What is Graphic Design? Best summary ever written!

Everything you see is designed - with intent or not, by a professional or not.

Graphic design

Graphic design is about the visual side of things. How to make things look in a specific way. Graphic designers make brand visuals like a logo, brochure, website, business cards, ads, books - everything that is designed.

Not graphic design

Product design is industrial design - cars, watches, toothbrush and so on. Graphic designers will make visuals like the one you can see on the toothpaste or chocolate wrapper.

Cloth design involves fashion designers, while graphic designers can make visuals like patterns for fabrics and other illustrations.

Graphic Design Main Skills

Hierarchy
The most important thing can be big or stand out by color. A graphic designer will show the viewer what he should pay attention first, 2nd and so on.

Page layout
Look at a newspaper. There are titles, subtitles, images, page numbers and much more. A graphic designer takes a blank surface and places content on it. A paper, a box, a sign, etc.

Typography
The Graphic designer will choose a font that has a “look”. A serious font, a funny font or one that feels like “Technology”. Fonts divide to serif and sans serif. Then there are fonts for display (Titles) and fonts that are great for reading (Paragraph).

Pictures
Choosing the right picture for your audience. A product image, a user image or a book cover image.
https://unsplash.com/
https://www.pexels.com/

Software
A graphic designer use programs to produce designs - Photoshop, Illustrator, Indesign, Premiere, After effects and more.
Photoshop: https://www.youtube.com/user/PhlearnLLC
After Effects: https://www.videocopilot.net/tutorials/

Print
The designer needs to know the print process to communicate with print shops. To know how to plan a print production & to prepare a file for print.
https://visualdesignrules.blogspot.com/2019/07/printing-basics-that-graphic-designers.html

Digital
Understating the basic of HTML and CSS to communicate with developers.
https://www.freecodecamp.org/
https://www.codecademy.com

UX & UI
To be able to plan User Experience (UX) and to design it (UI - user interface). Usually, people say UX and UI about websites and apps but also a box or a car has its own user experience and user interface that show us how to operate whatever it is.

Graphic design day to day tasks

Understanding and defining the product or service.
Planning a strategy.
Creating concepts & examining ideas.
Creating graphic elements - Choosing colors, images, fonts and creating the design.
Production - printing or publishing in digital.

Colleagues

The graphic designer works with others.

Writers
A graphic designer usually works closely to a writer or receiving texts for the content of the design.
There are different kinds of writers, the most common are the technical writer who describe features of products, journalist, and creative writer.

Photographers
A graphic designer uses images. From a photographer or an image stock.

DevelopersDevelopers will make the design live on the internet or as an app.

Print workers
Print materials will be sent to a print workshop. A graphic designer needs to know how to prepare a file for print, to understand instructions or limitations.

Graphic designer expertise

Production
Make sure the files are ready for print or ready to go air on a website. That the ads have the correct sizes or the correct color profiles. Production designers hold the position of making sure that everything will work as planned - from the technical requests and up until synchronizing with other departments.

Art
As a team with a copywriter, the Art Director is in charge of the visual side of the project or the concept development. Approving it and following the production process.

Design
A classic Graphic design position - receiving texts and concept, then working on the design. making the ad, poster, package, website and so on.

Branding
When someone builds a business they’ll what to create what you call a “visual identity”, or just to look good. to have a good logo and a great ad. Designers can brand a business by creating a unique look. logo, business cards, website… - when all of the elements have the same look and feel and conveying the right visual and textual messages.

Marketing Designers who are specialized in creating marketing materials for the company they work for. flyers, rollups, ads… print or digital. their focus is to stand out among other companies while keeping on the brand look and feel.

Packaging
Packaging goes alongside with branding. hold a box of a product. each side contains something. open the box and see how the product sits inside with all of the accessories and papers.
The graphic designers will receive a box layout from an engineer or the industrial designer and will work on the layout.

Education

Education is important but 1 or 2 years of school might be enough, rather spending 4 years in design school. Furthermore, while a degree helps with finding the first job and with recruitment stages at Human Resources - The graphic designers are measured by their Portfolio and experience.

It’s easy to recommend on education, it’s good to have a degree, however, I've worked with great and successful autodidacts. Go to school but learn by yourself even more. School provides only the basics.

In my opinion, you should learn Design and afterwords learn a general degree in related subjects like marketing, communication, culture and alike.

What are the subjects the school covers?
Drawing.
Compositions.
Software.
Production processes.
Design for digital.
Branding.

Make the effort to learn also about:
Marketing.
Writing.
Business.

Joining the workforce

Spend at least a few months in a print house.
Then you could probably start as a junior in a studio or an agency.
After a year or two, you should consider yourself as a good designer while each year you’ll see great progress. that is how design works, it takes time to absorb the designer's eye and skills.

Among the job options: publishers, advertising, service or product companies, studios, freelancing.
some designers get stuck in mediocre positions. luck also plays a role here. some designer gets into great positions. networking and portfolios are the keys.

Ogilvy has a saying:
it’s not creative unless it sells.
As designers, we have to understand that our role serves a goal - and many times, a business goal.

Workplace

Product or Service Company
Usually working in the marketing department. Creating marketing materials for the sales department, company website, packaging, editing product images and so on.

Studio
Creating designs for clients that don’t have their own studio. Studios can expertise in specific fields like branding or digital.

Advertisement agency
working as part of a creative team or in a studio. designing for all of the agency’s clients or in charge of specific clients.

Freelancing Besides designing, the graphic designer needs to nurture, find new clients and deal with the authorities. freelancers working with small clients or with big firms and agencies. some work from home. some go to the company’s office to work on day to day basis, per projects or short terms.

Really great book about Graphic design:
Aaron Draplin / Draplin Design Co.: Pretty Much Everything