In the design industry, experience trumps qualifications. Graduating from a top design college is one thing but the trick for freshers and inexperienced professionals is what they do next to minimize their mistakes and jump start a successful freelancing career in graphic design.
The answer? Keep on learning!
If you’re a new designer, the key is to keep on learning. Learn from your work projects, learn from industry insiders via design blogs and keep one eye on design trends.
Learn the rules and break them. Filter cliched tips and industry practices through your own creativity to flesh out unique and innovative ideas.
Work on projects that excite you. Did you know 41% of design freelancers chose a design job because they love the idea behind it?
Learn how to deliver personalized and extraordinary designs to clients. You must be able to critique your design, to edit and remove extraneous elements, throughout the entire process.
Always use professional design software and deliver your work in the correct design file formats for execution.
These are the ingredients of a successful career in this industry.
Are you just starting as a logo, graphic or website designer?
To help you on the path of consistent learning, here are five common (and career-threatening) mistakes you can avoid:
1. Let the client’s vision take a back seat.
I’ve often seen new designers, too engrossed in showcasing their own talent and skills, put the client’s needs last. Learning how to work well with clients and submit work that meeets the brief requirements is critical to a long career in design industry. Designers should avoid submitting template-like generic and overused design concepts to projects, as this breaks both DesignCrowd’s Quality Standards and the general industry rule to always ‘personalize, personalize, personalize’.
In a nutshell, ALWAYS read the the brief and AVOID recycling designs and spamming client projects with poor quality concepts.
Need help: Learn 7 steps of a professional design process.
2. Filling whitespaces unnecessarily.
Try not to fill your design with unnecessary elements. It’s okay if there’s a white space in your design. Actually, it’s often a very good thing and mastering ‘space’ in your work is a key design skill. Thinking about space as a super useful design element that can be 2d, 3d, negative or positive, that will help your design look much lighter, simpler and attractive.
The practice of manipulating negative space in a logo design is more common than you think, for example, next time notice the clever use of the arrow in the FedEx logo.You should master how to make the most of space in your design work and avoid cluttering your design. Remember: Less is more!
3. Thinking too much outside of the box.
This sounds counter-intuitive but think about it. Designers spend a lot of time in their own heads and the temptation is to over-engineer the concept so that the submission displays too many( unnecessary) bells and whistles. An easy approach is to keep design principles such as balance, hierarchy, contrast, space and harmony in mind. Your designs should be simple, versatile, appropriate and unique.
A client’s time is wasted when designers lose track of the client’s vision and goals so check in regularly to ensure you meet their requirements and deliver a fanstastic design.
Check out these five key trends in logo design.
4. Not selling the story behind the visual.
Companies launch design projects because they are looking for fresh ways to convey their brand and promotional message to its target audience. Your job as the designer should be to provide a graphic that not only attracts but also engages your client in the design process. There are various presentation techniques you can adopt including mocking up brand collateral to help your client visualise their design in real life.
DesignCrowd has clear guidelines for submitting designs including the careful use of mockups, you must follow.
Upload a flat file design and include a description that explains the rationale behind your design such as who the design is targeting and the reasons for your design decisions. In a nutshell, it’s important to reassure the client your unique design has met their project requirements.
5. No idea about the right typography.
This one can either make or break the deal for you. Picking the right typography trend that ‘gets along’ with the color and overall design is very crucial. Sadly, in the name of being creative and experimental, new designers end up using the wrong font type and style. Don’t be one of them. Establish some ground rules on how you are going to pick the right fonts.
Here’s something to help you begin with in this department – limit yourself in the font families you use on one project, be careful of the font weight, and match the tone of the brand’s message with the font. To some, font is simply for visually differentiating texts, but for the client, it’s all about bringing personality and action to their brand at the first glance.
Catch up: Learn the typographic terms every designer should know.
These are five everyday mistakes new designers make. To win more design projects and climb to the top of the (freelancing) mountain, do what any smart individual would do: learn from others’ mistakes.
Need a designer? Check out Kreative Fingers portfolio and hire them for design projects.
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Written by Pankaj Maloo on Thursday, November 23, 2017
Pankaj Maloo is the owner of Design Digital Agency Kreative Fingers, which aims to create amazing designs for your business. We believe there are only three responses to a piece of design; Yes, No, and WOW, WOW is what Kreative Fingers aims for! Kreative Fingers is ranked 15 on DesignCrowd. Hire Kreative Fingers on DesignCrowd now to create a WOW design for your business today.