We’ve seen artists and their works made with brushes and palettes, but a new generation of artists that many don’t know are graphic designers. A graphic artist brings together technology and art, and the result? Creativity! This they do with some essential graphic design skills. 

Much more than throwing the colours and shapes, there are technical and soft skills every graphic designer should have. Like every skill you can think of, graphic design requires a specific set of skills that can make any graphic artist or designer stand out in a sea of several graphic designers on freelance platforms. Your ability to retain clients might be tied to how well you deliver the job they have entrusted to you. Let’s look at the relevant graphic design skills you need to be the best. 

Graphic Design Skills You Should Have 

On the way to the top, one thing is needed: you must be fully armed, and what better way to be armed than with the right skills. These skills include:

Typography Skills 

This shouldn’t be a surprise for you as a graphic designer. Typography is one of the major graphic design skills, maybe more important than any other you can think of. Typography skills refer to the skills of a graphic designer that include knowing the right fonts to use for a project, kerning, and the in-depth parts of typesetting with alignment. 

Choosing the right typography can resonate with the audience, passing through the right meaning and invoking the right feeling. But a bad one can turn away a target audience. 

UI/UX Design Skill 

Another important graphic design skill that many don’t pay attention to is UI/UX skill. This skill can help a graphic designer improve their work and stay ahead of the game. An addition of a UI/UX design skill helps designers create more visually appealing designs, and not just that. Since graphic designers sometimes work closely with UI/UX designers, understanding the fundamentals of UI/UX helps them communicate and collaborate better as a team of creative people. 

Ideation

Ideation, as one of the necessary graphic design skills, focuses on the formation of design ideas and concepts. It involves the creative process of generating, developing, and communicating new creative ideas. Ideation, or otherwise known as idea generation, involves a few steps. First is the research level, which can ultimately affect the direction of the proposed design. The next stage is the idea generation, after a little research, ideas start to grow. Next is the evaluation of the idea generated, and finally application. 

Branding

Branding is the next top-rated graphic design skill that potentially makes a graphic designer stand out. Here’s why! A designer who understands the business inside out will be able to deliver the best logo, brand colour, brand graphic elements, illustration, and more. These things often reflect the identity of the business—branding! 

Creativity

Graphic Designers regularly establish fresh ideas that need development due to their profession. The designs must both draw public attention and convey messages through creative idea development. 

Why do graphic designers need creativity? The answer is simple! Excellence in all design protocol stages relies heavily on creative mindset capabilities. This helps to generate original brief thoughts during the initial stages and progress projects toward completed versions.

Communication 

Graphic design is visual communication, and therefore, communication skills are fundamental to a Graphic Designer’s work. Not only do they have to communicate thoughts in their graphics, but the Graphic Designers also have to communicate with those on their team and clients. Occasionally, designers may need to be able to articulate a design rationale or decision-making process to users who don’t have a background in design. As a graphic designer, you will need written and spoken communication skills as well for proposal and presentation-making.

Design for Print 

As digital design evolves so rapidly, print design is still a useful skill. Soft copies are a great innovation, but people still love paperwork. Graphic Designers need to know something about bleeds, slugs, crops, and fold marks, ink limits, dot gains, and transparency. They also need to have thorough knowledge of different file formats and colour systems, and paper sizes, weights, and stocks.

Motion Pictures 

Designing multiple slides is great, but what about the audience? Can they keep swiping? There’s a catchy solution to that: motion design. They are excellent for illustration purposes and can attract your audience faster. So you might want to add a little knowledge about motion design and keep that new client hooked on your services. 

Final Thoughts 

There you have it! The essential graphic design skills that are capable of taking you to the next level or making you the most sought-after graphic designer. Although you might not have heard of some of the skills before, you can start learning about them now. 
Add these skills to your already developing skills as a graphic designer, and you are on your way to landing your first freelance job on freelance platforms. Join our community now and meet other freelancers you can run minds with.