Generally speaking, a graphic designer is a specialist who creates visual images of the elements of our environment through the means of graphics. They develop unique individual styles of various products, including the company’s symbolics, book and magazine covers, illustrations, printing types, etc. A good designer should combine artistic talent, excellent taste, and thorough knowledge of technical software/tools. Besides, graphic specialists don’t merely create nice pictures. Their product must solve some challenging issues – it should be bright, memorable, recognizable, and reflect the essence. This is impossible without analytical skills.

Numerous jobs in graphic design can be explained by a variety of directions. Each specialization requires the knowledge of specific tools, means of manifestation, and influence. As a rule, one specialist focuses on one or two of them. Let’s take a closer look at the top 5 most demanded graphic jobs.

Jobs in Graphic Design – Brand Graphic Designer

Facing harsh competition, all companies and manufacturers are looking for ways to stand out from the crowd and attract customers` attention. Unique style, product packing, and service presentation can significantly increase customers` recognition and, consequently, income. Brand designers help companies to draw attention through various sources. They develop logos, signs, promotional merchandise, corporate colors, and other recognizable graphic elements. Then, the whole set gets the unites style, forming the future corporate identity. Besides, modern brand designers take active participation in the development of the company’s apps, websites, digital products, and self-presentation on social media.

Since a successful or unsuccessful brand style plays a significant role in the company’s future, hirers have a lot of requirements for brand designers. Artistic skills and specialized education are some of the most important. You can study brand design in various educational establishments in the world. The recommended programs include Graphic Design, Brand Management, and Marketing, Art.  

Usually, brand designers work for design agencies or themselves. According to the Glassdoor.com website, a beginning brand specialist’s salary starts from $40 000 per year. Leading professionals earn $60 000 – $85 000 annually. Thus, brand design proves to be one of the highest-paid jobs in graphic design.

Jobs in Graphic Design – Motion Graphic Designer

Motion graphic designers are specialists who combine art, design, and IT technologies. They are engaged in the creation of motion graphics. These are short 2D-graphic videos where animation replaces static images.

The main task of motion designers is to attract and hold attention, maximally informing users about the product. And since motion graphics combine video, audio, and text into a single animated story, they perfectly fit for this purpose. Simultaneously affecting hearing and vision, these stories have a stronger impact on the viewers’ emotional perception.

One should note that motion designers do not create cartoons. Unlike a cartoon, these graphics don’t have a complete plot; it only briefly expresses an idea or concept. Motion designer is a new, demanded, and promising jobs in graphic design. Television, the Internet, mobile apps, advertising, games all hire motion graphic designers. Besides, businesses often apply animation graphics as the means of presentation, visualization, and illustration of ideas.

As far as the profession is in high demand, you can find dozens of colleges and universities worldwide to study motion graphics. There are Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees, tutorials, online courses, etc. An average salary of a motion graphic specialist varies from $50 000 to $65 000. The best designers` income reaches $90 000 annually.

Environmental Graphic Designer

Environmental graphic designers carry out the comprehensive design of public spaces. Firstly, they help to organize the urban environment in the projects of residential complexes. Since the urban population is growing, we face the necessity to fit everyone with maximum comfort, functionality, aesthetics, and environmental friendliness. As you see, this is an urgent and challenging task; that’s why environmental design has increasingly become such a popular profession.

Also, these specialists take part in the creation and recreation of urban historical places. They save the history and try to fit new locations into the old context so that no one will be hurt. In a short word, environmental designers create a new organic and balanced face of the city.

 On the one hand, environmental designers deal with graphics. On the other hand, they need thorough architectural knowledge. That’s why the best way to become an environmental designer is to get a Master’s degree in one of the colleges and universities. According to statistics, the average annual income of environmental graphic designers swings between $60 000 – $64 000. However, experienced specialists earn over $90 000, the highest range reaching $108 000.

Packaging Graphic Designer

It’s not a secret that even the world’s best product will never be in demand without proper presentation and promotion. In fierce competition, success requires catchy advertising and packaging. These two elements help attract customers` attention, give them a brief yet bright and informative description, and provoke the desire to buy it. Packaging designers create a powerful tool for product promotion through the design of bottles, cans, labels, packets, boxes, etc. Since the modern market faces overproduction, packaging designers justly occupy their place at the top of most demanded jobs in graphic design.

