How To Improve Your Visual Design Skills
An effective marketing strategy starts with a visual design that can appeal to the target audience. Experts from India’s top graphic design companies opine that visual design plays one of the most significant roles in making a business successful. With rapidly changing social dynamics and the evolving taste of the public in general, it is critical to keep improving visual design skills to remain competitive in the market. So how do you improve your visual design skills?
Experts from the top graphic design companies in India have shared many tips to help you improve your visual design skills. Here are 6 easy tips to follow:
1. Study Design Theory
This may seem old school, but studying design theory sets the foundation platform for you to enhance your visual design skills. For example, there are plenty of ways to leverage your creativity; however, a solid understanding of the fundamentals of the discipline is an absolute must. You should study concepts like typography, grid theory, color theory, and the all-important "golden ratio." This knowledge comes in handy when creating beautiful designs.
2. Get Constant Feedback
As a designer, getting to know what others think and how they perceive things plays a critical role in creating appealing designs. It’s absolutely indispensable if you’re to strengthen your design skills. Look for positive feedback to get yourself motivated. However, it is the critical, negative feedback that will shape your learning curve and help you improve, and this is all that matters. So, don’t get disheartened when you face negative feedback, it is actually a road map for your own success. Learn from the feedback and move on and keep improving yourself.
3. Keep Doing Side Projects
Creating the same or similar designs over and over again will surely cause your skills to decline and weaken your enthusiasm. It is critical to keep up your enthusiasm to learn new things by starting your own side projects. You may or may not get monetary benefit out of it, but learning a new design skill is always accomplished if you create a need, predominantly if it is something that is personal to you. So start a passion project that requires you to learn new skills you have never even thought of.
4. Experiment
In the world of web startups, there’s a saying, "Fail fast." This essentially means that by trying out lots of experimental design ideas and putting them into practice, you can learn what works best and what you’re good at. This is a way graphic designers can become skilled when it comes to experimenting with new media, skills, and techniques. So, stop always using the same fonts, colors, layouts or software and try mixing things up a bit and try something new, fresh and innovative.
5. Socialize
No, No. Socialize does not mean spending days and nights on Facebook and Twitter meme sharing. One of the most excellent ways to develop as a designer is to interact with other designers who have a wide variety of skills. There are a lot of effortless ways to get out there and chat with other creative people.
Visit creative meetups, events, and design conferences. Connect with people up on social media, join forums, or make good friends from the industry. Talk about design and solve problems, challenges, and questions. Collaborate on a project with a wide variety of people. Communicate with a designer you admire, ask them to be your mentor.
6. Read A Book
Learning has no end. Even if you have a degree, keep reading the latest and most relevant books. "Education is for life," and never ever stop learning. Utilize your journey time by reading quality books, magazines, white papers, etc. Make a habit of reading books, be it traditional paperback or online eBooks. Nothing matches knowledge-gathering like books.
In short, you need to be as creative about your learning as you are about your designs and products. There is no shortcut to success, and enhancing your design skills is a prime example of the same. Keep trying and success will come.
Originally published at blog.hexalearn.com.
