Tips & Tricks for a beginner

Hello future designers I am new to the community & also new to graphic design. Can someone assist me tips and tricks for starting in the industry? I’d gladly appreciate it

Hi and welcome.

Your question appears to be seeking simple, sound-bite answers to something which cannot be answered with tricks and tips.

That said, there is one simple response – and in fact the only response if you want to build any sort of sustainable career: Get a good degree from a reputable, accredited bricks-and-mortar university.

There is no easy route. It’s a pretty complex subject and takes many years of education and then professional studio experience to begin to understand, let alone master.

Currently there are armies of kids out there who think it’s an easy and cool career to just learn with YouTube tricks and tips., then set themselves up as a freelancer. They are all scrambling around, bottom-feeding for $50 logos from clients who have no idea that this approach will never work for their business and, in fact, can even damage it.

Aside from ignorance of the subject, they are also often clueless about what freelancing itself is., approaching it somehow as though it is somehow different to running a business. It isn’t. It is a business and requires all the skills to run properly that any other business does.

So, in short, do it properly and get yourself educated – and not with an online degree from a fly-by-night, self-titled university…

That, of course, assumes you have the requisite talent and aptitude in the first place. Remember, you can always post examples of work here to get honest critiques from people who have been doing the job for years.

Hope this helps, rather than discourages.

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Tips, yes. Tricks, there are none.

I completely agree with @sprout. If you’re from North America, like me, there’s close to zero chance in today’s economy for earning a living wage in graphic design without having a degree from a reputable design school. This brings me to my tip: do what it takes to get a good education, which, with talent and perseverance, will get your foot in the door once you graduate. Without it, that door won’t even open.

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Never make a mistake and do everything perfectly.

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If it’s consistently wrong then it’s right.

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And if the client insists it’s a mistake, just call it ‘intentional asymmetry’ and charge extra for it.

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“Do good work and don’t screw up.”

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Check out this thread:

Why? What is your motivation?

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