Keep up or Get Left Behind

 By Lindsey M. Musch

     Graphic Design is a profession that is constantly changing. To be a great graphic designer you need to make sure you are up to date with all the new and expanding software that is out there for your use and benefit. As well as staying up to date on all other aspects that contribute to your profession. 

     Practically every year software becomes updated and improved for ease of use and for my technical possibilities for everyone but especially for the professional designer. Take Adobe products for example, they are constantly being updated to be more user friendly and give us cutting edge technology to create the best possible designs.

by Timothy O'Donnell

     I found a great website that has given some very pertinent advice on how to improve as a graphic designer and even lists 16 top tips, which are as followed:

1. Become a collector
2. Buy books
3. Read design-related blogs
4. Start a design blog
5. Join and be active in the design community
6. Take lots of photos
7. Create fake projects
8. Redo other people’s design
9. Redo your old designs
10. Attend lectures
11. Network with other designers
12. Take classes
13. Interview other designers and studios
14. Travel
15. Learn something new
16. Grab a sketchbook

     All of this advice is a great starting point for any graphic designer.  If you do not take interest in your career you will not make the most out of your skills.  So get involved, learn from others works and always be thinking, taking pictures and practicing!

     Graphic Design is all around us from billboards to t-shirt designs to the labels on our food containers, thus it is a truly important field and one in which we as designers should take seriously and invest our time and emotions accordingly.

     There are many other careers out there are fast paced and constantly changing, is your career one of them?  If so, what is it and how do you keep up?

David Carson – Known as the “Father of Grunge“. He became famous by breaking all the rules of Graphic Design and developing his own signature style.