Roadmap to Becoming a Successful Graphic Designer

Starting as a graphic designer, mastering the fundamentals is essential for long-term success.

### A Roadmap to Becoming a Successful Graphic Designer from Scratch
* 🎨 If I woke up with no design skills or connections, I would leverage my **accumulated wisdom** to retrace my steps as a graphic designer, sharing a **roadmap for success**.
* 📚 Starting with the basics is crucial; understanding fundamental design principles like **shapes, lines, colors, and typography** is essential before diving into software like Photoshop and Illustrator.
* 💻 There are numerous free resources available online, such as tutorials on YouTube, that can help beginners **familiarize themselves with design tools and concepts**.
* ✍ Active learning is key; as you consume educational content, you should also **create your own designs** to reinforce your skills and embrace the learning process, allowing **room for mistakes**.
* 📁 Building a portfolio is vital, even for beginners, and can include **passion projects, practice from tutorials, and creative briefs** to showcase your **style and capabilities**.
* 🌐 To gain visibility, I would utilize social media platforms like **Instagram and TikTok**, while also considering traditional networking opportunities to **connect with potential clients**.
* 💪 As I progress, focusing on **refining my skills** and choosing **quality clients over quantity** will lead to a **more sustainable and fulfilling design career**.
* 😊 Finally, it's important to **enjoy the journey**, balancing work with personal interests, and remembering the **reasons for pursuing a career in graphic design** amidst the ups and downs.

if I'd wake up one day with no design skills, zero followers, zero clients, and zero projects, but with all the wisdom I've gained from years of being a graphic designer, what would I do? In this video, I will go back in time to when I'm just starting out as a graphic designer with absolutely zero design background. So, I will share with you the exact road map that I will take to be the designer that I am today. Over the years, I have experienced the ups and downs of being a graphic designer, and as someone who has no formal design degree, I had to learn everything myself through online courses, and I have to carve my own path in this field. In many years of trying things out, I have figured out the things that have made the biggest impact in my career, and I plan to share this with you in this video. So, for those of you who just started your design journey, I hope that this video serves as a guide, and for those who have already started but are struggling to stay motivated and keep pushing forward, I hope that this

video can get you back on track. The first thing to do is start. We all have to start somewhere, and we all start as beginners. And just like any other things in our lives, um, I think we should all start with the big Basics. Many designers rush to learn Photoshop or Illustrator, but before you even try to master all the tools in the program, I'd like you to take a step back and focus on learning the fundamentals of design. I cannot stress enough how important this is because the basic rules of design will be your ultimate guide to every design decision that you will make as a designer. In my opinion, mastery of the fundamentals is what separates a good designer from a great designer. Over time, you'll experiment with more designs and realize that it's okay to break the rules occasionally, but before you get there, you got to learn the basics first, like shapes, lines, colors, and typography. And you don't have to look far because there are already plenty of free resources here on YouTube. Envato tutorials has a free video.

explaining the basic elements of design, and this video of learnfree also does a very good job of explaining the elements using animations. As you progress, I encourage you to dive deeper and do more advanced studies to help you expand your design vocabulary so you can look at some topics, things like learning the color theory and color wheel, understanding the different types of typography, knowing what is visual hierarchy, and learning how to utilize space and create a balanced composition, and the list goes on. While it might seem very overwhelming, remember that you learn these things as you go. So even today, there are still things that I have yet to learn, but you just really have to embrace the process of learning and make it part of your daily habit. Since we are on the topic of learning, the next step is to know your design tools, and for new graphic designers, I think the two best softwares to get yourself familiar with are Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator. So you might be wondering, uh, where can I learn these tools? Well, the truth is the internet is already saturated with free resources.

