Why Learn Graphic Design?

Graphic design is the art of creating visual designs that seek to communicate and persuade. This includes designing logos, posters, product packaging, branded material, and anything else that intends to catch a viewer’s eye and make them feel a certain way. Have you ever explored all of the things Graphic Design can do? [Almost all industries will employ Graphic Designers to help companies and organizations build the iconography they will use to separate themselves from other companies and firms. Advertising agencies, political campaigns, project start-ups, non-profits, and a whole suite of other fields use graphic design talent. In addition, learning graphic design skills is a great way for artists and other creatives to expand their tool kit, and professionals in other fields may find that learning graphic design can help them in their career paths.Here, you’ll learn more about the careers that benefit from Graphic Design and how it can enhance your professional life. Regardless of your goals, learning Graphic Design is a valuable and impressive skill to add to your resume.

What is Graphic Design?

Graphic design is a field of creative arts that focuses on projecting visual communication, often built of combinations of text, images, photographs, and other visual elements, with specific goals. Graphic design covers a wide array of different artistic disciplines and endeavors. Still, at its core, it is the act of using visual imagery to communicate with audiences and convey feelings and ideas that language alone wouldn’t be able to express. As a subset of the fine arts, graphic design skills are used in virtually every industry, but they are particularly prominent in advertising and branding. Advertisements, product packaging, logos, branded merchandise, and other promotional materials all demonstrate graphic design skills. Any business or organization looking to reach an audience will want to hire those skilled in graphic design.

Since graphic design covers a wide range of artistic disciplines, no two Graphic Designers will be working with the same toolset or on the same kinds of projects. Some will work in traditional print mediums, such as the publishing or magazine industry. Some will work on designing logos and branded merchandise for companies to place on billboards, hats, and other promotional materials. Some will work on digital projects, building webpages and mobile application assets. Others will design infographics, posters, and signage for activist organizations or non-profits. Graphic design is a wide-open field of diverse artistic endeavors, and learning graphic design skills will open many doors for creatives.

Read more about what graphic design is and why you should learn it.

What Can You Do with Graphic Design?

Graphic design represents a wide-ranging field of visual expression, which means there is virtually no limit to the kinds of images that sufficiently skilled creatives can create. As the field of graphic design is so expensive, creatives can make use of their skills in both professional and personal contexts. As professional Graphic Designers, creatives will be tasked with building imagery that is both evocative and communicates complex persuasive ideas to their audience of consumers. Graphic Designers will build the iconography of companies and brands, build the images that audiences come to associate with those companies, and help construct memorable advertising campaigns, promotional material, and product packaging.

Graphic design skills are also useful for non-professionals who want to persuade large audiences. Small business owners, start-up entrepreneurs, or even creatives working in marketplaces like Etsy may wish to learn more about graphic design to build their brand identities and set themselves apart from their competitors. Activists and organizers can learn graphic design skills to build more visually appealing and persuasive designs for flyers and infographics. Politicians will hire graphic designers to build campaign materials. As long as someone is attempting to communicate visually to an audience, they will benefit from either learning graphic design skills or working closely alongside someone who knows them.

Common Professional Uses for Graphic Design

Since it is such an expansive creative skill, graphic design training can help students find jobs in various professions and industries. From advertising to political campaigning to activisim to social media management, graphic design skills are useful for any profession that asks professionals to try and build materials to persuade an audience. A few of the most common graphic design careers include:

Graphic Designers: Graphic Designers are responsible for designing the materials companies and organizations use to communicate their message and persuade their audiences. This can be as simple as designing a logo for a company or as complex as designing an entire marketing campaign’s worth of promotional material for the release of a new product. Graphic Designers will mostly work with two-dimensional, static print material, like posters, flyers, promotional merchandise, and swag. They will need to know how to use graphic design tools and compose and build evocative and effective designs.

Digital Designers: Digital Designers take the skills of Graphic Designers and specialize in producing designs for digital products, such as webpages, mobile applications, or even video games, films, and television. Some of these designers will learn how to build motion graphics animations, while others will work strictly in the realm of static digital designs. These designers are employed in nearly every industry, as building a strong web presence has become essential to both public and private sector organizations and companies. Anyone interested in working on an ever-expanding digital canvas should consider a career as a Digital Designer.

Design Director: At larger firms and organizations, graphic design projects are rarely undertaken by single individuals. Rather, they are the collaborative work of teams of designers working with one another to assure that a product launch, political campaign, fundraiser, or other project is completed perfectly. A Design Director must see that all the individual team members and teams work well to meet deadlines and hit design goals. Design Directors will need to be trained as designers to understand how their teams are functioning, and they will need to be trained in soft leadership skills to ensure that the design process's human element runs smoothly.

Expand Your Creative Skills

Graphic design training is also useful for creatives who want to expand their artistic abilities and canvases. Particularly, artists working in traditional mediums like photography and illustration can greatly improve the scope of their work by learning the graphic design tools used to enhance or alter those mediums. Photographers can learn Photoshop to take better photos and manipulate the images they capture in subtle and evocative ways. Sketch artists can learn to use Illustrator to start creating vector illustrations or take the first step toward working in digital animation.

