Menu
The first step on this guide is to understand what is Graphic Design, and the Graphic Design definition is the process of visual communication with the use of typography elements, photography, and illustration to solve problems or communicate ideas, but let’s make a small exercise, turn around and you will see that everywhere there are design as a logo design of a brand, to a music festival poster and the user interfaces design of the apps you use in your smartphone.
Graphic Design is the way to communicate using images, text, or illustration in a creative way to show the message of the brand in the best way and how we want that people feel about the brand and that is actually the work of a Graphic Designer, they need to interpret what the client wants to transmit and show it to people.
Advertisment
As mentioned Design is everywhere and there are different types of Graphic Design, let’s see some of them
Marketing and Advertising Design is one of the most known graphic design types and that is because publishers need to show their products in the best way to engage with their potential clients and they need Graphic Designers to create graphics to advertise their products.
Marketing and advertising designers are very important because images create more engagement with people and they need to create the graphic to effectively meet the needs of their clients, with the growth of the online business and Digital Marketing Marketing and Advertising designers need to create Social Media graphics, email marketing templates and infographics for brands.
Good Marketing and Advertising Designers need to know Graphic Design and also they need to have marketing knowledge and know the consumer trends and habits to effectively create a great Ad.
Some examples of Marketing and Advertising Design are these :
Brochure Design, Newspaper and Magazine Ads, Social Media Ads and Graphics, Poster and Banners, Email marketing and Infographic Design.
The environmental design objective is to connect people to the place they are and Environmental Graphic Designers combines their graphic design skills with architectural, interior design, landscape, and industrial design to create a unique experience for the visitors who are in that place using elements to indicate people where they are, information messages or telling a story during their visit.
A good Environmental design can create a unique space that tells stories to their visitors and enhance their experience. A Good Graphic designer specialized in environmental design also needs to understand architecture to use the architectonical elements to create a unique experience.
Some examples of environmental design :
Signage, Branding, Murals, stadium branding, exhibitions and event spaces.
Publication and Print Design is the most common graphic design type as it refers to print media like books, magazines, or newspapers traditionally, and Publication or Print Designers usually use traditional elements of art like color, space, and very important use of typography.
But as technology advances and magazines, newspapers and books adapted to modern technologies publication designers also evolve to design on digital platforms that include e-books, email newsletter,s and online magazines.
Publication and print design examples.
Books, magazines, newsletters, catalogs, newspapers, and e-books
Motion Design maybe can be one of the youngest graphic design types that exist, and first lets introduce what is motion design, Motion design is the creation of digital graphics which create the illusion of motion, and why is the youngest graphic design type, its easy, due to the growth of digital world it opens new possibilities to graphic designers as they can create animated gifs, apps, website designs with movement because their designs will not be printed and allow to play with movement.
Motion design examples
Video Games, App Design, GIFs, Animated Texts, Advertisements, Title Sequences, and End Credits, Banners and Web Design
Corporate design is used by brand and companies to transmit their philosophy and goals to their customers through visual elements and create a Brand Identity, that is the companies face to communicate about the brand. A Corporate Design is created by graphic design elements as color, shapes, and images that a brand will use in everything to create a relation between all the graphic elements of the brand to transmit their personality.
A Corporate design or branding includes the logo design of the company and all the elements that the brand will use, like Business Cards or Stationary, and it’s important that all these elements have the same typography and the same brand colors.
Corporate Design examples
Logo Design, business cards, stationery, website design, business newsletters.
Nowadays every brand needs to have a website to exist, and this website needs to transmit their philosophy and convince the customers why they need to choose their product, and web designer use elements as page layout, images and typography to create the perfect interface for customers to navigate through the companies website.
Good web design needs to have a balance between beautiful aesthetic web design and make it easy for customers to navigate through the website and create a Great User Experience.
Packaging design is the connection with graphic design elements, as structure, color imagery, and typography with the product that you are selling to make it more suitable for marketing purposes.