that you can use to study these programs. So here are some of my recommendations for Adobe Photoshop. This video series by Pix Impefect will walk you through the essential tools. And for Adobe Illustrator, I love the tutorials by Daniel of Bring Your Own Laptop. This is an extensive 4-hour course for free. There are other YouTubers like Sator Graphics, Will Patterson, Abby Conic, and this channel, of course, who regularly upload design tutorials, so you can check their stuff as well. If you have a little bit of budget, you can consider taking courses on Skillshare. Graphic design courses on this platform usually have better structure, and they have specific projects that you can work on as you go through the lessons. So if you want to try that, I have a link below in the description to try Skillshare. One concept that I want you to implement is called Active Learning. So I want you to create as you consume. So don't just sit there and watch the videos passively. As you take in all these learnings, you have to come up with something. You have to

create an artwork, maybe do a poster design or design a specific layout. I think the best way to instill all the lessons is to have the habit of constantly putting it into practice, and as you practice, allow yourself to make mistakes. You have to remind yourself that the great designers you see on social media started exactly where you are, and it probably took them years to be good at their craft. Be at peace in doing crappy designs when you are starting out, and give yourself permission to design or create without the pressure of it being perfect. Another tip to practice your design tools is to know how to reverse engineer. This is basically a backward approach in figuring out how a certain piece was designed. So, the operating question here is, How did they do it? or What steps did they take to come up with a design? So, for example, try to get a design or an image from the Internet and try to recreate it. So, the steps that you will take may be different from what the original designer did, but this will really challenge you to be creative with

the tools or the things that you know and explore on things that you may not have discovered yet. And if you encounter a very specific problem, you can just do a quick Google or YouTube search. Initially, it will take some time for you to work on projects, but as you keep practicing your tools, you'll become more efficient and faster in your workflow while continuously discovering new tools to try. As you learn new skills and actively do design projects, you have to start thinking about building a portfolio. So, a portfolio is basically a collection of your best works that showcases your capabilities as a designer. It should show the current skill level that you have, and it should be crafted to fit the type of client that you want to work with and the services that you want to offer. As graphic designers, we are visual communicators, and our portfolio is one of the most powerful tools that we have in applying for jobs and landing design clients. So, you might ask, If I'm just starting out, how do I create a portfolio if I have zero design clients? Now there

are many ways to go about it, and here are some of my recommendations. So first is Passion projects. So these are the projects where you have the creative freedom to do something that you're highly passionate about. So basically, these are projects that you are highly interested in. There are no bounds; you are free to design whatever you want, and this will also give your potential clients an idea of your interests or the design style that you prefer to work with. You can level this up by taking on creative briefs where there is a set of guidelines or constraints. This simulates the experience of working with an actual client where there is a set of goals to achieve, problems to solve, and parameters to consider. Websites such as Good Brief or Fake Clients can generate random design prompts. There are also accounts on Instagram that create briefs every week, so you can participate in those and at the same time engage with the design community and build your social media network. You can also include practice projects from the tutorials that you take and then some.

designers also participate in a 30 days of design challenge, where you create one design per day for 30 days straight, and then you can package them in one section of your portfolio, sort of like a collection. You may also ask your friends or family if they have any graphic design needs. You can also redesign existing brands, or you can reach out to local charities, nonprofits, or even small businesses in your area. Once you have a decent amount of work, it's time to narrow it down to a collection of four to eight projects to include in your portfolio. So, you have to treat your portfolio like a visual representation of you as a designer. It creates a lasting impression, so I would advise you to put only your best works. And one thing that I want you to do to really level up your portfolio is to work on your presentation. The best way to create a stunning presentation is to use mockups, so leverage the huge collection of Photoshop PSD assets on the internet that you can use for your projects. Most of the files are very easy to use. It's

just a simple Plug and Play. You just have to put your design in a smart layer and then save it and export. So here is an example of how you can elevate a simple project into a stunning work using mockups. I find that the best portfolios are those that excel in storytelling. So in presenting your work, you can put a little bit of background about the project, what are your challenges, and what are your goals, what are your deliverables, and your roles in the project. You can also include the behind-the-scenes and the process on how you came up with the design. If you need inspiration on how to present your portfolio, you can go to Beand and go to their curated section. So these are the projects that Beand handpicked to be the best, and you can see here how great designers and how great design studios present their work. So when you're starting out, I think it's perfectly fine to feature a variety of projects in your portfolio. So there are different sub-specialties under graphic design, so you can do branding, you can do print design.