To become a packaging guru, you should get a Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Graphic Design. The choice of the educational establishment is tough since there are many schools, colleges, universities, as well as online programs and degrees. Consider the Industrial Technology and Packaging Program at California Polytechnic State University, BFA in Packaging Design in Fashion Institute of Technology (New York), Packaging Design and Communication at Mid Sweden University, and many others.

If you’re looking for high salaries, this profession is definitely for you. An average packaging designer’s income reaches $69 000 – $71 000. The leading specialists get over $90 000 – $120 000 per year.

Jobs in Graphic Design – Type Graphic Designer

Typeface design is quite an exciting area of graphic design. Here, specialists create readable text fonts. Apart from uniqueness, these fonts are aimed at solving certain tasks. The font is created to suit the circumstances where it’s used. For example, types may become a part of the brand identity or be applied to merchandise/advertisement for promotion.

Like all graphic design branches, type design can be applied in all the fields mentioned above, including motion videos, packaging, a project of the residential complex, and so on. Fashion is changing rapidly, but each typeface should fit the times and stay durable and independent. Though it may seem that people have tried everything in this sphere, type designers manage to offer absolutely new and fresh ideas. 

As a rule, type designers get classic education in design, graphic design, or art. The more specialized knowledge is acquired on additional courses. However, nowadays, one can find decent university programs like MA in Typeface Design at the University of Reading, England, or Postgraduate Certificate in Typeface Design in New York. Junior specialists get up to $45 000, while senior type designers can earn over $80 000 per year. The salary depends on whether you work for one company or agency or have private clients.

Jobs in Graphic Design – Conclusion

Undoubtedly, graphic design is one of the most promising and beneficial directions in the labor market. It provides unique opportunities for self-expression and a decent income. So, if you feel artistic gift and creativity, do take a chance!

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However, as you can surely understand, this takes a lot of time, and when you’re studying design at university, you can’t afford to spend too much time on extracurricular activities due to all of your homework. That’s where paper writing services come in handy, allowing a student to buy essay they need and simply delegate their responsibilities to others.

1. This Is A Full-Time Role

The study of top works is considered by some designers to be a form of beneficial leisure. They feel fashionable and have a wonderful time while looking at the designs over a cup of coffee. They may speed through the job in order to acquire immediate inspiration (copy someone’s decision). In short, many people look at designs when they are in need or when they are in the mood. No one pays for it, after all.

This strategy is ineffective. Treat design research as a job, and you’ll soon see excellent results. You’ll start to think and perceive things differently. You will advance to the professional level much more quickly than those who consider designs in an ad hoc and haphazard manner.

Improving Design Skills – 2. Regularity Is A Key

It won’t help if you go to the gym every now and again and then to pump up your muscles. In addition, there is the study of works. You strengthen your designer muscles. Regular classes will improve your skill, the quality of your designs, and your self-confidence. Set aside time for such pursuits and treat them as “untouchable.” Don’t take it from yourself, and don’t allow others to take it from you.

It’s not how much time you spend in class that matters. Regularity and focused efforts will be far more beneficial.

3. Purpose Of Work

It’s a waste of time to spend hours on Dribbble or Behance, staring at designs until your eyes hurt. You must set a goal for yourself. Beginners and seasoned designers clearly have distinct objectives. “What is wrong with me?” you might wonder. “How should I spend my time?” You can recall your goals by writing them on stickers or a blackboard, and you won’t be sidetracked by things that aren’t related to them.

Create an action plan for the near future as well as the long term. For example, someone may be ok to work on designs for 30 minutes five days a week and two hours once a week. Someone else has the option of allocating more or less time. The most important thing is to decide what you will accomplish and why at this time, and even 15 minutes a day can help. In the case when you need to spare time, GradeMiners can always help you with the academic assignments, so that you could spend more time on design research.

Work on your weaknesses as part of the plan. Someone can’t clearly structure the material, someone can’t work with color, and someone can’t work with typography. Look for something that someone else is doing better than you and try to figure out how they do it.

Improve Your Design Skills – 4. Analyze Your Work And Work Of Others

Thinking, not memorizing techniques, is what creates a design vision. The major goal is to learn how to evaluate a design’s visual and functional potential. What are the requirements for this?

Pick 3-5 designs that you particularly liked. Focus your attention on them. What made an impression on you? Take one for a more in-depth examination. Your job is to figure out why things are done the way they are. Is it effective in achieving its goal? What are the key benefits? What visual strategies and tools did the designer employ in order to meet the objectives? Why is this project at the top of the priority list? Look at the design through the eyes of the user, not the designer, while examining it.