The packaging first objective is to protect the product inside but it also opens a great door for companies to attract the attention of possible customers with marketing and graphic design, that is why Packaging designer also needs to have knowledge of product marketing tactics to create a memorable packaging.
Advertisment
Now that we already knew some of the graphic design types that exist, let’s talk about how to earn money as a graphic designer, I will mention some of the ways a graphic designer can make money but there are many more.
Advertisment
Now let’s talk about the best graphic design software for graphic design and what use can we give to that programs, it’s clear that all Adobe Suite of software is a Standard for graphic design and all the different types, but let’s see the basic software that Graphic Designers use.
The first graphic design software on this list, is Adobe Illustrator and it is a Vector graphics Editing program, and what this means, a vector graphic use paths defined by start and endpoint, and as vector graphic don’t use pixels and a specific number of dots, they can be resized and not lose any image quality. That is why Adobe illustrator is the perfect Graphic Design program to create Logo Design, Illustration, and Icon Design.
Adobe Photoshop is an image editing software for photo editing, where you can manipulate, crop, resize and correct color on digital photography, and this software is very popular for photo editing projects, create poster design and in fact, you can do everything with Adobe Photoshop.
Adobe InDesign is typesetting and publishing software and graphic designers use InDesign to design posters, flyers, brochures, magazines, newspapers, presentations, books, and ebooks, and it’s the perfect graphic design software for Editorial and Print Design.
Adobe After Effects is the perfect graphic design software to create, composite, and stylize animations in 2D and 3D, and it’s the perfect program to create effects and animations for video, and you can use it to create Video Effects, Animations, and Motion Graphics.
Adobe XD is the Adobe Suite Software for UX / UI Design, that helps you designing a website, mobile apps, and more, and with Adobe XD you can design, prototype, and share your project with your client or partners, and this program is used by many User Interface Designers and Web Designers.
Now that we saw what is graphic design, its types, how to make money as a graphic designer, and the best Programmes and you are interested in learning graphic design, here I will show you different ways you can learn graphic design.
The first option is to study Graphic Design in college and get a graphic design degree, and this option is great because you will have professional graphic design teachers and you will have a direct conversation with them, and they will help you studying Graphic Design.
Here all some of the best graphic design colleges in the world
When we are talking about studying graphic design online, there are two possibilities, the first one is Studying an Online Graphic Design Degree in college, that as the previous option you will have a degree of graphic design, but you can study it from your home and the other option is Graphic Design Courses, the good thing about online courses is that you can choose a huge option for them, and they are faster.
If you want to study Graphic Design from home nowadays there are plenty of options to do it, one great way to learn graphic design online is by taking online courses, there free and paid ones, with great quality that will help you improve your Graphic design skills, you can find these courses on sites like uDemy, Domestika, Skillshare or Coursera.
Many people interested in Learn Graphic Design ask this question, can be Graphic Design be self-taught?, and the answer is yes, I always say that the important thing is the knowledge and nowhere you get it, and to study graphic design by your own you will need to have passion for design, because the best way to learn it is by practicing everyday an trying to experiment with all design tools that exist, and of course there are plenty of online courses to learn graphic design and if you search in YouTube you will find everything you will need.
It is possible to learn Graphic Design for free, you can find Free Courses on the three platforms that I show you before and there are plenty of YouTube videos and guides to learn graphic design for free and of course you can read the articles and guides I make on this blog that will be very useful to learn graphic design.
Advertisment
Hope you find this article useful and make you more clear what is graphic design and the different types of design areas, and the topic of this post know how to learn graphic design, choose the most suited option for you and start learning Graphic Design!, and if you want to learn more about it you can check my articles and guides on this blog.
If you found this post useful you might like to read these post about Graphic Design Inspiration.
Advertisment
Written by
If you like this post share it on your social media!
Advertisment
Advertisment