web design. You can do UI/UX and even Motion Graphics. Starting out as a generalist is perfectly fine, and as you gain more experience, you'll get a feel for the type of projects that you enjoy doing. This process may take some time, but give yourself permission to try out different things first and then specialize in the field that you strongly resonate with. So, for example, I specialize in branding and packaging design. I think it's important to focus on one or at most two areas so you can really position yourself as an expert in those fields. I also figured out that I prefer working with food and lifestyle brands, so I created my portfolio to include branding and packaging projects in those industries only, so I can narrow down the type of projects and the clients that I want to work with. Now that you have a portfolio, it's time to focus on getting work as a graphic designer. Now, there are two routes from here. So, the first one is you can either apply for a 9-to-5 job or

work at an agency, and the second one is you can start your freelance work. So, for the first route, you can craft a resume and then attach your portfolio as a PDF. Then, you can look for job listings online, or you can apply to a local company or agency. As a beginner, you'll most likely start as a junior designer, working on simpler tasks under senior designers and art directors. The responsibility to bring in clients is already out of your scope. The path that I took is going straight to Freelance. I think this one is more challenging than the first one because you have to build visibility, and also you have to get clients on your own. The reality is that no matter how good your portfolio and design skills are, if clients can't find you, you won't get hired. I think that's the harsh reality that we must accept as designers, especially Freelancers. As graphic designers, it is extremely important to show up and be visible. There are many ways you can do this. You can either do a traditional approach, you can do a digital approach, or a

combination of both. So, the first one is traditional networking. This is where you build a network through face-to-face interactions. So, you can either go to graphic design networking events, go to design conferences, or even leverage your own personal connections. But right now, creating visibility through social media and digital platforms is easier than ever. You have Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Facebook, and the list goes on. I think it's amazing that we live in an age where we can easily connect to other people, like people that we don't even know, people from other parts of the world who could be our next client. In my design career, social media is what really helped me get those design clients, and it's worth trying to create content for these platforms to boost your chances to get seen and hopefully land on some design projects. My tip here is to be present on all platforms but focus only on one or two. Here's what I mean by this. So, in websites such as Dribbble and Behance, you can do the work one time, you post your

portfolio pieces. There, you use the appropriate tags to help you get seen and just leave it there so you can try to do even the bare minimum in these sites and then maybe be active on Instagram or TikTok or even YouTube, which is what I do, which brought in a lot of inquiries for me in the past few years. So, you can post your passion projects, your design practice, your previous client work, of course. So, you can create short or long-form content that provides value. So, these sites are free and very accessible, like everyone has Instagram or TikTok, and it could be where your ideal client is currently hanging out and actively looking for graphic designers to help them. In my next video, I will go into detail on how to get clients as a freelance graphic designer. So, if you'd like to know more about that topic, then please subscribe to this channel along the way. I think it is also important to learn skills like social media marketing, the principles of selling and closing deals, and also how to handle your finances and taxes. Um, I think having a wide skill set

as a designer will make you more well-rounded and also improve your financial situation. Personally, I study from time to time how social media works, and I also study basic video editing so I can present my work either as an Instagram reel or a YouTube video. So, these are the things that I do to create more online visibility for myself and to market my skills and my expertise better. So, if you are someone who is struggling to find clients right now, sometimes it may be necessary to ask how much have I marketed myself. So, always show up and get seen. I think in this graphic design career that we are in, we really have to try to constantly get better and better, a 1% improvement every day, and it really takes time to get better. And the key here really is to play the long game. So, playing the long game for me means three things. So, the first one is constantly refining your skills and also training your eyes. So, you have to strive to become the best version of yourself as a graphic designer. You have to train your

