Web Developers

Top 5 Tips For New And Young Graphic Designers

Posted by on May 4, 2009 | 4 Comments

Gnomie thelast1uthinkof writes:

The other day I realized that when I typed in “graphic design” to search your videos on YouTube, only one result came up. I noticed in the community there were quite a few graphic and Web designers, so I thought a few tips could go down well.

By any stretch, I wouldn’t call myself an expert. I’ve only been teaching myself for two or three years, and thanks to the Internet, I’ve been learning more than any school could ever teach me.

In no particular order, here are some of the most valuable things I’ve learned, either from the Internet, or personal experience.

  1. Start local. Don’t try and go global and entirely Internet-based from the word go. Start by designing things for your school, local bands, and events. Making MySpace layouts for bands is a great start for Web-based designing. This works as advertising by word of mouth, and if you like, you can ask bands to put a small ‘banner’ advertising yourself up in their MySpaces.
  2. Internet Portfolio. I set up a deviantART account as soon as I started making pictures in Photoshop, because deviantART is a great way for a community of designers and artists to help each other out and spread good advice and tips and tricks. Having a deviantART account also lets you showcase your works for people to see if they request.
  3. Helvetica. Helvetica, as most should know, is a font. Although it is no longer available for free on Windows as it is on Mac, there are still ways of getting it. You could purchase it, or you could torrent it. Anyway, the thing with Helvetica is that it can make anything look good, and I mean anything. Any word, given the right thickness and the right spacing, can look extremely professional. If you look around your local shopping centre you should be able to spot Helvetica many, MANY times.
  4. Never, EVER use Comic Sans. On the topic of fonts, Comic Sans is a terrible font that even has a whole Web site devoted to its banning. I myself have deleted the font files off of my computer.
  5. Free Resources. Resources are a great way of getting work done faster. People create resources to be used, so why not use them to their full potential? Brushes, vectors, fonts, stock photos — many of these can be found for free, not just on deviantART, but millions of Web sites all over the Internet. Tutorials are important and often overlooked resources and many Web sites are made just for free Photoshop tutorials; one of my favourites is Planet Photoshop, but YouTube is definitely plenty full of tutorials, tips, and tricks.

I can be found on devinatART here, and I can be found on YouTube and MySpace under the same name. I am on Twitter under the name thelast1uthink… the ‘of’ wouldn’t fit.

Thank you for reading, and I hope that the word can be spread to all the Photoshop geeks on the community.

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  • http://www.photodesigners.net Samuel

    Nice tips!, Thanks!.

  • http://www.lollicup.keyblast.net Sidney

    I so agree with the Comic Sans thing, and I already do the deviantart and myspace thing(: blah, and i’m downloading helvetica right now. I usually use arial black. Btw, I’m thirteen. Haha.

  • brian

    out of ALL the tips you can give young designers you tell them not to use comic sans? i think we experienced designers realize that comic sans, times new roman, papyrus, etc, are cheap and overused (to say the least), but there are many better tips. as far as getting helvetica, you should let them know the flipside of that argument. not all designers like helvetica, in fact many see it as just as cheap and overused as comic sans. granted it’s probably the most stable font ever created (again, some would debate) but it’s hardly a necessity. some designers refuse to use helvetica, as im sure you know. deviantart is a great way to network with other artists and forward thinking clients, but keep in mind it is not particularly professional, especially with clients that would have a hard time navigating a social network art website. your first point was really all you needed to say, if you’re successful locally then you will naturally begin to branch out nationally and maybe even internationally. if you’re using comic sans and papyrus on all your work then, naturally, you’ll be lucky to scathe by locally.

  • http://loudicrous.co.cc Louis

    I think you’ve nailed these points :D

    I agree 100% with you, as I’m a young graphic designer.

    There is another method to get Helvetica.

    I did this:

    Borrowed the .dfont file of Helvetica and Helvetica Neue from a friend’s iMac.
    I downloaded DfontSplitter (peter.upfold.org.uk/projects/dfontsplitter), split the files and then Installed Cygwin X, installed FontForge, followed this tutorial (http://peter.upfold.org.uk/blog/2009/08/23/dfontsplitter-solution-to-windows-corrupt-font-error/) and then I have working Helvetica and Helvetica Neue fonts for Windows!