Beginner's Corner

How to Start Graphic Designing Career?

30 January 2013 Daniel Ray

Many designing students will have a very hard time whenever they finish their studies and start work as an employee. This is usually because they do not have any preparation. The graphic designing is a very competitive field. It is very important to you stand out if you want to make a mark of yourself. It should be a known fact that graphic designing is a growing industry and many people struggle as an employee. Often students also struggle with their jobs because they do not know what they have to expect as employees. They can become over whelmed. Therefore if you want to start a good graphic designing career then you need to have great preparations. Here are your tips for that:

Getting into the right graphic designing schools

This is one of the most important steps in making a graphic designing career. You have to get into the right school. There are a lot of schools of graphic designing but you need to go to the one with high rating. This will help you out when you will begin your graphic designing career. The very first thing you will need to show when you will apply for a job as a graphic designer will be your school certificate. Therefore, ensure that you have one.

Work hard on your first job

Very few graphic designers are able to have the best combination of skills and creativity. The combination of these two can get you extremely high up the ladder. If you are thinking of starting a successful graphic designer career then you have to work on these both. There is a lot of work out there for you to experiment. In your free time, go ahead and do the proper research and work on your skills. This will improve your creativity and connect you with the right people in the industry.

Adopt courtesy

Being nice to people and employers will get you very far in your career. As graphic designers it can be very easy to become short tempered. However, if you are looking forward to become a successful graphic designer then it is important for you to put the right impression on people. Whenever you are emailing people or calling, remember to mind your manners. They count for a lot. This will also mean that whenever your current boss will write you a character certificate, it will be your ticket to another good company.

Create the right network

In not just graphic designing but in all fields, creating the right network is of extreme importance. If you have the right network of people then you will be able to launch a successful graphic designing career. Try to meet up and socialize with the other successful graphic designers. Learn their stories and take inspirations. There is a lot that you will be able to learn from them. They can even give you very useful tips on how to go ahead in your field.

About the Author

Hi, this is Daniel Ray from Virginia, USA ! Working as Design Coordinator and stock expert in PrintingRay.Com. PrintingRay is an online cheap custom stickers printing company providing the best folder printing stock in USA market.

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Web usability for Graphic Designers: How to get started

05 March 2012 Last Updated on 05 March 2012

Websites are largely categorized as static or interactive. Static websites are typically built to advertise or market a product or a company. Interactive websites are more participatory in nature and allow users to perform certain defined actions - like filling up a registration form or perform a fund transfer in a bank account. Usually the user is guided and navigated through the pages of the site to ensure minimal errors and retries.

Website designs are guided by certain design principles. These principles have evolved with the evolution of the internet-connected-device – progressing from plain old desktops to fancy mobile gadgets, which the present generation cannot do without. The underlying principles however have remained the same and the fundamental dictum the web designer should go by, is presentation.

Any web designer is expected to understand the purpose of the site and cater to the primary audience. They could be teenagers attempting to play a song from their favorite radio station on their mobile, or a corporate official attempting to read through a sales graph on an iPad. The design should be funky and catchy for the first, and sober with more weight given to the content, for the second.

The designer is also expected to understand the customer’s preferences, and if possible, interact with them to come up with the best design suited to the customer. A very colorful website could be a major source of irritation for a customer, but the same could make another customer quite bright and cheery.

The home page or landing page, which is the first page that the viewer is directed to, is called the lead capture page. It can capture the attention of a viewer or repel the viewer and hence design time is mostly spent on this page. It would be prudent on the part of the web designer to have 3 - 4 designs available for the site owner to choose from. This page is a representation of the personality of the owner(s) and hence forms a crucial part of the design.

Content, graphics, and videos should be evenly distributed. Changes to conventions are permissible provided they don’t place challenges to the viewer. The designer can experiment with graphics or navigation style, as long as the user is pleasantly taken through the website. Surprises will not be appreciated by an official wondering what went wrong with his previous month’s sales. It could be, however, welcomed by a person attempting to book a table at his favorite restaurant. Hence context is once again key.

An awareness of the technology used to develop the website, its limitations, and design capabilities, would help the designer to channelize his run of imagination, preventing rework that would happen if the design becomes un-implementable.

Web designing is an enticing topic for those inclined towards the arts and the sciences. Jakob Nielson – called the king of Usability Engineering, has written many articles on this subject. A research on his guidelines can be quite enlightening to the designer.

With the onslaught of internet enabled gadgets of different sizes and resolutions, the designer has to be able to maximize the visual footprint in the minimal area available. If the website design is able to impress the audience, be intuitive, and ensure that the message it intended to convey is clearly communicated, within the average browsing time of an average viewer, the designer has succeeded in his mission.

About the author:

Brianne is a blogger by profession. She loves writing on technology and design. Beside this she is fond of gadgets. Recently an article on Android PDF Reader attracted her attention. These days she is busy in writing an article on interior design software.

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A Word About Margins

04 November 2008 Last Updated on 02 June 2011 JP Jones

Beginner's Corner Margins. They are as important as the text, the photos and the composition itself. Oh wait, they help to MAKE the composition.

A margin is the area around the outside edge of the page in terms of graphic design. This area can be from top to bottom or left to right. The amount of white space you leave in your margins will determine the overall feel to your layout.

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Tints, Tones and Shades

20 October 2008 Last Updated on 02 June 2011 JP Jones

Beginner's Corner Unless you have been formally educated in color chances are you may not fully understand the difference between Tints, Tones and Shades.

I'll never forget learning this principle during one of my first art classes way back in high school. The teacher handed us 3 bottles of paint. 1 Red. 1 Black. and 1 White. She further instructed us that we would be creating a monochromatic painting.

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Color Schemes for Beginners

25 September 2008 Last Updated on 02 June 2011 JP Jones

I had a request this week to add some posts that are a little more basic for beginning designers. These articles will be housed in the Beginner's Corner category. I'll also be adding the 'Beginner's Corner" tag to them.