Hi everyone this is Anne with Graphic Design How To, and today I'm going to tell you about
five mistakes or bad habits that graphic designers should avoid.
And these are things that I've seen other graphic designers doing....but I am also guilty
of doing them myself at some point in my career!
Not all of them but a lot of them.
So alright, let's get started.
#1: The first mistake I see graphic designers doing sometimes is talking about freelance
or WORKING on freelance at work even during a lunch break or something like that.
And this is something I just never do and I really recommend not doing this too.
Everyone loves having freelance clients.
It's exciting for us.
And so we tend to want to talk about it a lot.
Here's why you should not talk about your freelance clients at your full time job.
I actually treat it as like a big secret that I even have freelance clients there, because
your full time job - the people who work there, and especially the higher ups - they want
to know that you're 100% committed to their goals at their company, and that you don't
have anything taking away your attention from, you know, the company's goal.
So it's just best if you don't mention other employers.
It makes sense.
Of course, if they ask you, if you have freelance clients, it's totally okay to say, "Oh, yeah,
I have a few clients."
I mean, don't lie about it or anything.
And of course, absolutely do NOT work on freelance projects while you're at work.
And this includes your lunch break, if you're sitting at your desk for lunch.
So if you leave the company and go somewhere else for lunch, of course, feel free to work
on your freelance projects.
But at work, leave the freelance at home.
#2: The second mistake I see some graphic designers doing is badmouthing clients, and
this is something you should just absolutely not do...especially in writing!
So for email communications, whether they're internal or external, do not badmouth, the
clients.
Always write as if the client can see what you wrote.
Account managers are the middleman between you and the client, so they understand difficult
clients.
So sometimes you might want to vent to them.
But if you complain to your account manager in an email, they might end up accidentally
forwarding that or doing like a 'reply all' to a client.
And that's something that could potentially get you fired.
So just steer clear of badmouthing the clients and pretend that everything you send to anyone
could be read by the client eventually.
#3: The third thing is file naming and organization.
One of our huge challenges as graphic designers is coming up with a good way to name files
and organize them on a server.
And actually a couple weeks ago, I just made a video about this very subject - a good way
to name your file, so you can check it out.
I'll leave the link in the description below.
So anyway, in my opinion, filenames need to be consistent and searchable.
In my opinion, they should include the client name, the title of the piece, and then a version
number.
That way as a file gets misplaced, it's easy to find just by searching.
If your files are always a mess, and no one can find them on the server, that's going
to reflect badly on you.
And that's not a good thing.
#4: The fourth mistake is not reading the entire creative brief.
Creative briefs are really important.
They're written by someone who generally knows the client very, very well.
And they know the challenges that their client is having.
This is probably going to be somebody like an account manager, so they talk to the client
every day (maybe).
They know who the clients target audience is and a lot of those other types of things.
A creative brief is sort of like a map that defines a problem and helps to lead the team-the
creative team-to a solution.
They sometimes include things like, client competitors, target audience, as I said, and
client preferences.
And a lot of times, if you've worked with that client before, you might already know
a lot of what's in the creative brief, so you might be tempted to just skip past all
that information.
But here's the problem.
If you do your whole project without really paying attention to the brief, there's going
to be a pretty good chance that you'll miss something.
And when you do, your creative director will probably ask you "Why didn't you include this
thing that's in the brief?" and you'll have to explain why it's not in there.
Over time.
If you keep doing this, your team is going to lose patience with you, and that's not
good.
#5: The fifth mistake is getting complacent.
A lot of designers that have 15 to 20 years experience start thinking "Oh, well, I'm a
master at this and I don't need to learn anything new."
And that is a huge mistake.
We always need to learn new skills as designers.
When I started out in college, web skills weren't required.
We had classes for them, but it wasn't a requirement--that was for web designers.
And also, video skills weren't even really a thing yet.
We had film classes and stuff like that, but YouTube wasn't part of the scene like it is
today.
But now, you'll notice that if you're applying for graphic design jobs, those two things
are in nearly every design listing.
So it makes sense to get those skills.
And it's actually one of the reasons that I started this YouTube channel.
I wanted to get video skill under my belt, and I thought, well, at least if no one watches
my videos, I'll still have known how to use Adobe Premiere Pro.
So always be on the lookout for a new skill you can pick up.
It'll help you across the board in your current position, and also in future positions, if
you're looking for a new job.
Bonus!!
Now I'm throwing this one in as an extra because it's something that everybody knows, but not
everyone does this and it's double checking your work.
Everyone makes mistakes.
And of course, it's going to happen a few times here and there.
But you'll catch 90% of your own mistakes before hand off if you'll just double check
your work.
Set yourself a goal that no mistakes are going to pass by your desk and get to the next person
in line.
I try to do this with every project I get.
And if I do let a mistake slip by, I will go to that next person and expressly apologize
for that, because it takes time out of their day, and it's a little bit annoying to have
to send it back every single time to a graphic designer.
And in the end, it ends up costing the company money.
If you're always getting your work handed back to you because of mistakes, you're going
to drive someone crazy, and that person just might be your boss.
That's not good.
All right, that's my video for this week.
If you liked it, please click on the like button.
And I'll see you next week with another graphic design video.
Thank you!!!