200+ Tips To Improve Your Designing Skills
Designing is an ever-changing field of techniques and creativity. Being a designer requires you to continuously polish your skills. You have to be a forever learner to improve your abilities and skills and to push the limits of your creativity. This eBook contains 202 useful tips which can help you improve your designing skills by strengthening your creativity and skills. These guidelines will help any designer- no matter he/she is an amateur or a professional skilled designer-to become more efficient and up-to-date and cope with the requirements of the day. These valuable tips are as follows:
1. If you want to be a skilled designer it is utmost necessary to choose a particular area of graphic designing you want to master.
2. It is better to master one particular aspect of graphic designing than doing all type of designing without acquiring any mastery.
3. If you narrow down your focus on one area of graphic designing at a time, you will be able to master it faster.
4. Be careful when you choose an area of graphic designing for yourself. Carefully consider you interests and then choose accordingly.
5. Whether it is web designing, animation, advertising, multimedia or print designing, whatever you choose push yourself beyond all the limits to master all techniques and methods of the field.
6. Work hard to improve your skills in your selected area. Do a lot of practice and make experiments.
7. There is not much difference between print and online designing but as a beginner it is better to start with only one form of graphic designing. It will keep you focused.
8. Increase your knowledge by constantly researching about the designing methods in a particular field.
9. After you have made your decision about the field all you need is the right tools and a lot of time to practice.
10. Tools are the essentials of graphic designing. Standard and high quality tools help to improve your designing skills.
11. Tools like Photoshop, Dreamweaver etc. make designing very easy. But you have to do a lot of practice to master them.
12. As graphic designing software are not cheap, you should first practice your designing skills on those small and limited drawing or designing software which are available free.
13. Once you know that you can really become a designer, invest your money in the right kind of tools.
14. Inspiration is the one most essential thing for any type of designing; learn techniques to improve the level of your inspiration.
15. The reason why a designer is usually stuck at a certain point when doing some designing task is the lack of inspiration.
16. Every designer should have a personal collection of inspiring material to get inspiration from them whenever needed.
17. You need to be a keen collector; collect each and every design you find inspiring.
18. Keep a file to collect your favourite designs; divide and categorize them.
19. You can collect designs from daily/weekly newspapers, books and websites.
20. Whenever you feel the need of inspiration, have a look at your collection.
21. Explore the web to find a number of inspiring designs. Download and keep them in design collection folder.
22. Besides having your personal collection of designs it is also essential to have a wide book collection.
23. Develop the habit of reading books. You can get a lot of creative and unique ideas just by reading the right kind of books.
24. Books are essential to improve your skills so buy them more often.
25. Try to find books on technical, educational, fun and inspirational topics.
26. Become a member of design related communities. You can do it easily online.
27. Any type of help can be found online. Take advantage of internet and use it to improve your designing skills.
28. If you are a freelancer designer joining online design groups will keep you updated regarding the latest trends.
29. It is good to be your own boss, but not getting criticism and feedback will limit your skills.
30. To excel in your field make sure you get regular feedback from other designers as well as common people.
31. It will let you know the areas where your skills are lacking.
32. You can practice more and improve those skills by taking suggestion from your community members.
33. Make sure you are an active member of the community.
34. Regularly update and share your ideas and designs.
35. The more you share the more you will be able to know your skills.
36. Positive and optimistic approach is a key to success in any field.
37. Take feedback from people positively and use it to enhance your designing skills.
38. In a group dedicated to designing you will be able to learn many different and unique ideas shared by other designers.
39. There are many professional designers having their own blogs and websites. Check them regularly.
40. Checking and reading other designers’ blogs will add more to your personal collection and give you more designing ideas.