Regardless of what your creative passion is, learning more advanced techniques and tools will invariably help you produce better work regardless of your creative passion. Learning these techniques will also make it easier to learn additional techniques and tools in the future, letting creatives constantly expand upon their skills as they learn to create increasingly complex designs. Learning how to integrate and incorporate multiple design tools will exponentially increase the kinds of projects a creative person can work on, giving them an even greater canvas upon which to work.

Build your Brand

Even if you aren’t looking to build a career out of your design training, learning how to use graphic design tools can benefit anyone looking to build their brand or identity in the digital landscape. Start-up businesses, venture capital projects, product launches, and even personal e-commerce webpages rely on developing recognizable logos and brand identities to communicate their message to audiences.

Whether you are starting a business, running an Etsy store, making posters for your band, or building a logo to print on homemade goods, learning how to use graphic design tools is a solid way to get started on ensuring your designs are memorable and evocative. This will also save up-and-coming entrepreneurs from having to contract the work out to someone else, ensuring they have total control over the look and feel of the graphic designs they associate with their own products.

How to Start Learning Graphic Design

Students looking to learn graphic design skills have a few options for how to receive their training. They can enroll in live training courses, take a self-paced on-demand course, or ease themselves into the tools of graphic design by taking advantage of free training resources. Each graphic design training option has certain advantages and disadvantages, so students should consider their own needs and learning styles before deciding.

The most immersive learning options are live instruction courses, both in-person and online. These courses give students hands-on experience using graphic design tools, and students will benefit from working directly with live instructors who can provide students with vital feedback on the progression of their designs. In-person courses also let students work with like-minded colleagues and receive networking opportunities that can benefit them long-term. However, these courses can be somewhat restrictive in where they are offered. Online training options offer the same benefits as live instruction but can be taken from anywhere. The drawback to these courses is that students must supply and maintain their own technology.

Students looking for more flexibility in their graphic design training may want to consider on-demand graphic design training. These courses let students control the pace of their own learning, letting them study and practice their graphic design skills when it is most convenient for them. These classes are ideal for students with inconsistent schedules or other obligations that make live training impossible. The downside to these courses is that without a live instructor, there is no one to provide feedback on a student’s designs, which is a vital aspect of creative skills development.

Students who don’t feel ready to enroll in a graphic design training program may wish to consider exploring the options for free online training. These tutorials won’t replace professional training, but they can help students become comfortable with the necessary skills to ease them into more professional training options. Noble offers free video tutorials on the Graphic Design playlist on its official YouTube channel. In addition, students looking to learn more can consult Noble’s Learn Graphic Design hub to find articles, tutorials, and free learning resources related to graphic design tools and techniques.

Read the full guide on how to learn graphic design.

Learn Graphic Design with Hands-on Training at Noble Desktop

Interested in learning graphic design? There are a few different options available. It’s possible to either study individual graphic design tools in accelerated bootcamps or learn complementary graphic design skills in more career-focused training programs. Both graphic design training courses are available to students through Noble Desktop, both in-person and online. These courses are taught by experienced instructors who can teach students important graphic design techniques and give them vital feedback on their designs. Even online, Noble strives to keep class sizes small, ensuring that students can interface directly with their instructors. Plus, all of Noble’s courses have the option to retake the course for free within a year. This allows students to hone their skills, cover material that may have given them difficulty, or just get more hands-on practice and feedback on their designs.

For students looking to learn the programs most commonly associated with professional graphic design, Noble offers a wide selection of bootcamps. These include training courses in Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign, all of which are industry-standard tools. These courses will provide students with hands-on training in the advanced techniques to manipulate and edit photos, build vector graphic illustrations, or construct layout designs. Each of these courses will guide students through practical exercises replicating the kinds of projects built by professional Graphic Designers. Each of these courses will teach an individual tool, but because they are all part of the Adobe Creative Cloud, learning one tool will ease future training and greatly expand how creatives can use multiple programs simultaneously.

Students looking to build a career in graphic design may wish to consider Noble’s Graphic Design Certificate program. This accelerated training program will teach students all three major 2D graphic design tools. Students will learn Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign work separately, then they will learn how these programs complement one another, introducing students to new and expansive ways to build graphic designs. Since this is a career-focused bootcamp, students will receive one-on-one career mentorship. The final portion of the course is dedicated to helping students build a practical portfolio of sample design that they can take onto the job market. For students looking to turn a passion for graphic design into a career, Noble’s certificate programs are an ideal place to receive the necessary skills training.

Key Insights

• Graphic design is the creative process of building visual images to communicate specific information to an audience or persuade them of a particular point.
• Graphic design tools are utilized across a wide array of industries. Almost every company or organization that seeks to interact with consumers and audiences will benefit from employing designers with graphic design training.
• Graphic design training is also ideal for creatives and artists looking to expand the scope of their projects. Using programs like Photoshop and Illustrator will enhance the complexity of designs a creative person can build.
• Self-employed individuals and small business owners may also wish to learn graphic design skills to ensure audiences recognize their products and see the company the way they want to be seen.
• No matter why you want to learn graphic design skills, Noble offers comprehensive graphic design training both in-person and online.