools like Photoshop, PageMaker, FrameMaker, QuarkExpress, Acrobat Exchange is one of the primary requirements to become one.

Taking drawing courses in school is definitely helpful. During or after the course, an internship in design department of an advertising, magazine, newspaper, website or a corporate firm will help you gain a lot of experience.

Once you are done with the course and internship and have the basic experience, it's time to go ahead. Building a strong portfolio is what you must think about. Working on and designing promotional displays, marketing brochures, logo designs according to your client's requirements will give you a vast experience.

It might also include creating visual designs for the company's annual reports, brochure, journals, etc. Taking a job in a magazine or newspaper will give you the opportunity to develop entire layout and design of the magazine, newspapers and their special issues. You can start as a freelancer and work on variety of projects.

This will help a lot in building your portfolio. Remember that an impressive portfolio is an important factor for becoming a successful designer.

Along with your job, you must make sure that you keep yourself updated with the new software and programs of graphic designing. Constantly observing the designs featured in newspapers, magazines, journals, packaging designs, and learning various techniques is a must.

With all the earlier mentioned skills, becoming a graphic designer is not really difficult. But having a successful career in this filed means taking efforts towards constantly improving your work and delivering better output each time and meeting the deadlines. Having good communication skills and working on improving it, is something you can't ignore.

After all, for finding clients, understanding their needs, explaining them your work and convincing them that you are the best, needs excellent communication skills. Hard work, knowledge, eagerness to learn new things and ability to work under pressure can make you a successful graphic designer. All the best!