In this video, I want to give beginners
some solid advice in graphic design and creativity in general.
I'm Wolf Housing.
I'm a graphic designer and have been for over a decade, and during that time
I have been designing logos for hundreds of companies of design
for things like Adobe Design, things for Instagram.
Scroll about. And I've branded a lot of people, too.
I've learned a lot since being a beginner, and I want to give you the advice
I wish I got when I first started out over ten years ago.
Number one, clients like your skills, but they like your problem solving better.
You've got to talk the talk and walk the walk.
A lot of people get into graphic design thinking it's more of an artist
profession, that it's very creative and to some extent
some graphic design is more artistic, like poster design typographic.
It depends on the function after.
And then there's a few of us who get into the industry
and realize that it's very business centered.
It's actually quite problems solving centered.
Know your boss, your clients, they love your skills.
They love that you know how to use the program
and know what to do, which is basically a carbon copy of someone else.
But they like your problem solving ability even better.
This is where you get clients from.
This is how you maintain your reputation as a designer.
How do you solve the problem of designing a logo or rebranding
a company to make them look more modern in this age?
Say you're working for a solicitors firm that don't want to look too serious.
I don't know who would want that, but that's the problem.
And you need to solve that in a way that makes sense to them and to their clients.
Your creative work, if it's done on a professional level
and it's not about selling esthetic things like art
is more to do with problem solving.
So keep that in the forefront of your mind.
It's not just your creative ability, it's how you solve problems.
Number two, it's okay to be terrible at some things.
I know it sounds weird.
We all want to be very good at everything we do, but that's not reality.
The more I've been in the industry, the more I realize how bad I am at.
And they lay out is not my forte.
In fact, logo type design is what I do best.
That is what I'm most known for.
That's probably why you come to this channel.
I use my strengths.
I try to strengthen my weaknesses.
Everyone has one and that's absolutely fine.
The faster
that you identify your weaknesses, the more you can actually grow in them.
If that's something you want to do.
We live in a world where we should always
be in a constant improvement and that can be quite toxic.
You know, we've got self development culture.
You know, there's toxic self-help, which isn't good sometimes.
It's nice to just enjoy what you do and be okay in your weaknesses in work.
And for me, I'm more than happy in my weaknesses.
It gives me something to focus on
if I do want to get better at it so that we worried about your weaknesses.
Number three soak in information as inspiration.
Your graphic design that you must have all these fancy posters in your office.
You've got to have things
in a certain way, and you only look at graphic design books.
You only see images, and that's it.
Well, that is quite normal, and that's why I'm saying not to do that.
If all you're taking in is other graphic design as well, then
all you'll put out on the output is similar work.
If you want it to differentiate yourself, if you want to be different,
which I think we all do secretly want to be different.
Good.
It's important to take inspiration from elsewhere.
For me, I love music. I play guitar.
I've recently bought a seven string.
I have it as headless, which is great for prog metal.
To a lot of people.
It would be weird if I said that I take a lot of inspiration from design in that
from playing the guitar, but to me it makes a lot of sense.
I love the fact that there's a lot of contrast
in prog metal from the lows, the seventh string and the highs.
To me, this just gives me some inspiration for my actual design work for you,
it could be that you love reading certain stories
and the way that you tell stories to clients or the way
that you want people to perceive your work is in a similar way.
It might not make sense to other people,
but soak in any information that you get as inspiration.
The next piece of advice is attach to the last one,
which is always carry a sketchbook.
I appear to be lying about that one today,
about the always but as much as possible be carrying a sketchbook.
Normally I have this tiny field notebook.
It's dark grid and I take this pencil with me everywhere.
I go.
This is the rotating 800 half millimeter.
It's a retractable mechanical pencil.
And the reason why
I carry these around with me all the time, or as much as possible
when I see a shape or when I see something or an idea strikes,
I don't leave it in my head. I've had this.
I've trained myself to really sketch it down
and it's more of a discipline than something I do instinctually.
Writing an idea down or a sketch or a doodle of something
that's just popped in your mind, just freeze it from you.
Having to try and remember it.
It also helps
you double it down in your mind and to see whether the idea could work.
Carrying this sketchbook allows me to, when I'm walking or when I'm at home
of between the office and home to see whether an idea will work.
I've always got a place to formulate shapes for logos,
compositions for lettering, or even just video ideas.
Sometimes I just use my phone on a notes app.
It's the same thing.
But if you're a draw, someone who wants to be better
at logo designs, don't just stick to the computer.
Get yourself a sketchbook, one
that you can carry with you everywhere and you'll be shocked.
Don't show the sketch pretending, but you'll be shocked at the output
that you get from having a cool sketchbook that you can just take with you.
The next piece of advice I'll give to any creative beginner
is to find something or find a thing that isn't your thing.
Now, recently I saw a video of Peter McKinnon, who is a guy
that has inspired me for many years, ever since the dawn of his channel.
