Newbie: How to start in graphic design

[whizlee]

Hi all,
Thank you for letting me join this community here. It seems for me, here are a lot of people having lots of knowledge about graphic design.

I am not a professional designer and I do not intend to become one. I have been playing around with the Adobe products for quite a while and I like to do it after work just for fun. But since some time ago I am stuck.

For example, I wanted to design the cover and the layout for a friend's business plan. I spent three nights clicking around in Illustrator without a result. I feel like I am beyond a point where this unconceptual work does not longer lead to acceptable results.

What are my next steps to follow my career as a spare time graphic designer.

Any suggestions appreciated!

--Chrisitian

[morea]

Welcome to the forum whizlee.

Your best bet is to start by designing the layout on paper... grab a pencil and paper and sketch away until you know what you want the cover to look like.

Once you know what you want it to look like, it's a matter of figuring out how to execute the design using the software at your disposal. Illustrator isn't a bad program for this, but if you have access to InDesign or Quark, those are really more geared toward layouts.

Are you having trouble with anything in particular, or just getting a feel for Illustrator?

You could check out Adobe's website or www.designertoday.com for some Illy tutorials, check out lynda.com for some online Illy training (that one is a paid site though), or grab yourself a book about Illy on www.half.com (which is a nice, inexpensive site).

Hope that helps get you started.

[Mr.Red]

I'm relativity new to this form, but have be in the industry for a few years now. First, listen to any advice Morea gives you. From what I've seen, she's has a wealth of information to provide. Second, to get your head wrapped around Adobe's products, I recommend taking a class or two at your local university or community college. I'm a visual person and nothing helps me more than hands on experience.

[typographics]

hey, i didnt know Red Foxx had joined this forum!! i love sanford & son!

[morea]

thanks for the vote of confidence, Mr.Red. :o

Hands on experience can definitely go a long way. You may also want to take a course (or read up on) design principles.

tZ wrote a great post a while back in the showcase that you may find enlightening:
http://www.graphicdesignforum.com/forum/showpost.php?p=190594&postcount=13

After all, if you're going to do GD (even in your spare time) you'll definitely need to understand these things, so picking up a few courses may be the best way to go.

[whizlee]

Thank you for your help so far.

Morea, you are definitly right. Experience can go a long way! But I guess experience is just one part. The other one is the theoretical background, you called it design principles. Without that, experience is quite useless for you.

tZ's post is great. It gives instruction on how to use my experience on Photoshop or Illustrator techniques

Can anybody recommend some other documents or books or sources on the web on design principles?

[turbogfx]

Welcome!
One thing that helped me out when starting out was dedicating time to it. Instead of it just being a side hobby when I was younger I made a conscious effort every day to try and learn at least one thing new. After keeping to this regimine I am happy at where I am today but still continue to go for the one new thing a day.
Good luck!

[EC]

Welcome!
One thing that helped me out when starting out was dedicating time to it. Instead of it just being a side hobby when I was younger I made a conscious effort every day to try and learn at least one thing new. After keeping to this regimine I am happy at where I am today but still continue to go for the one new thing a day.
Good luck!

Yup. I mean in this field you almost HAVE to take that approach. You can spend a lifetime studying and still not know it all (well, for us mere mortals anyway -- there are a few people on this forum that I just don't know *how* they know so much!)

I have "big goals" -- like, I want to learn PHP. But other than that, I try to learn small things along the way ... constantly. Books, podcasts, classes ... and just surfing the web and reading this forum regularly.

[Alex Olshevsky]

It depends on your personality. For example Mr.Red is "a visual person and nothing helps..." him "...more than hands on experience"
But if you are a person of other type, it may be more useful for you to get to the point directly. And this can give either personal tutor (mentor) or books, tutorials etc. you learn by yourself.
Very often it is more effective, as you can lead yourself wherever you want and to be not limited by things you find not necessary for now.

And do not forget about posting questions in this forum :-)