Thinking about a career in design, but not sure where to start? Here are some tips for you:
1. Passion is key
Like in any other job, you must have passion and love what you do to do it well. If you are looking through magazine layouts, playing around with colors, patterns and most importantly you are drawn to art and beauty then the good news is - creativity may already be built in you. Now you need to practice developing it!
2. Practice Makes Perfect
If you are serious about developing any skills, you need to put a lot of effort and time into it. Try to organize your time to make learning as part of your daily routine! Spend at least 2 hours in the morning or evening watching tutorials or working on a design project at least three times a week! So that's only 6 hours of design time per week! But try to allocate time in your calendar, treat it like a job and stick to it!
3. Build your Portfolio
Start building a portfolio on projects that you want to be doing when you are employed.
The best way to learn and build a strong portfolio is through doing actual design tasks. There are so many fantastic crowd-sourcing sites that will help you to work on real client-based projects.
4. Show your Work
Don’t be afraid to start sharing your designs, even when you don’t think they’re good enough. Guess what? They might not be! But it’s important to get feedback on them, to have someone tell you about an existing pattern you didn’t know existed, to join a community that will help you grow long down the road, to show and share your work and iterate bit by bit with the help of others.
5. Complete an Internship
What is the better way to improve as a designer than to work with real people on real projects that have an impact on the world and for the users we design for? Don’t just apply to one internship. I applied to many. When you are just starting out, you don’t want to be extremely picky. Even if you don’t entirely fit all the job requirements, it never hurts to apply.
One of the great ways to practice and show your work to a wide range of people all around the world is by becoming a WikiStage design volunteer. Designers will be mentioned on the "WikiStage Designer" section on the WikiStage Team page for a year and we will share your work on our social media channels where we are followed by in total more than 100.000 people.
WikiStage is looking for volunteers to become WikiStage Designers. If you have great skills in design that you want to share with the world, apply here.