All to do with videography.
Recently, he said something about finding a thing that isn't your thing.
So graphic design logos is my thing.
That's what you guys see from me.
But I like a lot of other things and I like team.
I like to make content on them.
So I love playing guitars, you know, That's sort of my other thing.
It's so easy as creative professionals to be just stuck on one thing and hyper
fixated, hyperfocus on, you know, doing being the best local design,
being the best artist, being the best musician.
Whatever you do
creatively, find something else that isn't the thing that you're known for.
That's where the inspiration can strike.
But also it just keeps you sane.
When I'm not working and I'm at home, I just like to jam out
to some random music.
For me, it sort of plays my mind.
It gives me something else to focus on which refreshes one side.
It's kind of like turning one engine off and turning one on.
Or in music terms, it's kind of like switching the oscillator around.
So maybe you're a graphic designer, but you love rock climbing,
maybe you love painting, maybe you love writing.
Do those things.
Don't let your thing be the only thing that you do.
You'll miss out on so much Inspiration.
The next piece of advice is you are as good as you think.
You're beginning your new.
It's okay to not be good.
I can guarantee you that as a beginner, when you grow
and become more expert, you won't feel like it.
And when you do, there's a problem because you stopped learning.
I think it's a natural response to always be questioning your work.
And I think that's a healthy there's a healthy middle ground of that,
of understanding what your weaknesses and strengths are,
but also of wanting to be better.
So having the idea of, you know, you're not as good as you think
or you're not as good as you could be, is a great piece of advice to me
when I was younger because it really helped solidify
and to validate the fact that everyone probably feels like this at some point.
But then I realize everyone feels it all the time.
There's even now a lot of people look at what I do and say,
Oh, if I could get to his level, I'll be fine.
But then I'm still sat here looking at other people online, other good designers.
I'm fine.
Just thinking if I could just get to that level.
It's a never ending spiral.
I think comparison within that is completely normal,
but we need to sort of take that and kind of embrace it in a way
and understand that we're always looking at other people as better.
And the best way to mark your progress is to compare yourself
with not someone else, but with yourself from last year.
Are you constantly improving in small marginal ways
and saying that another piece of advice is failing is good?
Or if you want a better title, failing is part of the process.
I used to do this talk a lot when I was doing a lot of public speaking years ago
and it was called Failed to Success.
I talked about how my whole job and everything I do now is from constantly
failing.
So even now, when we posted video and it doesn't do really well,
it's another thing that I'm learning from.
I failed, but I keep going until something succeeds.
The same is for every aspect of my job.
Every time I'm designing a logo, I will draw 100 terrible ideas
until I get to one.
Maybe an exaggeration, but you get the point.
Don't be afraid of failing as a beginner.
Being in that beginning stage failing
might feel frustrating because you want to give up.
Now I'm not going to tell you not to give up
and I'm not going to tell you to keep going.
That's something you need to decide.
But failure is 100% guaranteed when starting out.
And if I could go back now and think about the times
I failed in my work, knowing what I know now
because I just kept going until I succeeded in that project.
I'm not real.
I would just like again, validate it.
That failing is completely normal.
It's part of the process.
It's something that everyone does, So get over it.
And the last piece of advice for any graphic designer or creative
professional is to love the process as much as the goal.
There's an amazing book that I've read called Atomic Habits,
and I would suggest anyone else to read it,
especially if you work for yourself or you have high dreams and aspirations.
Essentially the goals that you have need to be brought to fruition through system
and you need to focus on the system to getting you there,
the things that you've got to do every day to get to that goal.
A good analogy would be if you were into get, you know,
absolutely start muscled and that is your goal to get started.
Well, how do you get that?
Well, every day you've got to go to the gym,
you've got to exercise, you've got to look after your diet.
If you have the goal of getting started, but you don't love the process
or have this innate desire to go through that process,
then you're going to struggle to achieve that goal.
So to get that, you've
got to love the fact that you look after your diet, that you go into the gym,
that you're every day pumping some weights.
And the same is for your goals at work or your goals in creativity.
Instead of focusing purely on the goals, focus on the system
behind the goals of how you get there and make sure that you're
intentionally achieving those systems and reward yourself for it.
As someone told me that when I was younger,
I would have loved that because the system
I didn't know if I was just living it too much.
But I attribute a lot of what I do now and the successes that I've had,
however small, from just completing those systems
and going through them and loving them at the same time.
I hope you guys enjoyed this strange different video.
I just want to encourage any beginner graphic designers out there
because it is a strange world that we live in.
There's more designers than ever before that are competing with each other.
So how do we go about this?
If you enjoyed this video, then you'll definitely enjoy this other one,
which teaches you how to unleash your creative potential.
I did this one about half year ago and it's one that I think will help you
as a beginner out.
Make sure to hit the subscribe and leave like in a comment
and I'll catch you in the next video season. Goodbye.