Most people learn graphic design by focusing their study mostly on software. How to use Photoshop. Figma. The shortcuts and effects in Illustrator. And all the tools you use to design. But when someone has learned these things, yet their designs still don’t look professional? Why? The reason is very clear. It’s not because the tools that make a designer, it’s because how they think.
Thinking like a designer, means knowing and learning that each of your design choices has a function. This means not throwing things onto a canvas just for the sake of having something there, but actually understanding what you are designing and solving the problem. A good design delivers the message clearly, leads the viewer’s eye and makes the audience feel the way they should be feeling.
The first thing to realize, when you are starting to learn graphic design, is to learn to think of your designs and work as a whole, not in pieces, and always think to add something that helps you to communicate to the viewer, not something that is just a decorative element. You add that effect, gradient, shadow or element just because it looks cool and you don’t want it there? Then don’t add it. Because you want to communicate, right?
And always think in terms of structure. Every good layout has its structure, which has its own set of grid, spacing, hierarchy, and so on. So rather than thinking about the individual elements that you add, think about how each one relates to the next. Why should this text be this size? Where should this button be? Where is the focal point?
You should think like problem solver. The first challenge that you are facing when doing a design project: how will you organize and present the information in a way that is clear to the audience? How to capture their attention and make them look? How to make it easy to digest the content? Once you start thinking about these and other questions like these, then your designs will have more purpose and meaning.
You should also learn to pay attention and to observe. The good designers observe everything they see: websites, advertisements, posters, mobile apps, products and so on. They don’t just look to see if it’s “nice,” they look to understand how it works, so that later, when they do their own projects, they already know what makes it successful, and so each of your new work will be better.
You should also learn to be patient and simple. The newbies try to do everything at once in the design, to fill every place possible and to use all the ideas. The professional designers try to do everything less, in order to do something stronger, and you learn that less and simple is always better.
And always have the same logic on what you do: if you always think of how to organize the information, how you add the elements to the design, how do you want your designs to communicate, how do you build the hierarchy and spacing, and so on in every design you do, then it will be much easier to always get consistent and professional results from what you do.
Ultimately, design is nothing to do with the tools or effects, but about how you think. Learn to solve the problems and make the design choices and you will be a designer in no time. You know all your design tools now, but it’s just to execute it.