26 Jul 5 tips for taking on design work of your own.
Good designers have a degree in design, years of experience, technical expertise, and a natural eye for design, but sometimes you may not have the time or resources to hire a designer for your business. I always get asked, how do I learn how to make my own design? It hurts me to say this, but a lot of the times the answer is don’t do it on your own, hire a designer because they truly know what they are doing and can create a sustainable design for you. However, sometimes as a new business you may not have the time or budget to spend on finding and working with a professional designer. If this is the case, here are a few resources you can use to create some designs on your own.
Lynda.com
Lynda.com has a series of video tutorials that are professional and extremely helpful in learning the basics of the Adobe Creative Suite applications. There is a membership fee, but it is small and worth it! For logo design and illustration, learn Adobe Illustrator.
99Designs.com
99 Designs isn’t necessarily designing on your own, but it is a fast process that can get you a design for a very low price. You submit your request and designers will automatically create you something and then you choose a winner. All payments are made through the website and it is a way for you to see a variety of designs from different creative thinkers.
Draw it out
Sometimes a client will bring me ideas they have drawn out or put together on their own, and then all they would like me to do is make it digital. In this case, my process would go faster and I would not charge as much. Having a concept already visually mocked up can communicate to the designer exactly what you want and it eliminates a few steps in the process. This is especially viable if you have some kind of drawing skills.
YouTube
Yes, of course YouTube has all kinds of video tutorials on how to use design software. Some of them are great, but some of them are really bad quality and are really outdated. If you choose to go the YouTube route, as it is free, look for videos that have been posted within the year and have a good following.
Classroom in a Book
Adobe has several classroom in a book series for their software that you can purchase and follow along with. These are extremely helpful in learning the different applications and can really help you advance your skills quickly. The books generally come with tutorials, definitions, and sample creative assets to work with.