- Hey everybody.
This is Roberto Blake of robertoblake.com,
helping you create something awesome today.
So today I’m gonna talk about five things
that you should avoid
in terms of mistakes as a graphic designer.
We’re not gonna talk about typos.
We’re not gonna talk about, you know, print mistakes.
We’re actually gonna talk about some things
that might be soul crushing to your career
that you really need to avoid.
So let’s go ahead and jump right into it.
Number one.
Not choosing a career path.
You need to have a clear career path as a graphic designer.
You need to know what you want to do
and where you want to go.
You want to know what you’re gonna be doing
in five years from the start of your career.
You want to know what you’re doing
10 years from now, 20 years from now.
What does retirement look like?
You should look backwards from the end of your career
at what you want to have accomplished
and you should be working backwards down that list
to know what the gap is between today and then.
So I need you to really focus
on what your career path needs to be,
what you want to accomplish,
what you want your titles to be,
what you want your body of work to look like.
You need to know all of those things going into your career.
Number two.
Caring what other people think about you,
let alone other designers.
Look, if there’s graphic designer that’s taking the time
to tear you down or to bash your work,
and I’m not talking about constructive criticism.
Another video coming on that.
Constructive criticism is accurate, actionable advice.
Triple A: accurate, actionable advice.
Write that down.
When somebody is criticizing your work,
you need to consider the source.
As another graphic designer,
they might actually be qualified
to say something about your work.
The odds are, they don’t have
good intentions when they’re doing it.
So you need to really consider that
because this other graphic designer
isn’t writing you a check.
At the end of the day, that’s what matters.
What your client thinks.
What your employer thinks.
That matters.
The marketplace decides what’s good.
As graphic designers, some of us want to be tsars of taste,
and that’s really pretentious.
People have accused me of being pretentious.
I’m like, I’m not sitting here being a tsar of taste,
telling the people what’s good
and what’s bad in terms of design.
I’m not paying for it, so it’s like,
what does my opinion really matter?
I mean, you know, whatever.
If you want my opinion on your work, cool.
But it’s like, at the end of the day,
if your client’s happy,
and they’re gonna refer new business to you,
if they’re gonna write you a check for $2,000,
if they’re going to hire you again, that matters.
What another designer thinks,
what a design professor somewhere thinks,
none of that stuff is important if the client is happy,
or if your employer is happy
and wants to keep you in your job,
give you a raise, talk you up around the water cooler.
That matters.
What other designers think?
Stop worrying about it.
Me? I just delete those comments anyway.
Number three.
Graphic designers make a huge mistake sometimes
of not learning new skills,
and by that I don’t mean learning a new tool.
I don’t even mean, like for you print designers,
I'm not even talking about learning web design.
I'm talking about learning some new, even very basic skills,
and I'm talking about things like understanding
the nuance of marketing or promoting themselves.
I'm talking about wanting to learn new tools.
There are so many graphic designers
who still are killing their wrist
doing things like masking with a mouse,
instead of using a drawing tablet
because they didn't wanna learn something new.
And you know, that's a problem
because you need a fluid mind for creativity.
You need to adapt to the marketplace in your skills
or you'll get left behind and you'll be marginalized.
So learning new skills, learning new tech.
There are graphic designers I know
who refuse to move away from
old software like Photoshop, CS6 to CC,
just cuz they don't wanna learn one or two new things,
or for whatever other reasons they have
that they're hung up about it.
You have to be willing to go in the direction
that your profession is heading.
And if you can't pivot and you can't do that,
you're going to get hurt by it.
Just like so many of my friends in photography
that were older and didn't move over to digital from film.
Devastating for them.
Do not be that person when it comes to design.
Tip number four.
Too many graphic designers avoid learning about business.
It is a mistake.
It is probably the most devastating mistake
that you can make as a designer
is to not learn about business.
Even if you're gonna be an in-house designer,
not understanding business
means that you're not empathizing with your employer.
It means that you don't understand
what their concerns are
and why they're dictating certain things to you.
You're thinking as a designer, and you're thinking about
the execution of the artwork, and the visual aesthetic,
and you're not understanding
that that's irrelevant if they can't use that
and leverage it to make their sales goals happen.
Cuz that's what's important to a business person.
So you need to learn about those things.
You need to learn the lingo and the jargon of business
so that they're not talking over your head,
or so you're not tuning them out
cuz you will miss something important.
And this gonna help you especially if you're a freelancer,
because you'll be able to really understand
how you help service your clients
and what this means to them.
It'll also help you charge appropriately.
And number five.
The biggest mistake that graphic designers make,
beyond the last one that I just talked about,
is not enjoying their work.
You need to put yourself in a position
where you really still love and enjoy
what you're doing and that you are in love with it.
If you are not in love with your work,
it's going to be a struggle for you.
So please, find a way to enjoy your work again.
Do personal projects on the weekends.
Read books about design.
Look at design inspiration in Instagram.
Follow my Instagram (mumbles) and get some motivation
to pump you up and get you excited about this thing again.
Fall back in love with design.
I beg of you, because if you don't,
things are gonna be very hard for you.
You're gonna struggle, you might get depressed.
I know that's something that happened to me,
until I found a way to fall back in love with this thing,
and in a lot of ways, I feel it saved it me.
So please, find a way to enjoy your work.
That might mean transitioning to another company
and a better corporate culture.
It might mean going off on your own.
Whatever that is, make a plan for it,
and try to make it happen as soon as you can,
so you can get back to enjoying what you're doing
and what you're spending your time on.
Please, please do this.
Anyway, I hope you guys enjoyed this video
on my five top mistakes that graphic designers are making.
I really kind of feel like this was a video I needed to do,
and needed to put out there to help as many of you as I can.
If you still have questions,
definitely let me know in the comment section
what you're struggling with right now,
and let me know what mistakes
you see graphic designers making so we can talk about it.
It might make it into an upcoming video that I'm doing.
Anyway, like this video if you like it.
Don't forget to subscribe.
Check out the other awesome content on the channel.
As always, you guys, thanks so much for watching,
and don't forget: create something awesome today.