The following text hopes to give every designer who wants to gain a foothold in the design industry some help and suggestions in learning.
First of all, what is graphic design?
Graphic design, also known as visual communication design, takes "vision" as a way of communication and expression, and creates and combines symbols, pictures and words in various ways to make a visual expression to convey ideas or information. Graphic designers may use professional skills, such as typesetting, visual arts, page layout and computer software, to achieve the purpose of creative planning. Graphic design can usually refer to the process of making (designing) and the final finished work.
Common graphic design works are generally divided into the following ten categories:
1.VI design (corporate image visual identification system)
2. Logo design (logo design, trademark design, corporate logo)
3. Advertising design, advertising creative design (print or electronic media, electronic photo album)
4. Poster design and DM design (flyer design)
5. Sample design, brochure design and album design (brochure design)
6. Loushu design and annual report design
7. Assembly design
8. Illustration, greeting card design and invitation card design (paper or electronic)
9. Typesetting design of newspapers, books and magazines
10. Various printed matter designs (office business applications) and so on.
After understanding the classification of graphic design, we began to strive to become an excellent graphic designer.
First, start your career as a graphic designer.
Positioning design Xiaobai, let's have a look.
1. Art Foundation
1) Sketch painting: training designers' modeling ability, somatosensory training of spatial thinking, understanding and reproduction of physical objects, such as observation, analysis, reproduction, perspective, light and shadow, deconstruction, proportion, texture, space, etc.
2) Color painting: train designers to observe and reproduce colors in nature, the harmony and contrast of colors, and the relationship between colors in the environment.
3) Sketch painting: the designer's quick record in the design work and the ability to use visual language to express in his works.
2. Software skills
What are the commonly used graphic design software? Generally, PS will be used for bitmap processing, AI and CDR will be used for vector direction, ID will be used for typesetting, Acrobat will be used for pdf editing, and PPT will help designers organize their ideas. If you have a deeper understanding, C4D recommends three-dimensional software that enriches visual images.
Adobe Photoshop:
Image processing software Adobe Photoshop, referred to as "PS", mainly deals with digital images composed of pixels. Its powerful selection tools, repair and adjustment tools, brushes, shadows, filters and other options can effectively edit pictures. It covers images, graphics, text, video, publishing, 3D, animation and other aspects.
Adobe Illustrator:
Vector graphics processing software "AI" is an industrial standard vector illustration software applied to publishing, multimedia and online images. It is widely used in printing and publishing, poster book typesetting, professional illustration, multimedia image processing and Internet web page making. It can also provide high precision and control for line drawing, and is suitable for producing any small-scale design to large-scale complex projects.
CorelDRAW:
The vector graphics production tool software produced by Corel Company is referred to as CDR for short. This graphic tool provides designers with many functions, such as vector animation, page design, website production, bitmap editing, webpage animation and so on. CDR contains two drawing applications: one for vector drawing and page design, and the other for image editing. This combination of drawing software brings powerful interactive tools for users, which enables users to create various dynamic special effects and real-time effects of dot matrix images in simple operations. Provide professional designers with briefings, color pages, manuals, product packaging, logos, web pages, etc. Previously used for business cards, cards, posters, magazine typesetting, etc. However, it was not particularly compatible with PS, and it was not easy to use on Apple computers (the highest version of the CDR of Apple version is 1 1, which is relatively less stable than the CDR of PC and less stable than the AI and ID of Apple version. ), so I suggest you try to use Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Indesign with better compatibility.
Adobe Indesign
InDesign is a design software in the field of professional typesetting, and it is a new platform for commercial professional publishing scheme released by Adobe on 1 September, 19991. It is based on a new open object-oriented system, which can achieve a high degree of scalability. It has also established a core, that is, third-party developers and system integrators can provide customized magazines, advertising design, catalogues, retailer design studios and newspaper publishing solutions. Can support plug-in functions, mainly magazine typesetting, compatible with PS, and can also be used stably in Apple OS X.
Adobe Acrobt
Use Acrobat software to edit and process PDF documents to improve the flexibility and ease of use of PDF documents. PDF (Portable Document Format) is a file format developed by Adobe Systems in 1993 for file exchange. PDF is mainly composed of three technologies: it is derived from PostScript; ; Font embedding system; Data compression and transmission system. Its advantages lie in its cross-platform, the ability to keep the original layout of documents, open standards and the ability to freely develop PDF-compatible software without royalties. This is an open international standard.
4D cinema is highly recommended.
