Graphic Design 101: Make Professional Designs Without Design Skills

Interested in graphic design but don’t have professional tools or design skills? Here are the easiest and perfect fundamentals that will make your designs professional without prior design experience.

There is something about designing that intrigues you.

What if I tell you, you don’t need to ask your designer or hire any professional artist for your next graphic design. You can do it yourself.

We understand that not everyone may have the resources, connections, professional tools, or the money to hire professionals. Which is nothing to be ashamed of.

Which is why, in this article, I’ve decided to write about some special tricks to make professional designs without prior experience.

Topics Covered:

• How to choose “the” color
• Using the right “black”
• How to find the right contrast
• Typography
• Composition

Choose the Perfect Color

In my personal opinion, the colors of a design can change its entire aspect. It can take a trashy ms-paint drawing to a Picasso’s masterpiece.

So what’s the deal? I got the same 16.4 million colors on my display you got, why are some designs genuinely better in color than others?

The concept of color is complicated to many, but it shouldn’t be. We have something called the Color Theory that is the science of how colors work with each other. Learning color theory is one of the most recommended first steps for beginners.

Steps to make great designs without professional skills:

Tip 1: Use the right “black”

This shouldn’t surprise you. First of all don’t use “pure black” in your designs unnecessarily. There are exceptions. But one easy way to give your designs more vibe and environment is to use off-blacks. Add some colors to your blacks. It will look significantly better, trust me.

You might need to turn up your brightness if you’re having trouble seeing the difference. This not just a personal preference, you may have noticed the “reddish” black (see left image above) is not often seen in good designs. It is the tone in the darker one’s colors used by professionals that separates them from newbie’s designs.

Tip 2: Right Contrast

Contrast in the context of visual design can be defined as a difference between two or more elements in a composition. The more the difference between the elements, the greater they are easy to compare and comprehend and that’s when they are said to have contrasted with each other.

Please don’t use your saturation slider for granted. And you don’t need to add all of the colors. It’s specially confusing when someone says they want to see “Blue” in the design. There are so many shades of blue. What kind of style are you looking for?

Tip 3: Typography is key

If you have designs with texts (of course you do) you need to make sure you are using the right typography.

Fonts are cool. Do you know the differences between serif, sans-serif, script, monospace, and display? We’ll write about the differences and uses for each of them in a separate article.

Tip 4: Composition

Compositions are the key to any photographs clicked. For some people, its natural, picking the right composition or identifying how the composition can be improved. But a lot of designers struggle in this part of design.

This, also, deserves its own article that we will write in detail in the near future. The perfect way you can determine if your composition is correct, make sure your subject has enough headspace and body space. When you’re looking at your design, see if your eyes try to move its focus from the subject and want to see things outside the boundary, — what does this even mean? Just make sure all the focus is on your subject or wherever you want it to be. And make sure to get feedback from your friends or colleagues.

You are one step closer to becoming a master Graphic Designer if you master these skills.

I urge you to not rush with any of these. If you even take the time to master one skill in month, you will progress faster than the best of us in the best way possible.

The most important part is that you make sure you are having fun. Graphic Designing is a journey that will get the creative juices running in your brain and you have the full control to what you make. You play God.

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That’s all for today!

What’s your favorite design you made? Share it here!

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