9 Must Have Skills For Graphic Designers!

Just imagine that there is a job that allows you a huge amount of creative freedom and pays well too. In short, the perfect job you could desire as a graphic designer. You may or may not be surprised to know that 9 out of 10 companies in the world need a graphic designer on their team.

Graphic design, sometimes known as communication design, includes working with and producing images and text. There are a variety of jobs that require graphic design skills. These range from jobs in advertising to animation to printmaking to production design. When applying for jobs in any of these fields, you will want to establish your graphic design expertise through your job applications.

But, do you think you will be hired right away, just like that? Do you have an idea, what kind of skills companies are looking for in graphic designers in 2017? What, you don’t? Well, you are not alone, trust us! As a matter of fact, google searches for examples of graphic designer jobs and resumes are in the tens of thousands per month.

Although there are just as many new jobs posted almost every month.

Another aspect of the graphic designing is, the promotions one can expect to have as a graphic designer because it is only with the promotions that the earnings can grow too. The average salary for an entry level graphic designer is $40,238 per year, with a reported salary range of $25,844 to $59,454. If you work your way up the ladder, as a senior graphic designer you could earn between $38,000 and $82,000 per year. The top of the ladder for many graphic designers is the role of creative director, which boasts an average salary of $81,692 per year, with a reported salary range of $43,032 to $154,488.

Again, we come back to the previous point – the fact that before you say to a lucrative career in the world of graphic designing by getting these promotions, it is crucial for you to have a few essential skills.

Through an extensive research process, we came up with some of the graphic design skills most in demand. Below is a list of the top five most important graphic design skills, employers seek in job candidates.

Develop these skills and emphasize them in job applications, resumes, cover letters, and interviews. The closer a match your credentials are to what the employer is looking for, the better your chances of getting hired:

1- Typography

It might seem like a relatively small detail and a more traditional skill for designers, but it is nonetheless essential. Typography is one of those skills that have not degraded even after the arrival of the digital age. People react positively or negatively to fonts depending on how well they match with the content and images on the site. Typography becomes even more important for print media! Either way, graphic designers should have a good understanding of font families, line-height, tracking, and more. Typography is the language of text in graphic design so a successful professional should be fluent in it.

Graphic designers need to know how to develop legible, well designed type. They need to be familiar with certain fonts, and have a knowledge of line-height and tracking.

Typography can effectively make or break your design. Fonts go beyond just fun names and interesting scripts; a lot goes into the technical design behind each letter. You’ll need to understand terms such as kerning, line height, tracking, leading, white space, and more. Understanding how to find the right font – and knowing how to create your own – will go a long way in being able to achieve design success.

2- Color Theory

Color theory isn’t just for painters. It may be subtle, but knowing how to utilize, contrast, juxtapose, and mix different colors based on context is an invaluable skill. Graphic designers need a strong sense of how colors interact, which colors complement, and which colors contrast. Readers subconsciously appraise color decisions and factor them into their split-second decisions to continue browsing a site or go elsewhere for their content. Color theory also involves lighting and shadowing along with the effects they produce.

3- Web Design

These days, it’s very common for graphic designers to also be web designers. Adding web design to your portfolio will only increase your chances of landing a high paying graphic design job. Much of what you see on a website was designed by someone with graphic design skills, and plenty of designers also hold sufficient knowledge to work with HTML and CSS since HTML & CSS are the programming languages of function/structure and style. Graphic designers should know them so they can go behind the hood of the site or CMS they may be working on. It is only then that they will be able to use their skills to manipulate the page and the destination of the image. They might need to change other elements of the site too so that everything meshes. Either way, this skill will widen your range of opportunities.

4- Composition

Composition is just the way that various elements—like headers, sidebars, etc.—are laid out in a design. Grid design principles constitute a huge part of composition for the web, though there are tons of great websites out there that don’t essentially follow a strict grid. Just like with design patterns, you want to be familiar with composition conventions so you can apply them to your own work.

5- Communication

Graphic designers communicate ideas through text and image. Therefore, communication skills are critical to the job. However, communication is important in graphic design in other ways too. Graphic designers must articulate ideas to companies, clients, employers, etc. which needs strong public speaking skills for presentations, and writing skills for proposals.

Understanding what a client wants from a design is the key to creating a successful product. Designers must be able to communicate with clients and employers by phone, email, and sometimes through Skype. They must listen to their clients’ needs and convey convincing solutions. Design is just another visual form of communication. Knowing how to successfully convey information through your designs is an integral part of being a great designer.

It might be hard to talk to clients who don’t understand limitations or the right terminology, so you will have to be patient and learn how to really understand what a client wants for their design. This can mean everything from communicating well with clients to fully understand a project to using your designs to send a visual message.

6- Composition

Composition is just the way different elements—like headers, sidebars, etc.—are laid out in a design. Grid design principles are a big part of composition for the web, though there are tons of great websites out there that don’t essentially follow a strict grid. Just like with design patterns, you want to be familiar with composition conventions so you can apply them to your own work.

7- Design Software

As a graphic designer, you must master various forms of technology relevant to designing in today’s world. For instance, you must be comfortable with design software, such as Quark, InDesign, and Adobe which is used by many companies to produce digital print.

8- User testing

You will need to test designs to see which ones perform best with actual users. User testing doesn’t have to be super complicated, but it should be done for every design you create. Knowing how to perform A/B and multivariate testing to find out how to improve your designs with actual user feedback can be a helpful skill for a designer. It keeps you from building a site or product without an audience!

9- Identification of common design patterns

There are a lot of common design patterns on the web. These are a lot of things that users expect on websites. Things like sidebars, header navigation, and copyright info in the footer. Users are accustomed to finding certain things in certain places, and designers must be careful about breaking those agreements so that they do not negatively impact user experience. It is very important that you are familiar with these common design patterns so you can apply them to your own projects.

These are just some of the few key skills every graphic designer needs to develop before hoping to achieve some success in the world of graphic design.

It is next to impossible to keep up with what new graphic design skills or ideas companies want in their graphics designers, because the list is very long and it just keeps growing but you should however, try your best.