Crafting Is Better Than Boring Assignments

Read the post The Best Essay Writing Service That Guarantees Quality In 2021 – for more information. Then choose the platform that best suits your workflow. You’ll have all the time in the world to learn more about design after that!

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What Is Product Design Consulting?

Product design consulting is a comprehensive service combining both creative and technical expertise on designing, building and launching a product. It may play a critical role for clients who are about to start product development but don’t have prior experience. Product design consulting usually includes services such as:

• Concept creation
• Strategy development
• Prototyping
• Detail engineering
• Industrial design
• Cost analysis

An expected result of the process is a product of good standard, high functionality and appealing aesthetics. Using product design consulting can help you solve a lot of the problems that we’ll discuss in a bit.

When Do You Need Product Design Consulting?

Hiring a product design consultant is recommended in a few special cases. Let’s take a look at them to see whether working with product design consultants is really worth considering.

You Lack Expertise

If you’re designing a product for the first time or you’re about to enter a brand new industry, you most probably don’t have experience yet. Product design requires a bunch of skills that are difficult to gain quickly when you’re just starting out. Working with a product design consultant or agency will provide you with access to wide knowledge and support in specific areas. However, remember to make sure that they really specialize in the area of your interest and understand your industry very well. Working with an external company will also help you to avoid building an in-house team, which is costly and time-consuming.

You May Face Problems (and You Surely Will!)

If you’re lucky, you can find a product design consultant who is experienced in exactly the field of your interest. They may have already solved similar problems or designed and launched similar products. Such experience may turn out to be simply invaluable in the case of difficulties or bottlenecks in production. The wide knowledge and expertise of your partner can help you solve issues quickly and with less effort.

You Don’t Have Resources In-house

As we’ve already mentioned, you may not have skilled employees on board – especially in the beginning. Hiring a professional product design consulting agency can help you get access to expertise and knowledge you don’t have on hand. If you have an experienced team, but they’re busy with other tasks and projects, hiring an external specialist will still require less effort than recruiting. You will also get access to a nearly unlimited pool of technical skills and creativity.

You Don’t Have Time for Internal Development

If your company is already focused on a few projects, working on the next one might simply be too much. The bigger the company is, the longer it may take to kick off new initiatives. Hiring external support may help speed up product development so you can see results much faster. Thanks to this, you will be able to complete more projects simultaneously, and it’s your product design consulting partner who will coordinate the whole process and assign the right people.

You Need New, Fresh Ideas

Even though you’re experienced in product development, you may still significantly benefit from cooperating with an external expert. This will give you access to new ideas and solutions from the same or other industries. Thanks to this, you will be able to adjust your project to consumer needs much more accurately and increase your market reach.

You Want to Secure Your Team

Some problems or delays may occur when your employee decides to leave the team. It might be difficult to quickly replace them with an equally skilled specialist. When working with an external partner, finding new talent will no longer be your problem. A product design consulting company will most probably immediately assign someone from their pool, and the designing process will be nearly undisturbed.

The Benefits of Working with a Product Design Consulting Expert

If any of the points above apply to you, it’s definitely a sign that you should consider cooperating with a product design consultant. This is recommended for organizations of any size, including small and medium companies, startups and global organizations that want to improve their processes. We hope this article has helped you to decide whether it’s a good idea for you.

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Now, of course, that depends on marketing yourself correctly. But you can’t market what you don’t have. For that reason, you need to take whatever actions you can to improve your actual graphic design skills. That’s where daily exercises come in.

Here are some of the best-proven techniques and exercises that will help you get that edge you need to climb to the top of the field. And yes, the view from up there is amazing.

Improve Graphic Design Skills By Reading Every Day

Step one to improve your graphic design skills is to read broadly and widely. Find some of the more interesting voices in the field and follow what they’ve got to say about it. This will give you insights and ideas that otherwise you would entirely be missed out on.

Don’t know what to read? Well, there are plenty of choices out there. You can check out Awwwards, for example. These guys find the best pages out there and then highlight them for you in a central location so that you can see what’s moving and who’s shaking in the design world. Other good choices are MotoCMS design blog, Line25 blog.

Take an Hour To Draw By Hand

You should treat drawing by hand a little bit like meditation. Done right, it can inspire you for the rest of the day. So how do you do it right?