eyes to recognize good design over time. Your taste will improve, and you'll start to recognize what separates a good design from a bad design. As you mature as a graphic designer, you'll start to realize that it's more than just creating beautiful or aesthetic things. There's actually a lot of strategy involved in it, and your goal as a designer is to use visuals to solve your clients' problems. You also have to keep learning and be updated on new features or tools in the design program of your choice. And don't be afraid to experiment and maybe break the rules of design from time to time, you know, just to keep things interesting. Playing the long game also means getting better clients. I am a firm believer that quality clients outweigh quantity. There have been multiple instances in my design career where I took in so many clients, and I struggled to keep up with the demands of the tasks. Back then, my mindset was that if you have a lot of clients, you're basically winning the game, but having to juggle multiple projects at the same time really

affected the quality of my work, my mental health, and my stress levels were very high during those moments, and I no longer have a healthy work-life balance. But now I realized that having quality projects is better for my overall well-being. So to do this, I increase my prices to match my current skill level. That way, you don't have to take as many projects, and it will also improve your financial situation. Of course, our goal here is to not just be better skills-wise but to be a growing and thriving graphic designer financially and make this career a sustainable one for us. And the last point is to remember to have fun and enjoy the ride. So there will definitely be ups and downs in your journey. So there will be wins, the thrill and excitement of closing an ideal client, getting paid as a designer, and getting praised for your work. But there will also be losses. There will be times where you will have very few clients. Sometimes you will burn out, or you will have impostor syndrome, or the feeling of not being good enough. And these are the

things that you will come across at some point, but in the highest and in the lows. Always remember to go back to your core. So, what are your wise, what are your strong reasons why you want to pursue this career in the first place? So, you have to find the joy in the creative process, but you also have to balance out your work with your personal interests. You have to immerse yourself in this career, but give yourself permission to take regular breaks and, you know, just enjoy life because rest is also part of your productivity. Thank you so much for joining me today in this video that is very personal to me. If you found this video helpful, be sure to like, share, and subscribe to this channel for more graphic design content. So, keep creating, keep inspiring, and keep designing, and I'll see you in the next video.

How to Become A Graphic Designer (If I Had to Start Over)

Michael Lubrin (dayswithmike)

Starting a Graphic Design Career from Scratch

Waking up with no design skills or clients, the speaker reflects on their journey to becoming a graphic designer.

They emphasize the importance of mastering design fundamentals before diving into software tools like Photoshop and Illustrator.

The video aims to provide a roadmap for beginners and those struggling in their design journey, highlighting the significance of free online resources for learning.

Recommendations for Learning Graphic Design

Pix Impefect offers a video series on Adobe Photoshop, while Daniel from Bring Your Own Laptop provides a free 4-hour course on Adobe Illustrator.

Skillshare offers structured graphic design courses with specific projects for a small budget.

Active learning, reverse engineering designs, and building a portfolio are key strategies for mastering graphic design skills.

Passion projects offer creative freedom and showcase your design style to potential clients.

Taking on creative briefs and participating in design challenges can simulate client work and build your network.

Once you have a decent amount of work, narrow it down to four to eight projects for your portfolio, focusing on storytelling and presentation to make a lasting impression.

Starting as a generalist in web design, UI/UX, and motion graphics is acceptable; specialization can come with experience.

Building a portfolio focused on one or two areas, like branding and packaging design for food and lifestyle brands, helps narrow down project and client choices.

To get work, designers can either apply for a 9-to-5 job or start freelancing, with the latter requiring more effort to build visibility and attract clients through networking and social media.

Building a Successful Freelance Graphic Design Career

Using social media platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube can help graphic designers gain visibility and attract clients.

It's important to develop a diverse skill set, including social media marketing and video editing, to effectively market oneself.

Playing the long game by refining skills, focusing on quality clients, and continuously learning is key to long-term success in the graphic design industry.

Achieving a Healthy Work-Life Balance as a Graphic Designer

The speaker reflects on the negative impact of excessive projects on their work quality, mental health, and stress levels.

They emphasize the importance of increasing prices to match skill level, aiming for fewer projects and better financial stability.

The journey of a graphic designer involves ups and downs, and it's crucial to find joy in the creative process while balancing work with personal interests and taking regular breaks.