In Hindi, there is an idiom, “Jo dikhta hai, wahi bikta hai”… This means only those things sell which have a great visual appeal. It is the visual design that catches the first impression. 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 role in making business successful. With rapidly changing social dynamics and evolving taste of the public in general, it is critical to keep improving on 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 improve visual design skills. Some of these are as follows:
Study Design Theory: This may seem old school; but studying design theory sets the foundation platform for you to enhance your visual design skills.
Whiling learning by doing is the best way, and 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, colour theory, and all important the golden ratio. This knowledge comes handy when creating beautiful designs.
Get Constant Feedback: As a designer, getting 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 pick up 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 will help you get better than your current version, and this 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 ahead to keep improving yourself.
Keep Doing Side Projects: Creating the same or similar designs over and over again in your routine job is sure to lead your skills getting out of date and your enthusiasm weakening. 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 necessitate it to create a precise item, predominantly if that’s a touch personal to you. So start a passion project that requires you to learn new skills you’d never even thought of.
Experiment: In the world of web start ups, there’s a saying: Fail fast. This essentially means In other words, only 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.
It’s a way graphic designers can become skilled at from when it comes to experimenting with new media, skills and techniques. So, stop always using the same fonts, colours, layouts or software; try mixing things up a bit and try something new, fresh and innovative.
Socialize: No, No. Socialize does not mean spending days and nights in Facebook and Twitter meme sharing. It is one of the most excellent ways to develop as a designer is to interact with a other designers having good and variety of skills. There are a lot of effortless ways to get out there and chat with other creatives.
Visit creative meet-ups, events and design conferences. Connect with people up on social media. Join forums. Make good friends from the industry. Talk about design. Discuss and solve problems, challenges, questions. Collaborate on a project with a wide variety of people. Communicate with a designer you admire, request them to be your mentor.
Read a Book: Learning has no end. Even if you have a degree, keep reading relevant and latest books. ‘Education is for life’, and never ever stop learning. Utilise your journey time in reading quality books, magazines, whitepaper etc. make a habit of reading books, be it traditional paperback or online e-books. Nothing matches knowledge gathering as books do.
In short, you need to be as creative about your learning as you are about your design and products. There is no short cut to success and enhancing your design skills is a prime example of the same. Keep trying in the right way and success will be in your way.