First of all, learn to just draw. The part of your brain that edits and the part of your brain that is responsible for creative insights are not the same. In fact, the more critical you are of what you’re putting down, the harder it will be to actually do stuff.

For that reason, just draw. Don’t erase. Don’t worry if it doesn’t work. This is not about the result. It’s about the inner journey and reflecting on what you’re doing. What comes out onto the page is in many ways secondary.

Don’t know what to draw about? Then just take a regular object, like an apple or a tap, and draw that. Do a different version every day of the week. Try different styles. Then move on to something new.  Make use of handy drawing apps.

Take Courses on Graphic Design

You can get a long way with hands-on experience, but you can only ever get so far without understanding the fundamentals. Obeying the rules of color theory and typography will make it so that your designs go from chaotic to clean.

Now, you don’t directly have to enroll in a school to get this stuff down. There are fortunately a lot of opportunities to do it on your own. My suggestion is to find out the reading lists of the more popular courses and just working your way through those. This will give you a lot of the fundamental knowledge without you actually having to pay to go to the universities.

So work that into your schedule. You’ll be surprised how much you can pick up if you read 30 minutes a day.

Connect With Other Graphic Designers

That doesn’t sound like an exercise, you’re thinking. If it doesn’t, then you’re not doing it correctly. You should learn to set a certain window of time aside every day to engage with other designers. This can be just to stay on their radar, to ask for feedback or to give your own comments.

Doing this every day will help you build up a network. More importantly, the more people engage and comment on what you’re doing, the more easily you’ll know when you’re learning stuff that’s valuable and when you’re just spinning your wheels in the air. That’s important, as most of us waste a lot of time chasing dead ends. Any help you can get to avoid doing that will be incredibly useful to you.

Work on Your Dreams

It can be exhausting to do the same thing over and over again. Unfortunately, that’s where you’ll often find yourself as you’re climbing the design ladder. Down below there is a lot of grunt work that can get incredibly repetitive.

And sure, you’ll become good at that, but that is not what you’re after. You want to be good at a wide range of skills. For that matter, take the time to work on what you love. This will constantly stretch your design muscles in different directions and – more importantly – will make sure that your enthusiasm doesn’t wane. And let’s be clear about it, that enthusiasm is key to continuing your climb upwards.

After all, it’s with enthusiasm that you’ll get noticed and make sure that you keep getting better and improving your graphic design skills.

Fail a Lot

The idea that failure is bad for you is baked into our modern culture. It’s also a pile of horse manure. If babies were afraid of failure, they’d never learn to walk, talk or figure out that the circle really doesn’t go in the square hole. If you’re afraid of failure, then you’ll never learn what it really means to design.

The trick isn’t to avoid failure. Instead, it’s to accept when you’ve failed, to learn what you can from the experience and then to move onto the next thing. In other words, fail fast.

Or, as Thomas Edison said, “I have not failed. I have only found 10,000 ways that don’t work.”  

Where should you try to fail? Try new techniques, new software and new ways of doing things, for starters. Of course, if you’re very unsure if it’s going to work, then do so on your own time. Then you can relax and you have nothing serious riding on accepting that something didn’t work.

Put Your Graphic Works Out There

And here I don’t mean in the protective circles of people who are your friends and who don’t want to hurt your feelings. Instead, find the meanest and most critical audience that’s out there and be willing to put your stuff in front of them and when you do, resist every urge that you’ve got to defend it. Instead, just take what they tell you.

Here are some things to note:

• Just because they’re mean, doesn’t mean it’s true. We all know there are plenty of trolls out there.
• The reverse also holds. Just because they say nice things, doesn’t mean your design is nice. Some people just say nice things.
• Use the rule of three. If three different people say the same thing, then there might be some kind of value to what they’re saying (be it positive or negative).
• If you can’t take the criticism of absolute strangers who ultimately have almost no effect on your wellbeing, how do you think you’ll do when a client has bad things to say? So, use this as an opportunity to get a much thicker skin.

Final Words

The design is a process. That goes both for what you put out and your career. As long as you keep trying new things and working at it, you’ll keep improving your graphic design skills. If you don’t, then you won’t.

For that reason, build some habits. Create a schedule with tasks that you want to do that will push you beyond where you feel safe. That – and plenty of feedback – will make sure that you keep growing and keep climbing design mountain until finally you’ll be out in the sunshine and dictating terms instead of reading them.

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