Articles

5 Complimentary Skills in Graphic Design

by . January 7th, 2023

In today’s economy, competition is rougher than ever, and even before this economic downturn, I had mentioned how competitive the field of graphic design was getting and how more and more job listings were looking for multi-talented designers. By this, I mean many employers want you to be a graphic and web designer with knowledge of multiple coding languages and much more.

If you are freelancing from home, you will need even more skills to make the most of your home business to bring in as much steady income as possible. Below are some areas I recommend designers branch off into once they have a solid foundation in design. Even having basic skills in these areas will help a ton!

1. Web Design

Web design is probably the most valuable skill to have as a graphic designer. It will open up a significant new client base, allow you to create and update your portfolio site, and much more. Fluency in web design and multiple coding languages will make it easier to keep steady work from home and make you much more attractive to employers looking to cut costs by finding multi-talented designers.

2. Illustration

Designers often have backgrounds in fine art, such as drawing and illustration, but end up putting their focus on commercial graphic design, which can create a disconnect from their fine art origins. Keeping your illustration skills sharp or becoming a better illustrator will allow you to make more creative designs, do freelance illustration work, and sell stock illustrations online! Plus, you can save money doing your illustrations for your graphic and web designs.

3. Online Marketing

Online marketing is essential for anyone looking to make the most of their freelance design business. Knowing the latest marketing tactics will help you gain exposure, name recognition, and more clients. There are dozens of easy ways to increase traffic to your portfolio site; not taking advantage of them would be an ample missed opportunity!

Social media is one of the most effective online marketing channels worth trying. You can hold a TikTok live and make engaging IG Reels. Regularly posting on Facebook will help promote your portfolio site and attract more customers.

4. Search Engine Optimization

This is an often overlooked skill for any business. Anyone with an online business presence should learn more about search engine optimization, and even if you intend to pay someone to do it for you, it’s good to know what white hat SEO is all about and how to do it correctly. Bad search engine optimization tactics can hurt your site badly and produce no results, but good SEO can provide you with a steady stream of new clients and take you to the next level.

5. Blogging

Starting a blog is probably the easiest and best thing you can do to increase awareness of your portfolio. Knowing about web design, online marketing, and search engine optimization, which we mentioned above, will help you turn your blog into a powerful and valuable tool as opposed to a waste of time. It would be best to research blogging beforehand, optimize your blog, post regularly, and promote your blog posts to achieve maximum results. An SEO-optimized AI content generator can help you create engaging blog posts efficiently while implementing blogging best practices that can increase your blog’s impact.

I hope you enjoyed these tips and suggestions! Which skills do you find most useful as a graphic designer in today’s market?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

YouTheDesigner is a graphic design blog under the UCreative Network. We do features; give away brushes, icons, wallpapers, and other freebies; and bring you the latest news in the world of graphic design.