10 Steps to an Awesome Graphic Design

Designing an awesome graphic design is not as easy as it seems. You need to know how to use Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator, and you also need a lot of creativity. As a designer, you have an incredible opportunity to create graphics that are both beautiful and functional.

While there are many steps in the process of graphic design, this post will outline 10 key principles for creating awesome graphics. 

1. Start by getting some inspiration. When you look at art made by others, think about what makes it awesome. How does it make you feel? What caught your attention first? This is important stuff to know when trying to create art of your own. A lot of times people get stuck on finding good ideas Top Graphic Design Agency California for their own work or really just don't start because they're afraid of not being able to come up with anything original themselves. So this step is all about realizing how much better everything looks when viewing someone else's work.

2. Take a break and watch some TV, like an episode of the Simpsons. It's good to get your mind off things while you let your subconscious do its magic; I find that while watching TV it will come up with the best ideas! And usually while watching something funny it comes up with corny jokes like: "Why didn't the chicken cross the playground? To get to the other slide," and you laugh but really think about why they came out with such silly humor so you can learn from it.

3. Now try thinking about what kind of mood you want the message of your design to have or convey- are you feeling cute, sassy, scary, or deeply emotional?

4. Once you've picked the primary mood, start sketching! You can do this by hand or on a computer; I prefer to do these steps using pencil and paper because it's more natural that way, but like I said before, go with what works best for you. Either way, get these ideas out of your head and onto paper a digital canvas.

5. When working digitally, scan in your sketches so you have them to refer back to when creating the final piece later. If they are really rough, I often use watercolor paper or any thin type of paper so when scanning them they aren't too dark in the shadow areas. This is a time consuming step, but the final product will look better.

6. In this step you go from your initial sketches to creating a draft of what your piece will be! You can use whatever technique works best for the kind of art you're making- these steps are really just suggestions and can be changed around as you see fit. Some examples: -If working digitally, don't sketch anything first and start off immediately on a blank canvas in whatever program you prefer (like photoshop or illustrator) so it's easier to move things around and tweak them before committing to final lines/shapes/colors

If doing hand drawings, scan them into the computer and then use those as templates/guides as you create more detailed versions. I've found putting them together in a simple program like PowerPoint and adding in color/text works best for this

7. Once your draft is finished, you can either move on to coloring it (if it's digital) or start cleaning up your lines (so when you add color they aren't too messy). You can also add any text/other images you want at this point if applicable.

8. When using Photoshop, I like to "select" my image by going to Select > All or by pressing and then copying and pasting it into another file with a smaller canvas size so I can tweak anything that needs fine tuning before coloring- this step is especially important if working with digital drawings. I usually do this with a file that has the same dimensions as my sketch but is maybe 200-300 pixels smaller both width and height- then when I move things around it doesn't affect the size of everything relative to each other, making it easier to make tweaks without having to totally start over again. Then copy/paste it back into your original file once you're happy with whatever changes you made in the smaller one!

9. Now comes coloring! Color schemes are my favorite thing ever so they get their own step ;). When picking color combos, just try playing around with different ones until you find something that looks really cool together. Here are some general rules though: -For digital art, experiment with using different shades for one of the colors (like instead of using the same orange for everything, try lighter/darker shades of it or even mixing in another color like blue). You can also do this with digital art by using different tones- basically playing around until something you like comes out!

10. Once I finish a digital piece, I often save it as a high quality jpeg and post it to my Instagram account. This helps me get feedback from others on whether they think there's anything missing in the Creative Graphic Design Agency Michigan, what to add tweak to make it look better, etc. If people mention wanting to use your art somewhere else after seeing an Instagram post about it but you don't want them doing that because you're either not okay with that.

 

Conclusion:

We hope this article has been helpful in teaching you some of the basics of graphic design and how they relate to your marketing strategy. If you want more information about any particular step, feel free to contact us at our website or on social media!