41. When you find a design which looks great to you add it to your design collection folder.
42. Search and go through these blogs daily to have an extensive inspirational design collection.
43. Do not ignore anything which seems interesting to you. Just get it and save it in your folder.
44. You can have your work critically analysed and rated on many art and design websites and know your limitations.
45. Starting your own blog also helps a great deal to improve designing skills.
46. Having your own blog will let you experiment with your designing skills.
47. Blogging regularly makes you aware of other designers’ opinions.
48. Be analytical about what people say about your designs you post in your blog.
49. Having your own blog will also increase your reputation in design community.
50. Designers, who actively indulge in activities like blogging, are more likely to keep their designing skills up to date and modern.
51. Designers, who are rather static and inactive and are not a part of any design community, remain old fashioned as they are unable to know the latest trends.
52. They do not get any opportunity to improve their skills as they do not have anyone to critically judge their work. So socializing with other people of the same field is important.
53. A designer should always look for designing tutorials to improve his/her skills.
54. Whenever you find a new tutorial related to art or design, take it and complete it so that you can learn some more designing skills.
55. Tutorials, online or offline, are also one of the best ways to improve designing skills.
56. Attending tutorials related to art and designing helps you to learn new techniques.
57. It enables you to discover new tricks and methods of designing.
58. When you learn new tricks and methods you get more exposure in your field and it paves the way toward polishing your designing skills.
59. It is important to apply and practice whichever new techniques you learn through tutorials.
60. Practice is what makes you perfect in your particular field; so never sit idyll and practice your newly acquired skills regularly.
61. Finding designing tutorials is not a difficult task; here again you can take help from internet.
62. You can find a number of tutorial sites which offer designing tutorials; search for them and join the tutorials.
63. After taking one tutorial start searching for more tutorials and continuously try to acquire new skills.
64. Make designs using your newly acquired skills combined with the old one and share them on your blog.
65. Make it a habit to post something new regularly on your design blog; it will help you to improve your skills and make the best designs so that you can earn positive remarks and appreciation from others.
66. To be active in the design community you joined, start collaborating with other designers.
67. It is good to ask others to judge your work your own judgement may not be perfect.
68. Ask the community members to point out the week areas in your designs.
69. You should also seek advice and help to improve your week points from your fellow designers in the community.
70. Search for the designs of your interest in online designing community you made yourself a member of.
71. Contact the designers to learn the techniques they used.
72. You can also search for the tutorials which can help you learn the particular techniques used in your favourite designs.
73. Read the critical comments given to your work carefully and try to improve accordingly.
74. You can enrich your designing skills even by reading the critiques of other artists’ designs.
75. Reading critiques of other people’s work will let you know the mistakes that can occur in a design.
76. It will also enable you to find the best way to create a particular design.
77. Contests and competitions are a great way to improve your designing skills.
78. Taking part in contests will motivate you to use your abilities in the best possible way.
79. Competitions inspire you to give your best and therefore help you become better in your field.
80. Avoid unhealthy competitions; only healthy competitions can help you improve your designing skills.
81. Adopt positive approach and take part in a competition only with an intention to learn new things and to improve your abilities.
82. Check and analyse the winning design carefully in order to find out the ways and methods used in it.
83. Contact the winning artists to get all possible information about their techniques which helped them make such winning designs.
84. Photography is also a way to improve your designing skills. Develop a habit of taking photos.
85. If you find some designs interesting, take their photos and bring them home to add to your collection.
86. Always keep a camera phone to take photographs of shapes, building designs, shadows, textures and whatever you may find interesting in terms of designing.
87. These photos may seem unnecessary at the moment but at some later stage they may come in handy.
88. Taking photographs also help to practice your skills of colour, lighting and composition.
89. The photographs you take at different occasions of different designs act as fuel for your future artistic designs.
90. Make sure you use other peoples’ designs only to get ideas and inspiration. Never publish or misuse other artists’ copyrighted material.
91. Whenever you have free time, do something to enhance your designing skills like creating sample/fictional designing projects.
