Completely New to Graphic Design: Where to Begin?

If I understood your question correctly - you want to become a graphic designer, but don't know where to start.

Let me start with saying that your cousin is wrong. Knowing the programs, such as PS or InDesign is very important, but it's only a small percentage of what you need to learn before you begin doing stuff that pleases anyone's eye.

First of all, you need to develop a good sense of proportions and need to know the basic rules of composition. The best way to learn that is by life drawing. Go to a drawing class and start from drawing still life to nudes and learn these essentials. Once your drawings are of your liking, you will understand how important this first step is for the future of your new career.

Secondly, you will need to learn some imporant subjects, such as colors, typography, symbology, etc. These you can learn in different ways, but even books will do. There are tonns of subjects that are part of graphic design and depending on your speciality you will need to learn some of them deeper than the others but it's important to get a general understanding of every concept.

Third, you need to learn some marketing. This is not an exact science. This part can be learned from books but it mostly comes with experience. This is the most evil stuff where you learn how you will manipulate people into buying into your stuff rather than the competion's stuff without any actual benefits, other than emotional preference.

Last, you will need to open up your own creativity. You need to learn how to nurture it and learn how to bring out the great ideas from the back of your mind. The concept or idea is the most important part of any design job. And the concept has to be relevant and original. This comes almost from your soul.

The programs will just help you execute your idea, but what you want to do is more important than how you do it. You can sketch an award winning logo on a napkin if you have a strategic and creative idea. But no program will help you do a decent logo if you don't have the big idea.

I would rather hire a designer who knows jackshit about PS, but a great conceptualizer than the other way around.

Hope it helps. If you are willing to take up the challenge, pls do tell and we will help you at every step of your journey to become a graphic designer. Being a graphic designer is a serious profession, although it may seem like we're stuck in kindergarden coloring and painting, but in reality visual stimulation is a science and there is so much to it.

Thanks for the reply.

I don't want to become a graphic designer(I am more into electrical/computer engineering, which isn't all that distinct from designing but still). I have expressed myself incorrectly - because I didn't know what "a graphic designer" really meant. Now reading your reply, I have a better idea.

What I really meant to say was that I wanted to take designing as a hobby. I am a great fan of Garry Larson (others like him such as Selcuk Erdem). I want to have some designing ability so that I can sort of visualize on screen some of my ideas and you know have a pleasant pastime.

Now if visualizing on the screen is correlated to visualizing on paper, then I think I just have to stick to programming. But if there is a way I can have some powers to visualize on the screen my ideas, I'd be glad to learn how.

So for now, let me just limit my query to practical purposes: what websites/books can help me start up a new hobby?

Thanks.

the two artists you mentioned are cartoonists, right? you want to do cartoons? what kind of stuff do you want to do? can you show an example?

Graphic Design as a hobby. I've never heard that before...I think its addictive really, so watch out. They give out those Adobe and Macromedia programs free at first, then start charging like the drug dealers.....Then you're stuck...no where to go, and only an impulse to create where your soul used to be...

I agree with Ivan, and wish he was around back when I started, cuz I took the opposite approach. I learned HOW to do everything without learning why I was doing it until later. It wasn't really bad, just unguided. Though I grew up drawing so I was able to wing it a bit because I had been experimenting with imagery since I could hold a pencil(or crayon) doesn't mean I had the best idea of how to go about transforming that creativity into something useful.I just had that above mentioned impulse and followed it blindly. Whatever you do, save yourself some time and make sure you know "why" you're doing it....which is where Ivan's suggestions come in...color theory, typography..the list goes on.

lolz

But yeah, that's true. I don't know how I got into design but I'm sure it wasn't because I wanted to. As far back as I can remember, I started off on forums, you know the sort. Games, cars, teens etc and got into those signature banner things they all brag about. After seeing a few, I got like interested and asked how to make them and whatever else and slowly got hold of Photoshop. At this stage you can say it was like a hobby.

But then, I got drawn into the world of design. It just happend so quick. Before I knew it, I was looking up graphic design and what kind of jobs can it land you and whatever else they tell you before you leave high school.

Since then I've been looking it up wherever I can. It's got me hooked so bad I've even stopped my car magazine subscriptions and now I buy design magazines quarterly. Not bothered really as design is beautiful. I always think it was there within me, only that I hadn't realised it then. Now I'm looking forward to working as a designer. After I get out of this art and design school that is.

Cosmicparoxysms: The first book I every got was "Graphic Design School: The Principles and Practices of Graphic Design" - David Dabner (ISBN 0500 285268). I think it's a good first book to get and goes through all the basics that you'll need to understand before you can seriously do any good designing.

I was actually drawn into design via my artistic interests. I found that I could only do Art for one semester, so I joined the school's Design class, and I really enjoyed it. So, as time went by, I kept it in the back of my mind until I had the opporutunity to learn something useful (my parents were very strict with how we used the internet back then, so no experimentation for me). A few years ago, I made some friends with similar interests, and so when we got the chance to do an extra curricular course in graphics and web design, we jumped at the chance. :) Really, all that taught us was the technical aspects of Photoshop, but it did spark that interest, and this time I was hooked. I found that I already had a fairly strong talent for design. Once the course died down, I did less and less design work. I started a Blog in an attempt to get back into the swing of it. It's still fairly basic, but I like it that way. I pretty much abandoned the blog now that my final year of school has started, but I'm finding I have way too much spare time. :P So for now, design is just a hobby, albeit a very addictive one.

xx

I am in a similar, but different situation, with jdubbs. I am a physician who gives a lot of lectures/presentations. Frequently the artwork available does not truly illustrate the point, or my x-ray slides need more emphasis or less distraction. Over the years I have become moderately facile with Illustrator for line drawings and such, but would like to get a much better handle on Photoshop to expand my options. Unfortunately, my schedule is not conducive with me going off for a couple of days to a hands-on course. Therefore I am looking for suggestions for a book or books, or preferably something on CDs or DVDs that would provide me with a basic education in Photoshop that I can bend to my schedule.
Thanks in advance for your wisdom and guidance.