12 Traits of a Creative Graphic Designer

  
Here are Traits of creative graphic designers:

1. Highly Motivated – Creative graphic designers are motivated by the task at hand rather than by material rewards. They find motivation in the challenge that a task presents rather than allowing the material benefits to dictate what they do.
2. Very Imaginative – They stand out from the crowd. While others follow the latest trends and find inspiration in other people’s work, the creative graphic designers find inspiration in everyday things and themselves.
3. Brutally Honest – Self criticism is a quality many people fail to find a balance in. They either end up being too critical of themselves or become over confident about being the best. Being brutally honest with oneself requires asking the right questions throughout the creative design process. This is one of the leading traits of successful designers.
4. Truly Passionate – Passion tends to be the main driving force behind creativity. You have to love what you do in order to do it well. Unless you are passionate about what you do, you will not be able to completely focus on the task at hand and soon get tired of it.
5. Adore Challenges – Creative graphic designers do not shy away from challenges. They let their curiosity get the best of them, allowing them to ask questions and discover things most of us overlook. This curiosity gets them intrigued by challenges and they are able to tackle them head on.
6. Manage Time – Time management can become a challenge for many graphic designers who take on multiple projects and fail to deliver on time, leading to a lack in creativity. A good graphic designer would assess his/her current workload and is realistic in his approach towards work so every project s/he takes can be given its due time.
7. Find a Balance – Creative designers know how to strike a balance between being play and organized. They know how to be fun enough to experiment with various concepts and serious enough to implement them professionally. They combine the carefree fantasy with the right amount of realty based perspective.
8. Good Communicator – Being a good communicator plays a major role in the success of any designer. Prompt interaction with the client and keeping them in the loop regarding the developments and new ideas is critical to a project’s success. Doing so will help strengthen your designer-client relationship.
9. Professional Attitude – Good graphic designers know that there is a fine line between being confident and being arrogant. They don’t let their confidence get the best of them and are open to suggestions and ideas given by the client.
10. Can Take Criticism – Criticism is just another person’s opinion. Learn to take it positively as it will help you grow and understand things better. Successful graphic designers know how to accept criticism and understand that it is part of the learning process, not to be taken personally.
11. Keep Learning – Designing is a lifelong process. It is not something you can learn in a few months or a couple of years. As the graphic design industry continues to evolve, only the ones who keep up with the developments can stay ahead in the game. The minute you stop learning is the minute you sign yourself up for failure.
12. Push their Limits­ – Pushing your boundaries, thinking outside the box and allowing yourself to experiment is all part of the learning experience as a creative graphic designer.

Graphic and Web Design Advantages

1. Express Your Creativity
Probably the most important benefit of being a graphic artist is the ability to express your creativity, while still earning a great living. Many artists are moving towards graphic design because it’s easier to make a living as a graphic designer than it is in areas such as fine art.
If fine art is your passion than you should pursue your passion, but being a graphic artist is very rewarding and you can still work in fine art and other areas. I loved both computers and art so graphic art seemed to be a good combination of the two for me, but I still dabble in fine art such as painting in my free time.

2. Web or Print Flexibility
The cool thing about being a graphic artist is that you have different mediums just like in fine art. The two big ones being print and web. Web is obviously more recent and still relatively new. If you get into web design and you can pick up programming skills such as html, css and php you will open up an entire new world of job opportunities for yourself.
Being a graphic artist will allow you to branch off into other skill sets easily that can dramatically increase your freelance or business grow potential.

3. Huge Client Base
Some businesses have a limited client base, but every business needs a graphic artist. If a business is going to do marketing than some one is going to need to design those marketing materials. As long as businesses keep growing and new ones keep appearing, then graphic artists will always have plenty of work. Because of this, the competition is getting rougher every day, so you will need to work much harder to stand out from the crowd.

4. Freelance
My favorite part about the graphic art career is the ability to easily do freelance work online. There are tons of places to find freelance work on the Internet and you can make some incredible money from the comfort of your own home in your free time.

5. Run Your Own Studio
If you have ever dreamed of having your own studio or office than you could turn your freelance business into a larger operation and begin running your own studio. This is a great option if you want to play the role of manager or art director and gain a lot more exposure by doing graphic artwork for very large brands, not to mention making more money!

6. Work In-House
If you are not ready to freelance or run your own studio you can always work full-time for some one else. Working In-House can give you the stability you need for peace of mind. Some designers worry about their creativity being limited in-house and this can happen, but you need to take a look at the benefits and disadvantages to make the right choice.
There are plenty of other ways to lets your creative energy run wild while not working in-house so don’t get too caught up about having more limits on what you can and can’t do. Its just part of doing business!