92. You can design a fake brand for any imaginary or real company.
93. Design sample logos just to practice your designing and artistic skills.
94. Design whatever you may like e.g. websites, templates, brochures, logos, business cards, stationery and so on.
95. By designing sample projects you can use your fun time to enhance your designing skills.
96. Designing sample/fictional projects is good because you are not faced with any limitations or restrictions
97. Pushing the limits of your ideas and creativity is another advantage you get from designing sample projects.
98. Your free time is the best time in which you can practice and enhance your designing skills.
99. When you are working with a client you have to follow their requirements and cannot utilize your own ideas in your own way. So do that in your free time.
100. Making sample projects will enable you to discover your potential.
101. Creating these samples will not only improve your designing skills but you can also show them to your clients to convince them of your creativity.
102. Creating real projects free instead of fictional projects is even better.
103. Create projects for organizations, websites, local communities, school/college groups etc.
104. Make them new logos, websites, business cards and so on.
105. Make sure you have all the information about the community you are creating the project for.
106. Having the essential information will help you create a design perfectly.
107. Such designing activities not only improve your designing skills but also help you to make your portfolio more attractive by adding real work to it.
108. People usually like what they can get free. You will be able to receive a lot of appreciation in addition to practicing your designing skills.
109. Creating real design projects, although free, is good to gain experience and earn feedback on your effective designs.
110. Redoing other designer’s designs is just another way to improve your designing skills.
111. When you do designs made by other people you come to know their good and bad points.
112. It helps you to practice your designing skills and learn how you can create a design already created by a designer, in a better way.
113. Making other people’s designs provide you a lot of material for practice; you have something already made in front of you and can discover the ways to make it even better.
114. The improvement and development of your designing skills also depend on how critically you judge a design you see.
115. Critical analysis of a thing lets you understand all the good and bad points of a design.
116. Practicing the good ones and eliminating the bad ones will make you more efficient.
117. Sometimes it is good to redo your own old designs.
118. Practice your newly learned skills on your old designs.
119. You will find out what was lacking in your designs and be able to improve your skills.
120. It gives you a good feeling to see your old work done by using latest techniques. Knowing that you are moving forward will help you keep going.
121. Never throw your old projects or designs away. You will need them to practice your new skills.
122. You can even turn your old designs into your masterpieces by using new skills and techniques.
123. Looking at old things with a fresh eye give you a lot of new ideas.
124. To improve your skills you should re-design the old personal projects and try to give them an attractive look.
125. Challenging yourself to do something gives you the spirit to accomplish the task.
126. Attending workshops and lectures is also a way to enhance your experience of designing.
127. It is necessary to attend designing workshops offered by art academies.
128. Attending workshops provides you with a chance to work under the supervision of some trained individual who can help you improve your skills.
129. Go and listen to the designers when they come to your local institutes to deliver a lecture about designing
130. Listening to the experienced designers can help you know more tricks of moving forward in the field of designing.
131. Read the histories of the well-known designers to discover how they made it till that point.
132. If there are any exhibitions of graphic designs or visual arts going on, visit them.
133. Exhibitions provide you a chance to have a look at the master pieces of great artists and designers.
134. You can get an idea about how you can also be versatile with your designing skills.
135. Remember that versatility and uniqueness is what make your designs stand out.
136. In order to be versatile practice using your artistic skills in different ways.
137. Follow the techniques of great designers; redo their designs using different techniques and methods.
138. Take ideas from two or three designs and make a new one just for the sake of practice.
139. Going to exhibitions and keenly observing every design there will let you discover more about designing.
140. You can find out the methods you did not know earlier.
141. You can join tutorials to master the techniques used in the designs of the exhibitions.
142. Spending some time in the company of the people with the same interests is also a great idea to improve your skills.
143. You can enrol in part-time courses offered by many universities and colleges.
144. Part-time courses do not hinder your working routine and yet provide you with a way to meet people like yourself.
145. You can exchange your views and designing strategies with your peers.
146. Each designer has his/her individual ways and techniques of designing and by interacting with them you will be able to learn them too.
147. When you feel confused while practicing your skills take help from your instructor who supervises the class you have enrolled yourself in.
