Can I Learn Graphic Design Online for FREE?

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Can I learn Graphic Design Online for Free?

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Self-study graphic design: 8 tips and tricks for beginners

Who does not remember the doodles that we painted in our exercise-books at school? Hand-painted bubble letters, pictograms and stick figures adorned homework, tests, and presentations, which of course made the teachers crazy.

In this way, one or the other might find out that drawing was not his forte. After all, there weren't many digital options for converting ideas into drawings. Nowadays, a variety of devices help us to do this, and many have made graphic design a profession.

Knowledge of graphic design can be very useful for marketers, even if they are not acquired through appropriate training. Much of this can be learned through self-study. It is often recommended to learn how to use Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign or to read a book on the basics of graphic design. While these recommendations are helpful, they don't help you find the right mix when it comes to learning the basics, trying new tools, and developing your own style.

For this reason, we have compiled a list of tips and tricks to help you get started in the graphic design adventure.

8 tips for getting started with graphic design:

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1. Always keep up with the times

Of course, marketers know that you can learn a lot from influencers. After all, 49% of consumers trust the advice of people they know to choose a product or service. In the digital age, this also includes the so-called influencers.

According to NeoReach, influencers are people with an online nearness who impact the conclusion and conduct of their objective gathering. Influencers frequently uncover their privileged insights of achievement in their substance. So if you listen carefully to these people and seek dialogue with them, you will quickly get to know the online design world better. You will also receive even more tips from other industry experts, familiarize yourself with the relevant terminology, and keep an eye on all trends.

You can contact these influencers via Twitter or Instagram. You will be surprised who answers all your questions. Any positive contact can assist you in getting familiar with the structure. If you follow the interactions and get actively involved, you will naturally become part of the design community that can support you in your development.

What is the next step?

Create a targeted list of influential designers on Twitter whose daily posts you want to follow without having to laboriously filter the tweets out of the numerous tweets from friends, colleagues, and news sources. HubSpot's social monitoring tool allows you to follow the accounts in your list, especially discussions about topics that are relevant to you.

Your list should contain a good mix of different influencers - designers known in the industry, people who inspire you, and designers whose work you don't like. The latter may seem illogical, but if you follow the work of these designers, you can find out why you don't like it. This is a basic requirement to acquire a good understanding of design.

The work of a designer is presented every day on the 365 Awesome Designers website. This way you can easily find designers you want to follow.

2. Collect inspirational works

If you want to learn the craft of graphic design, you should first compile a catalog of works and designs that you think have worked. To do this, you can simply save pictures as bookmarks in your web browser, create a board on Pinterest, or save pictures in a folder on your computer. As with the list of influencers, you can use this inspiration catalog to identify both past and current design trends and identify certain patterns in the work of other designers. You can also get to know your personal style preferences and interests. For example, if you find that you are particularly interested in infographics, you can search for targeted resources that explain how infographics are created.

Your catalog can also serve as a valuable source of inspiration for future own projects. The concept that all creative work is based on existing work is also taken up by Austin Kleon in his TEDx speech. The works in your inventory can fill in as a source of perspective and structure an incredible beginning stage for your own ventures.

What is the next step?

Check out websites with portfolios of leading designers like Dribbble and Behance. A variety of high-quality works by leading designers across the entire spectrum are shown on these platforms, from web and UX designers to graphic designers and typographers. The designers on these websites often also provide an insight into their design process. From this, you can draw valuable insights for your own creations.

It may not be easy to find time to look at these websites in addition to your normal work. With the "Panda" app, this can be easily integrated into the working day. The "New Tab" option is replaced by a stream of content from various sources, including dribble. Every time you open a new tab, you can collect new ideas and save the designs that catch your eye. However, it must be said that such an application can also be very distracting.

3. Analyze the process

Understanding that each delineation, infographic, and the image is crafted by a fashioner who knows precisely how to join shapes and lines can be of extraordinary assistance to your learning procedure. This is not to say that other factors don't matter (networks in Illustrator, for example, pose a very special challenge). However, the basis for many designs is very simple shapes.

If you analyze the design process, you will understand which steps are necessary for a design project. Depending on your current level of knowledge, you may already be able to see which tools were used or which element was created first. Nevertheless, it is important that you examine the structure of different designs in more detail and train your creative skills. You will probably make the following statements:

You know more than you think.

If you discover gaps in your knowledge, you will know which techniques or concepts you need to deal with in order to close them.

A certain result can be achieved in different ways.

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What is the next step?

To speed up the learning process when analyzing a design, you can download a free vector or PSD design resource to examine each level to find out how the designer built the object. You can find some of these files here.

Open the file you want in Photoshop, go to the Layers window (you'll find instructions here), and expand some of the folders to see the layers it contains.

If you only change the visibility of the layers, you can see how the designer placed the individual shapes on top of each other. You can also find out how Photoshop effects were used, such as B. Drop shadows and brush strokes.

4. Specify your online search queries

When you start working on your own design projects, you will probably come to a point at which you no longer know what to do. Others are likely to have faced the same difficulties, and self-taught people across the board often use YouTube as a learning tool.

It is crucial that you carry out very specific searches to find a tutorial that is as relevant to you as possible. With the search term "create icons" you will probably get a very broad spectrum of search results. Instead, enter exactly what you want to learn, e.g. B. "Create flat icon with long shadow" or a search term in English to get even more results.

What is the next step?

Use a glossary of design terms to find the specific term for the technique you want to learn. This makes it easier to find what you're looking for online. You will also familiarize yourself with the related technical language.

5. Copy a design or a concrete picture that you particularly like

To say one thing in advance: Under no circumstances should you violate the copyright of the protected work of another designer. You may not reproduce someone else's work and present it as your own work.

You can, therefore, replicate a design, as long as you don't spend it as your own. By replicating a design work, you can get to know different design techniques better. As with analyzing a design, you will learn new technical skills that you can use in your own design projects.

You may need to be creative when choosing the method you use to emulate the design. Don't be discouraged if you can't exactly replicate a design - remember that the process is more important than the result.

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What is the next step?

Find a design piece that you think has succeeded, which shouldn't be too difficult if you've created an inspiration catalog. Recreate this design with your favorite software, whether it's Photoshop, Illustrator, or other software. How you can it's up to you. Use specific searches and leverage your relationships in the design community.

6. Use negative space

Beginners, as well as more experienced designers, often forget how important the correct use of negative space is. What is the wrong space (also "space free" or "space white")? This is the space in your design where there is neither a visual element nor text. Design work in which there is not enough negative space is like a sentence without spaces - it is really difficult to understand.

Jan Tschichold, one of the most influential typographers of all, emphasizes the importance of leaving the design elements in their place: "Whitespace must be understood as an active element, not as a detached foundation." The effective utilization of negative space is similarly as significant as the structure itself: it is scientifically proven that negative space improves readability and understanding.

What is the next step?

Of course, you don't learn overnight how to use negative space efficiently. You have to try different ways to find out what works for each design. First of all, it's a good idea to read some of the articles on this list, compiled by David Kadavy, author of Design for Hackers: Reverse Engineering Beauty. After that, you can try to put some of these theories into practice.

Please note that there is no binding rule for the use of negative space. It takes practice. Resize the elements in your design and play with the layout. You will find that these exercises give you a natural sense of how much white space your design takes.