We all make mistakes and I’ve made some rookie mistakes in my design career that did hold me back for a number of years.
Now I’m going to share with you guys the facepalm moments and the shameful regrets that I went through so you don’t have to make those very same mistakes and you can excel faster in your graphic design career.
The first mistake is something I’m pretty sure that every single designer has been guilty of at some stage in their life. There is a famous quote by norman vincent peale and it reads the trouble with most of us is that we’d rather be ruined by praise than saved by criticism.
And this is very true if you think about it and you should take notice of this quote. How can you ever improve your work efficiency if you only focus on the praise. Yes, there are going to be people who try to just insult you with any means possible and you should disregard those kinds of comments.
But we should always listen to what people are saying about our work because sometimes we cannot see our own flaws and our own weaknesses and it’s so it’s helpful to have an outside perspective to point them out for us.
Now it is going to hurt sometimes because designers do take pride in the creations that we make and also the skills that we have, but we can all improve on one thing or another. So do learn to take on board that feedback and also to ignore the ones who are just trying to insult you accepting constructive criticism is essential to improving.
Now the next mistake i made in my career was failing to realize that graphic design skills open up so many different doors to designers and in life in general.
The aim of the game isn’t necessarily just about designing a logo or a brochure as an example, so first let’s look at the direct job positions that graphic design skills can get you or are relevant in so we have things like.
- Advertising director
- Animator
- Creative director
- Graphic designer
- Illustrator
- Ux designer
- Games artist
- And exhibition artist
But wait there are so many other ways to earn money with graphic design skills. You could sell assets and templates on places like Freepik or maybe you could make courses for platforms such as Skillshare.
There is always a chance to teach or even do consultant work on a one-on-one basis or you might be interested in selling and making fonts and you can even do things like selling t-shirts and apparel.
Having graphic design skills can really help in many avenues of business in general and I wish I knew this sooner because for a long time I was in that narrow frame of mind and I didn’t realize all of the money that can be made elsewhere just by using those design skills.
Now one common mistake that designers make is failing to stay in the loop so to speak. now if you follow graphic design blogs you’re gonna be able to keep up to date with what’s happening in the industry you’re gonna gain insight into what successful designers are doing as well as things like tutorials along the way.
And you’re also going to find lots of inspiration now some of the best graphic design blogs are high on design.
- Creative Nerds
- Adweek
- Adobe Creative Magazine
And there’s so much more out there if you look on google I highly suggest you find some blogs that appeal to you and then bookmark them into your browser and just frequent them on a regular basis.
So the next mistake is one that I still regrettably make to this day and that is not spending enough time to proof the work. now when it comes to making videos on YouTube, I myself have a very limited amount of time and so I’m often in a pretty big rush, and not giving adequate time to proofing things means that spelling errors alignment issues and other dodgy aspects of a design can easily slip through.
The net doesn’t underestimate the power of proofing your work before handing over to a client and sending it out into the big wide world. Check and then double-check everything.
The five mistakes. So invoices and contracts now should be a fixed and a routine aspect of your workflow. now invoicing is crucial because you want to keep track of your profits your expenses and so forth and this is just standard for any kind of business.
Contracts, on the other hand, are something I’ve spoken about multiple times on this channel and they prevent you from being taken advantage of and they also protect yourself from any legal issues that might arise.
Now I’ve heard about so many reports of designers not getting paid or ending up working weeks past a deadline of a project. now by using a contract these problems will not happen so yeah do make sure to use invoices and contracts on every single design project.
The sixth mistake is again something I’ve spoken about before and it is the failure to have your own portfolio websites. Yes, social media can be and should be used to market yourself as a graphic designer from a free standpoint but also you should have a separate graphic design portfolio.
Now this will show your passion your seriousness and your professionalism towards being a graphic designer. It’s going to give you access to higher-paying clients and it will put you above a whole lot of designers who rely on Behance accounts or gigs on Fiverr. but of course, you will need to market your portfolio so that many potential clients do get to see it. You Can Also Read 5 Powerful Ways To Quickly Master Adobe Illustrator