21/08/2015
Essential Skill Sets for Graphic Design
By Shel Perkins
If you're interested in becoming a graphic designer, there are four essential skill sets that you must possess. See how you measure up!
Talent
The first requisite is talent. You must have an instinctive ability to exercise good judgment in manipulating the formal elements of visual communication such as contrast, scale, color, pacing, and typography. You must be able to use them effectively to develop new and appropriate visual solutions to complex communications problems. If you don't possess this creative ability, or the potential to develop it over the course of your education, then you are not cut out to be a graphic designer.
Technical Skills
The second requisite for a successful career is technical expertise—mastery of the current tools that are necessary to produce and implement your solutions. Technical skills are a moving target because design tools are constantly changing. For example, twenty years ago the tools of graphic design included T-squares, stat cameras, waxers and Rapidograph pens. Eventually all of those went out with the trash. Today's basic tools are primarily digital, including such things as QuarkXpress, Adobe InDesign, Illustrator, Photoshop, Acrobat, Dreamweaver, and Flash. However, twenty years from now these in turn will be gone—replaced by even newer tools. This means that each of us must constantly work to expand our technical skills and stay on top of new developments.
People Skills
The third requisite is a solid set of interpersonal skills. This means being a good listener and a good verbal communicator who is able to build and sustain positive and productive relationships with others. It means being able to establish and maintain mutual respect. It means having a positive outlook and exhibiting grace under pressure. These positive qualities will motivate others to seek you out. Co-workers will want to have you on their teams and clients will want you on their accounts. Career opportunities will be severely limited for any designer who is perceived to be a lone wolf—defensive, territorial, uncooperative or difficult to understand.
Business Skills
The fourth essential skill set for a designer is business savvy. In order to advise our clients, we need to clearly understand their business challenges, trends and options. On each new account, we have to come up to speed very quickly. We also need to be just as smart when it comes to our own marketing, financial and management issues. Business savvy is what makes our careers sustainable over the long haul.
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Shel Perkins is a designer, educator and consultant to creative firms. His book Talent Is Not Enough: Business Secrets For Designers (New Riders/Peachpit Press) can be ordered from the TalentIsNotEnough.com site. To contact Shel with questions and comments, please email us at [email protected].