4D cinema software, abbreviated as "C4D", is a 3D drawing software developed by Banjarmasin Computer Company. It is famous for its high computing speed and powerful rendering plug-ins, and it is outstanding in all kinds of movies it depicts. As its technology becomes more and more mature, more and more film companies pay attention to it, and it is also unique in the field of TV packaging. Now it has become the mainstream software in China. In graphic design, we mainly use it to deal with three-dimensional text special effects and dynamic graphics (using AI to design fonts or graphics, then importing C4D for processing, and then importing PS for further image synthesis and optimization).
In addition, designers also need to use X-mind, PPT and other brain map software to demonstrate and propose.
3. Art theory
4) Art appreciation: A large number of allusions in art development can be extended to design works.
5) Introduction to art: Understand the emergence and development of design, design categories and various design styles, find your own design language and form your own design symbols.
4. Basic principles of graphic design
Ok, now let's learn the basic principles of graphic design. The basic principles in most graphic design works can be divided into three parts: plane composition, color composition and three-dimensional composition.
6) Plane composition: The basic elements such as point, line and plane are used to solve the problems of composition and visual presentation in design with various presentation forms that meet aesthetic conditions.
7) Color composition: color principle, color attribute, three principles of color and color emotion.
8) Three-dimensional composition: Different from two-dimensional plane, space appears three-dimensional. Learning the role and change of plane elements in deep space, systematic learning is beneficial to the role and influence of plane designers on packaging and structure in three-dimensional design.
Second, other knowledge that graphic designers need to know
1, Transboundary and Integration of Graphic Design
With the rapid development of information, the boundaries between graphic design, e-commerce design and web design have become more highly integrated. In the past, graphic designers mostly used offline designs such as DM and posters to serve printing, but now they need to do more online publicity materials such as official website and WeChat, and graphic designers need to downplay their sense of boundaries. In a word, graphic design is the foundation of all design. If the graphic design foundation is well done, it will be easier to enter and transform other fields of design.
2, prepress, printing process knowledge
When the graphic design terminal outputs specific printing materials, printing is a technology to transfer ink to the surface of paper, textiles, plastics, leather and other materials through the processes of plate making, ink application and pressure, which involves special situations of materials, technological processes and multi-docking links. Therefore, designers must have a regular knowledge reserve in this respect.
3. Basic knowledge of online media
When the graphic design terminal outputs the materials displayed and printed on the screen, it needs to synthesize the original materials such as fonts, characters, pictures, photos, anti-counterfeiting, etc., so as to meet the basic knowledge of screen display resolution accuracy, use size, color mode, animation, picture format, etc.
Four, some suggestions for the professional development of graphic designers:
1, stay curious. Only by loving design and being curious about the world can we create and precipitate our own design achievements.
2. Stay humble. Design is endless. No matter how many skills you have at present, you will have better creativity and better expression. Therefore, keep a humble heart, study hard with an open mind, and prepare for a better prospect.
3. Learn to collect and organize. Successful designers need to constantly collect some information and accumulate some knowledge and ideas during the design process or in their spare time, so as to gradually form a unique design style and then form a unique design system.
4. Get inspiration, learn and improve through imitation. At the beginning of learning design, no matter typesetting, font design or color application, most of them began with imitation. While studying and classifying, I constantly improve my appreciation ability, trace back the advantages and key points of high-level works, and constantly improve my design level in my study.
5. Establish a self-design system. While classifying the existing design styles, we should consciously prepare for the establishment of a differentiated design system, especially in the aspects of material collection, font design, typesetting and expression presentation, and gradually form a recognizable design style that belongs to our own symbols.
6. All commercial designs are for sale. Designers must have a sense of self-branding, make their works unique, differentiated and easy to spread, and fully reflect their own value on the premise of completing the entrustment of the client.
7. Pursuing quality is not equal to obsessive-compulsive disorder. Designers need to have monitoring indicators of design goals. This is different from the obsessive-compulsive disorder we usually talk about. On the premise of seeking common ground while reserving differences, the accuracy is 1 pixel, and the feathering effect is 0. 1. Only by repeatedly pondering can we create more excellent design works.
8. Pay attention to effective communication and put yourself in other's shoes. Design work involves multi-head docking, and a lot of time and energy are often wasted repeatedly in the misunderstanding of communication and handover. When communicating with leaders, customers and colleagues, learn to listen and express in the most understandable language, and then both sides will form * * * knowledge. Regarding work docking, try to put yourself in each other's shoes and avoid misunderstanding.