148. A lot of designing skills can be learned by just asking questions to professional and experienced designers.
149. By interviewing experienced designers you can get the answers to those questions which your design school is usually unable to answer.
150. Practical knowledge of the field gives these designers an edge and by interacting and asking questions you can learn a lot from them.
151. Networking with designers is also a great way to improve your design skills.
152. You should try to find the designers who have more skills and experience than you do.
153. Regular contact with people better than you helps you to increase the limits of your creativity.
154. Travelling around and visiting different areas and cultures give you new ideas.
155. It also provides you a whole new world of inspiration to create new and unique designs.
156. Whenever you feel that your ideas are exhausted you should visit a new place.
157. When you see the art work of a new place you find out new techniques and ideas which are particular to that area.
158. Constantly visiting new places and learning their designing skills and techniques enriches your personal collection of designs as well.
159. Sketching also improves designing skills.
160. Prior to using designing software to design, develop the habit of creating sketches to explore ideas.
161. Sketching is a good way to put your ideas on paper without having to consider any limitations that you may have to face when designing with designing software.
162. Sketching lets you explore a number of ideas related to a particular design.
163. After sketching all the ideas and concepts you can choose those that go best with your design.
164. Sketching takes less time and provides you with the needed material for a design.
165. Once you have your ideas sketched on paper you can easily move them to digital form.
166. Adopting the technique of drawing or sketching first make you efficient designer. 167. Make it your habit to visit art studios regularly.
168. You can find new inspiring designs and ideas in visual art studios.
169. When you have plenty of ideas to work on, it makes designing easy for you.
170. Concentrate on what you do; it improves the way you work. 171. Being a professional and skilled designer requires you to be a constant learner.
172. You have to learn whatever new techniques and method are added in the field of designing.
173. When you are making a design for someone you must know the interests and requirements of your client well.
174. Everyone has different taste and choice. You must find out what your target community likes the most.
175. Research is ¾ of graphic designing. The more you research, the better you will be able to design.
176. For the sake of learning the techniques and tricks of designing you not only join some academy but also do a lot of self study.
177. Remember that being different is nothing to be ashamed of when it comes to designing. 178. You can explore already existing ideas in a new way by giving new interpretation to them.
179. If you are not creative with the ideas and techniques of graphic designing you cannot make your place in today’s market.
180. Creativity is the backbone of graphic designing.
181. To improve your designing skills, improve your creativity.
182. Remember that you can learn the techniques and methods but creativity is a personal ability that can be improved not acquired.
183. It is through your creativity that you can reinterpret something in a whole new light.
184. You can be creative only if you think beyond limitations. 185. Creativity and uniqueness require you to think outside the box.
186. Look around with a broad mind and vision.
187. You achieve more if you are open to ideas.
188. Ask people and your fellow designers to evaluate and criticize your work.
189. Feedback and critiques are always helpful to know your weaknesses.
190. When you know what exactly you are lacking in, you can focus on that area and improve your skills.
191. Being a loner and a professional designer at the same time is not possible.
192. You have to get out of your home or studio to meet and interact with other designers to enhance your abilities.
193. Make your favourite party or band some posters as a gift. It will be a good way to practice your designing skills.
194. You should pay particular attention to improve your style.
195. To make your designing style unique and different you must search well before you choose the font styles, graphics and other particulars for a design.
196. If you are a web designer you must know that the visuals you are using should be in affirmation with the topic and content of the site.
197. As a print graphic designer do a lot of practice with fonts.
198. Spend more time on experimenting with different fonts and styles.
199. Uniqueness is the quality of any best designer’s work. If you want to be the best improve your abilities by spending more time to practice your designing skills.
200. Use different combinations and artistic techniques to give a touch of uniqueness to your designs.
201. Increase your ability to focus, concentrate and experiment with ideas and concepts.
202. Brainstorming regarding concepts and ideas also help to improve designing skills.
