Your love of color, artistic eye and impeccable sense of style cause people to label you a creative person—and you wear that label well. It’s a label you embrace as you enjoy expressing your creativity and making things visually appealing. But what if we told you there was a way to exercise your creativity full time instead of just on the side? Better yet, what if you could get paid to be creative on a daily basis? The truth is there’s a wide array of creative careers where people just like you can thrive.
It should be no surprise that a successful designer is a creative thinker. As a designer you’ll also need to have strong communication skills, because you have to be able to communicate your ideas to others in order to sell them on your vision. Designers should be research-focused. Delivering quality design work is about more than just creativity—it’s also about context. You can’t design something with the proper context in mind for the audience if it's subject matter you are unfamiliar with or uninterested in.
Designers should also be strong planners. Knowing the steps from beginning to end and being able to adapt them as needed for each situation is going to make your work more efficient and cause you less anxiety about deadlines. Being in a position to break down your process for a client or employer is also going to give them less anxiety as well. Additionally, successful designers need to be empathetic so that they can relate to their clients' problems.
Hard Skills:
- Adobe Creative Suite (Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator)
- Web design (html, CSS, JavaScript...)
- Typography
- Color theory
Some sample job titles:
- Graphic Designer
- Web Designer
- 3D Modeler
- Compositor
- Digital Media Strategist
- UI/UX Designer
- Game Designer
- Information Architect
- Interaction Designer
Resume & Portfolio Resources
Student Organizations
Professional Organizations