7. Easy to Get Into
If you have a decent computer and a few Adobe programs you are pretty much ready to rumble! After that it’s all about creativity, hard work, self growth and networking to name a few things. Compared to other careers being a graphic artist could be seen a pretty low cost career to get into as opposed to say starting a landscaping business where you would need a truck and tons of expensive equipment and other materials.

8. You can Learn on Your Own
While I do recommend going to school for graphic design, many amazing graphic artists learned on their own. If you practice enough at home, study other art, practice tutorials, read books and really have a passion for design you can learn on your own. The big benefit of going to school is having teachers to guide you and critique your work, so if you learn yourself you need to be able to gauge what your current skill level is and understand what areas you need improvement in.

9. Few Expenses
Another great thing about being a freelance graphic artist is that there are few business expenses. If you have a computer and software already than there isn’t much else you need to spend money on. If you are going to handle printing for clients you would work this into the total project quote and the same goes for stuff like buying stock images or hiring an illustrator for a project.
You might have some web expenses such as website hosting and maybe a marketing budget, but overall costs should be pretty low if your a freelancing, which means more profits for you!

10. Easy Online Marketing
The design community is incredibly rich online. I have never seen so many different useful and unique sites for an online niche before. The design community is full of great forums, blogs, gallery sites, organizations, tutorials sites and much more. There are so many ways to market your skills online its not even funny. It just takes a little a bit of time and energy to make the most of the web.

Disadvantages of being a Graphic Designer

Everything has its Advantages and Disadvantages below are the Disadvantage

Graphic design is a wonderfully creative field to explore. When the work is coming in and the clients are good, it can be the best job in the world. However, there are several downsides to being a member in this field.


 The Disadvantages of Graphic Design

Freelancing
If you freelance, you're on your own - and that means that unless you market yourself and are able to manage clients in a businesslike fashion, your work opportunities will be limited. You will also be responsible for paying your own taxes and insurance, which can be a hefty drain.

Corporate
While you may have entered the design field because you love to create, a corporate design job often offers little leeway for your own creativity. You will be designing to a client's specifications, not your own - expect to have to make revisions.


Value of Design
Not every company will place the same value on good graphic design; that's why there are so many poor designs in even the highest levels of advertising. The problem is that companies will pay relating to that value and you can easily undersell yourself by doing far too much work for far too little pay.

Everyone's a Designer
With a fresh influx of new graphic design interns becoming full-fledged designers every graduation season, it is easy to have your prices undercut in the freelance and corporate markets. Businesses will often opt to create their own designs as a money-saving tactic rather than hire a professional.

The Shrinking Market
Many problems relating to freelancing are eliminated by taking a permanent position at a design studio, who do the marketing and client negotiations for you. However, these jobs are hotly competed for, so they fill very quickly.

Graphic Design Tools You Need To Get Started

 

A Computer

In today's design world, a computer is essential. It will be both your design tool and your business tool. Using graphics software, you will create illustrations, work with type, touch-up photos and complete layouts. The major decision here is what computer to get, and this generally starts with deciding between a Mac and PC.

Software

Graphics and business-related software are also a key to your success. Some products, such as Photoshop and Illustrator, focus on the creative end of design. Other packages, such as project management or time tracking software, will help you stay organized and manage the business end of design.

Graphic Design Books

It's very helpful to build up your own small library of graphic design books. Some should be for inspiration, some for technical help, and others to assist you on the business side of design.

A Sketchpad

While you're most likely to use a computer to complete a design, you don't have to start with one. Sketching out ideas is a great way to begin a project and brainstorm, and can be much quicker than mocking something up on a computer. It's also important to always keep a small sketchpad or notepad handy, as you can forget a great idea as fast as you thought of it.

Other Creative Professionals

While you may not think of them as a "tool," knowing other designers, illustrators, web developers, photographers and other creatives is extremely important for three reasons:

1. It's not easy to critique yourself. Get opinions on your work and encourage constructive criticism to push your work to a higher level.
2. Having others around to brainstorm with can bring about the best ideas.
3. As you get projects that are more involved, you will need people to collaborate with. Find a group of people you can trust with different skillsets than your own so you can work on projects together.

These essential tools will help you get started, and grow, in a career in graphic design. All you need to do now is combine them with your creativity!

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