Just a note: Over my next couple posts I hope to dive into some of the fol­low­ing points with more detail, and link resources that anyone who stum­bles upon this can hope­fully find useful, or to assist them in their quest for knowl­edge. I will also go more into my per­sonal expe­ri­ences and what I’ve learned coming out of them.

I went to school, grad­u­ated, and got a job in my field. That’s great, right? Should be, but as it turns out I’m not as big a fan of coding every day 5-7 days a week (over­time is evil). I enjoy it, I really do, but either you are made to do this day in and out or you not. That’s why many devel­op­ers move on to project man­age­ment and con­sult­ing. Others revel in it, and good for them.

I am not a rev­eler. I noticed pretty much from day one that I migrated towards the visual design of every project I’ve had my hand in. The more con­trol I had over that, the more I enjoyed the project. It took me a while to real­ize that my enjoy­ment was more then just simple abil­ity or coin­ci­dence. Sure I had more HTML and CSS expe­ri­ence then the other coders, but I chose to go for those aspects. As time passed I real­ized that this was some­thing I wanted to do. I wanted to create smooth web­sites, ripe with clar­ity and abil­ity, and still adhere to the rules. The prob­lem is I don’t know what the rules are. At least I didn’t. At this point I think I know about 3% of them.

My first step has been look­ing into courses and schools. What schools offer, how much it costs, there they’re located, course-​load, topics cov­ered, school rep­u­ta­tion, and how it will influ­ence my life in the future. I haven’t made any offi­cial steps yet, but I’m keep­ing my eyes open. I’m aware that I’ve already gone through col­lege and com­pleted an advanced diploma in Com­puter Pro­gram­ming/ Sys­tems Analy­sis, which is great. I learned loads of useful infor­ma­tion that I cur­rently use in my place of work.

For any bud­ding pro­gram­mers out there, let me just say this. UML, plan­ning, flow dia­grams, etc. will make your life easier. They help you trans­late your ideas to others where words can fail. When done well, they illus­trate what you want to do. Iron­i­cally this hits another point with design. Clar­ity of your idea is key, and that trans­lates across any and every­thing that you can and will do in life.

I’m digress­ing though.

So step one was look­ing into schools. That’s great, but doesn’t really do much if you don’t act on it. Maybe you can’t yet (money, point in life, what­ever) and that’s cool. It’s a big step and believe me when I say that I’m feel­ing the pres­sure as much as anyone else who’s been in this sit­u­a­tion. So what have I done to help my sit­u­a­tion? Well I started at work.

I forced my way into the design work, the design con­ver­sa­tions when­ever I can, and made it my busi­ness to inter­act with our designer. I know that sounds cold, and I don’t mean it the way it sounds because he’s actu­ally a truly rad guy and I’m glad to work with and talk to him. What I’m saying is that when­ever I can give valid - please God note the valid - input, I do. If it gets turned down, I can at least eval­u­ate why and learn from it. If it’s taken into con­sid­er­a­tion, that’s even better. By push­ing to do more of the design work (in my case, con­vert­ing the design­ers works of art into some­thing prac­ti­cal) I’ve gained even more knowl­edge, and I’ve put myself into a posi­tion where I can inter­act with the tools and people that I need to to edu­cate myself.

This is a key point. Self-​education can go a long way in help­ing you under­stand design. Hell, even if you want to learn to cook. Get a job at a restau­rant, and put your­self in a posi­tion where you’re work­ing with the cooks in some fash­ion. Start as a dish washer, and ask ques­tions about dishes being made, etc.

I’m talk­ing to people and learn­ing some tricks… now what?

Mess around. Get your hands on a copy of your pre­ferred tool and go nuts. Find tuto­ri­als on how to do what­ever you think looks cool and see how they do it. Find mul­ti­ple ways to do it and com­pare effort versus payoff to find the more effi­cient route. Screw with the tool and see what you can create by your­self. Break it if you can, if only to see what not to do. Basi­cally get a handle on your tools. Sure schools will teach you this stuff even­tu­ally, but even the schools can’t teach you every nuance of any given pro­gram. On top of that you may find that you hate the tools you are using and wish to find new ones. You may find that you can’t stand doing “this” at all. Better to find out now then 3 years down the road.

Now take a step back and take in every­thing so far. You’ve looked into edu­ca­tion. You’ve talked to people. You’ve screwed around and read tuto­ri­als. Fantastic!

Now you’re ready to real­ize that you don’t know much about design whatsoever.

Don’t freak out. This is the wall that a lot of people hit, and I’ve hit it myself recently. It’s that point that sep­a­rates people who “know how to use Photoshop” to people who “design with Photoshop”. This is some­thing that many people don’t get. They figure that they know how to do a mess of cool tricks in Fire­works that they’re ready for any­thing. Are they though? Do they under­stand com­po­si­tion? How about con­trast? Weight? Spac­ing? Kern­ing? What about lead­ing the view­ers vision? Oh, and how about how colours affect moods, or how cer­tain posi­tions feel better on a fun­da­men­tal level? Do you under­stand focal points, The Golden Rule, or how to make photos more dynamic?

If you can answer all of those with­out look­ing them up, pulling it out of your ass, or with­out think­ing really, really hard on them… well chances are you know more about what I’m talk­ing about here then I do and are prob­a­bly read­ing this to feel wist­ful or to make your­self feel big. I’m not a designer. Not yet. I know I can’t answer those ques­tions. My edu­ca­tion has only just started. If I become really good in the field then I’ll have more ques­tions to ask. I know enough to be able to ask the ques­tions. It shows that I know there is more to design then fil­ters, sexy fonts, and gra­di­ents. The extent of my learn­ing has come from the next step.

Read every­thing.

Leave no stone unturned in your quest for knowl­edge. Amass RSS feeds on numer­ous angles of design. Con­sume the words of your bet­ters rav­en­ously. Scour Digg, Google News, search engines, and every design com­mu­nity for arti­cles, tips, reviews, and exam­ples. The most impor­tant part? Read openly and con­tin­u­ously. Read with a clear head and an under­stand­ing that these people prob­a­bly know what their talk­ing about. At the very least they prob­a­bly know more than you. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t ques­tion what you read, but don’t turn it down just because some­one else said gave dif­fer­ing com­men­tary. If you’re really con­fused, ask. Post a ques­tion on the blog, submit a ques­tion to the forum. What­ever it takes. Just remem­ber to be cour­te­ous. You’d be amazed how nice and help­ful the blog­ger com­mu­nity can be.

After you have com­pleted all of this, you’ll prob­a­bly be at about 30%. To be honest I don’t think there could ever be a designer that is at the 100%, because that would just break my mind. I’m sure people will con­tinue to drive towards that sta­tis­ti­cal impos­si­bil­ity which makes me happy.

Keep on learn­ing people, keep on learning.

This is the second part of an ongo­ing series depict­ing my process to becom­ing a graphic designer. My next install­ment will cover what to look for when trying to find a school.

• Part One (Cur­rently reading)
• Part Two
• Part Three
• Part Four
• Part Five
• Part Six
• Part Seven