4 Ways to Learn Design as a Beginner
Digital design is a career path that can be started and navigated with little to no prior experience. If you are lucky and you were able to study it in college or on online classes, you already have a leg up. But for those that want a career change or want to learn to design, there are plenty of online resources for you to use. Here are some of the best ways to learn how to design without any experience or prior knowledge.
It’s all about the ‘gram
One of the best and *free* resources you have to learn more about design is on social media and more specifically on Instagram. There is a tremendous world of designers on Instagram that share their designs and creations, the methodology of creating their work, and the creation process.
If you don’t know where to start on Instagram, you should search #GraphicDesign. With over 43 million posts using this hashtag, designers from all around the world share their artwork and designs. Pick and sort through which work resonates with you the most and start to follow these accounts.
Once you have found a few accounts you like, visit the artist’s tagged page. Click on their tagged posts and check out accounts that are sharing these artists’ work. There is a high possibility that the account that shared the artist’s work will also be sharing other work that is similar.
Instagram, and social media in general, is an amazing avenue to share art, creative inspiration, and your work and designs. If you are not sure where to start, we highly recommend taking to Instagram to find your niche and what kind of design that interests you.
Get Inspiration from Canva
If you have not already familiarized yourself with Canva, you should. It is a free platform that has templates and designs created to help content creators make presentations, social media posts, resumes, and more. Canva is an amazing platform for designers and creators to upload their designs and stickers for use, or to help in the creation process of their work.
Once you make an account with Canva, you can explore different designs that may give you a spark of inspiration. This platform is amazing because there is an endless amount of different aesthetics, works of art, ideas, and concepts. Once you find your design niche, you can use Canva to create your design work and share it with others.
Watch Online Videos
If you are a visual learner, watching videos on TikTok and YouTube can help you learn and understand what you need to do and how you need to develop your skills as a designer. Following along online tutorials can be extremely helpful if you do not know where to start.
Talented artists and designers are always showcasing their work and creating tutorials on how they created their final product. Take notes and watch the videos carefully to learn the best methods and tricks for designing. You will learn the most about designing from watching and learning from other artists.
Practice by Recreating Work
One of the best clichés and pieces of advice is that practice makes perfect, and they are not wrong. Even if you are starting from scratch, the best way to learn is to get your hands dirty. Whether you are using a free service like Canva, or you are using programs in Adobe Creative Suite, watch videos online, as listed above, and attempt to recreate their work!
There are hundreds of design tutorials out there for free all you have to do is get your feet wet. You will not become a professional designer overnight but take a little bit of time every day to learn a new design skill.
Overall, it can be scary, yet exciting to start a new career, hobby, or side job by learning how to create designs digitally, but it will be worth the hard work in the end. Once you feel proficient and confident in your work create an online portfolio with your designs that you can eventually showcase.
