Hey everyone! I have put together the steps for you to learn graphic design from home
by yourself so you can start your own design business! This is based on my own design school
curriculum (I went to Art Center in LA) and different principles that really helped me
to gain confidence as a designer.
Make sure you do subscribe to my channel if you are not already to get weekly tips on
graphic design and growing your own design business.
The first step in learning graphic design is you must understand what design is. It’s
super tempting to just jump to the programs, but that’s like jumping to driving a car
without even knowing what a car is. In art school when I took basic design, I did it
all without the computer using paint, markers and pencils. This took away the complication
of the computer and allowed me to really understand what each design principle meant. There are
those that want to be designers and think that because they own Photoshop and can put
type on a page, that makes them a designer, but the thing is that design itself is an
underlying technology that starts away from the computer.
Do you feel compelled to jump into the computer first? Let me know in the chat.
Design means to designate or put items on a page where they will look the most pleasing
and draw the attention of their ideal viewer. It’s not just about a computer program.
So what I would say to do is to go through each of the fundamentals, taking one subject
at a time, really studying them and learning about them BEFORE EVER hitting the computer.
Study first about composition. This is the overarching layout of what goes where on a
page and the principles of why things look better when placed applying the rule of thirds,
using white space, aligning to a common rule and using bigger and smaller items to make
the composition more attractive and many more basic concepts. Sketch this out on a piece
of paper using rough blocks of rectangles and lines of type, just to get the concepts
down, then move onto typography, understanding when to use serif fonts and when to use sans
serif fonts. Understand what fonts look good together and why you should try to stick with
no more than 2 fonts in a composition. Go look through signs and billboards, ads and
books and start to notice how many fonts are being used and why they are placed specific
ways. You can check out my Typography video to understand this subject a bit more. And
then you want to understand the basics of colors. Why certain colors are chosen for
certain moods. How to make pleasing designs that don’t have too many colors, but that
follow color palettes and how you can draw these colors from nature to create some beautifully
pleasing designs. You should also note how colors help you to draw the eye through a
design and tell the reader what to read first, second and so on. For color theory in school,
I used only paint and this helped to get a really deep sense of how to make color harmony.
I am going to link to some great books on each of these subjects below as well as some
of my own videos on the subjects so that you can really get a good understanding of each.
After you have immersed yourself and spent a good few weeks on each of these subjects,
I would then allow you to go onto the computer programs to help put your design understanding
to practical use. I feel that computers have become both a Godsend and a curse because
they blind people from learning the true art of design itself, thinking of them as just
another tool such as a paintbrush or a canvas.
My favorite programs are the Adobe Creative Cloud programs and the main ones that I focus
on are Photoshop, InDesign and Illustrator. Photoshop was created for photographers and
has a lot of darkroom terminology throughout the program all to help make photos the best
they can be. It has expanded to be an amazing tool for creating matte paintings, incredible
illustrations and compositions, almost being a painter’s canvas. I often see designers
make the mistake of doing layout there which I feel is SO much easier in Adobe InDesign.
When you are creating anything for print that deals with type, it is best to create it in
InDesign as the type will print much crisper this way. InDesign has the capability to bring
type and images into a document and can really be used to create anything from flyers, posters,
banners, bookcovers, books, package design, magazines, catalogs, e-mail design and presentations.
And then Illustrator is the ideal program for creating logo designs. When I first started
I used to use Photoshop for logos, but the problem with this is that Photoshop is raster
based, meaning that the files are built at a fixed size. When you try to make the files
bigger, they will appear blurry or not as sharp. When you work in Illustrator is what
is called vector based, which means it is based on lines that allow you to scale it
as large as you want without losing any data or getting blurry. This is vital for when
you are creating logos as often times companies will want to print their logos very large
or have them very small. You will be harming the company if you don’t create logos in
vector format.
Now I suggest doing tons and tons of practice projects. And try all different types of graphic
design. Go onto Pinterest and find a logo design you love and duplicate this in Illustrator
until you have figured out how it was created, do this over and over with many logo designs
until you have dissected how each was created. Then go onto flyer design and duplicate designs
you love until you have mastered them. Always look back at the fundamentals of design that
learned in step 1 to see which of them apply and how the designer used these fundamentals
to create an aesthetic and professional design. You should try all sorts of different type
of design: packaging, print, business cards, book covers, this is the time to DABBLE and
see what you enjoy working on the most. You can spend weeks and weeks just practicing
over and over.
And from there you want to then create your own practice projects. Do pretend projects
for real or pretend companies. Always look at designs you like for inspiration. I have
heard people ask if this is a bad thing to do as then nothing is original, but that is
not about copying, it is about keeping your standards high and to the level you want them
to be at. At this point it is all about quantity of practicing. The more time you put in, the
faster you will become more professional.
You will probably get a good sense now of what type of design you like to work on. You
should then focus even deeper into that type of design. Let’s say you start to have a
love for logo design. You should then study this inside and out. Read books, watch tutorials,
do courses, learn everything you possibly can about the specific type of design you
want to focus on.
You then want to choose the type of industry you love to design for. Is it corporate logos?
Is it book cover design? Is it website design for ecommerce stores? Choose one and go find
online communities where this type of client interacts and start interacting with them.
See what help they need and how your design services can fill a void for them in their
businesses. Don’t go in and be spammy. Comment helpful tips and start to build relationships.
I would take advantage of my free guide to help you understand how to get clients at
the link below, which will help you to grow your design business when you are ready to
do so.
This will take discipline to make yourself follow the steps one by one and master each
before going onto the next. And while all of these steps won’t get you a college degree,
they will allow you to get to the point of professionalism with enough practice over
and over.
Make sure you don’t forget to subscribe so you can get more helpful tips and tools
to become a designer and grow your own design business with consistent clients and stable
income.
I will see you next time!
To learn more about the subject of graphic design, check out these videos here.