Have you thought after seemingly looking at a simple design, “I also could do that”?
But later when you actually sit down to give it a whirl, you don’t what measures had been applied to give it a professional version. What is?
It turns out professional graphic designers who applied a few tricks to make their work look well, proficient. However, with the available free tools for potential graphic designers nowadays, amateurs often don’t know the necessary foundational steps to create polished and sleek designs. Being a freelance graphic designer, you need to put together certain basic elements; it is not about having a specific degree but having a basic understanding is crucial.
In this blog, we deep-dive with some important elements including what they’re, why you should take care, and how to use them to create more efficient designs. It will boost up your content creation and ability to communicate the designs if you’re planning to hire freelance graphic designer.
Color
Sir Newton is highly credited to create the very first color wheel back in 1706. The story says, Newton took the spectrum of colors to generate while light passes through a prism (red, yellow, orange, blue, green, indigo, and violet) and organize them in a segmented circle. All the colors get blurred when the circle was spun on a rotating disk, in other words, it appears completely white to the human eye.
But the modern color wheel contains three main colors — red, yellow, and blue- that can be mixed in variations to make secondary and intermediate colors. This color theory is actually quite complicated than older ones, that color wheel is still an efficient tool for graphic designers who are willingly looking for pleasing color combinations.
I would like to advise that while selecting hues for a project, you should consider colors that appear directly opposite on the color wheel. It tends to create a more consistent and pleasant combination. Graphic designers can also consider free online color scheming tools, i.e. color Schemer.
Know Your Industry & Market
Another important thing is to understand the industry and market for which you’re proceeding with the design. For example — if you’re making a marketing/ promotional banner for a client, you must aware of the market, how to print and produce the piece, then distributed. Without this knowledge, you cannot achieve the end product with its desired quality. There are some obstacles that limit a designer’s creative process and more often the lack of knowledge of the respective industry or market.
It is essential for a freelance graphic designer to make comprehensive research of your product. In this regard, you should study of the designing process and ask yourself the following questions — What is the ultimate goal? Who will be the target audience? How it will affect my client’s business?
The purpose of the piece should answer all the above-mentioned questions. If it is not providing the appropriate message to the right people then it wouldn’t be worth any more. Therefore, having a good working knowledge of the business and market are the facets of designing and assists in accomplishing clients’ needs as well as put you ahead of the rest.
Line
Lines act as a divider — right lines can effectively convey emotion and moments, combing your composition and making it looked polished and professional. Before getting started, if you define the line of movement in the composition, it can assist you to construct a design that accomplished the desired goals. In addition to this, you can use mood lines in virtually all elements of your design or can contrast various mood lines in a variety of parts of your design. By doing this, a freelance graphic designer can create a more layered design.
You can use the mood line in creating the layout and even in your photography as well as font selection.
Scale
The scale of various elements in the designing process put a vast impact on how people will view it and make sense of the given composition. To scale up your design, you can play with the relative size of various aspects, by this you can set a focal point, highlight the important areas and at the end guide viewers’ eyes through the piece. However, the scale isn’t like the size (many use them incorrectly interchangeably, when discussing design, i.e. make the big logo). Typically, size an absolute measurement whereas scale is a straight relationship between design elements.
In order to give a proficient look to your design, freelance graphic designers can use a visual hierarchy. It allows the element relatively larger than others in composition. Furthermore, if the client wants more drama and significance, graphic designers can use high-contrast scale elements.
Enforce The Honest and Responsible Work Ethic
Care for your work!! However, most of the time you create designs for others, it doesn’t matter as it is not yours. But your work is your reflection as a designer and even as a human being. Thus, take the responsibility to be known as a responsible and honest designer who provides a complete package — give the best of your ability and try to meet all needs as the client expected.
You must know that design is a way of artist communication, though it doesn’t involve voice or words your work should leave the translation in a particular message to target audiences.
Final Words!!!
If you have been working as a self-proclaimed graphic designer- don’t worry about yourself. The above-mentioned elements help you to provide a great career as a freelance graphic designer, even with the framework to accelerate the learning and knowledge level.
What makes you do think of a great graphic designer? Share your views in the comment section.
