Do you want to make a career out of graphic designing? Do you want to be a sought after professional of the field? Along with technical studies, there are some essential basic skills that you must master in order to grow as a graphic designer. If you can acquire these skills, you can very well make it to the top.

1. Imagination – Ability to Create a Vision

You must know how to visualize a project before starting to work on it. Have a creative design process that you can follow. Conduct good research, jot down ideas and develop an understanding of the project at hand. It’s only through understanding project demands that you will be able to craft a vision. The more active your imagination is the more creative and unique your designs will be.

2. Sketching – Skill of Drawing Ideas

Sketching has, and always will be, a basic requirement for any designing career.  Whether it’s in logo or graphic designing, you must have the ability to sketch your ideas before working on the computer. You must have good knowledge of typographic art and fonts, as most logo and graphic design projects require this.

3. Aesthetic – Eye for Beauty

Graphic designers have a huge responsibility of bringing out the beauty in things that anyone else may otherwise overlook. Your design must be appealing to the client and their target audience. If the audience can relate to the logo, they will most certainly want the services. Colors, patterns and designs used in the project must be pleasant to the beholder’s eye and convey the company’s message effectively.

4. Techie – Handy with Graphic Software

As a graphic designer, you must know how to work on various kinds of graphic software. For instance, logo designers must know how to work on Adobe Illustrator, FreeHand and CorelDraw. For web designers, it doesn’t just stop at Adobe Illustrator – you need to have good knowledge of Adobe Photoshop and other web template design software. Don’t limit your knowledge to only one design program.

5. Knowledge – Know Graphic Concepts

You must know basic concepts regarding color tones, saturation, pixel requirements etc. For example, designs created in Adobe Photoshop are not scalable because they get pixilated when enlarged.  You must know what color psychology is for example color according to industry and region.  You must also have a good understanding of why overused concepts must be avoided. You also need to know everything about typography, pixel and vector art, including their use in various media platforms be it online, print or digital.

6. Hard Work – Creating from Scratch

There are a lot of easy graphic and logo design solutions available all over the web. From clip art to ready-made designs, everything is there. But these elements are not for graphic designers who value their career. You have to give your clients original work so start from scratch. Every logo, design and template created must be created through a proper process.  This typically starts from idea generation then leads to sketching and extends to creation through excellent technical skills. Resorting to low end solutions will easily blow away your chance of becoming a renowned graphic designer – so steer clear!

7. Originality – Do You Have What It Takes?

Anyone who thrives on copied content and calls it inspiration is not a graphic designer. Good copycats don’t smart designers make! Remember that along with creativity, you also need to be ORIGINAL.

8. Being Humble – I’m Not Mr. Know-it-all

This is not a skill, but a quality you must have. There is no such thing as the “best” designer. Graphic designing is an ever learning process and anyone who thinks that they know-it-all are sadly mistaken. The minute you think you are the best you become redundant and stop striving to learn. Be humble and don’t let pride get the best of you.

9. Positive Attitude – Ability to Take Criticism

Every art field has its own critics. Artists everywhere are bound to face criticism about their artwork. Criticism is not the problem, negative attitude to criticism is. They say that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, therefore everyone who perceives a work of art might cater a different opinion. Your clients might have their own opinion or demands for a particular design. Perhaps what you create is not what they anticipated. Remember, don’t take criticism negatively. It’s just another person’s opinion, so ask them how you can make it better.

10. Take a Chill Pill – When to Let Go

Stress and being overwhelmed by your work won’t get you anywhere except for possibly depression. And depression is bad for the artist and his/her art. If there’s free time and your creative juices aren’t flowing, take some time off. Relax for a couple of days, go on a vacation, freshen up and return to work with renewed enthusiasm. Never take on a project while you’re stressed out because that will only backfire.

I hope this list was able to spark some positive thoughts in all aspiring graphic designers out there. Did we miss any skill you think is an essential for being a good graphic designer? Do let us know!

The simplest logo can often have the deepest meaning. You don’t need to have a flashy, colorful or complicated logo to define the essence of a company. When you want a simple logo with a hidden meaning, negative spacing logos are your best option!

Negative spacing logos are loved for their unique designs and ability to convey meaning in a subtle way. Here’s a collection of some very creative negative spacing logos. Get inspired!

The next time you set your hands on designing a simple but meaningful logo, try adding negative space! But be warned, it doesn’t come easy. You have to be creative and work through multiple sketches to come up with the perfect logo.  Good luck!

It’s February, Valentine’s Day is near and love is in the air! For many, this is one of the favorite times of the year, as they celebrate and express their feelings for loved ones.

Valentine’s Day is all about giving and receiving. With that in mind, I thought of sharing our love for design today by bringing forth a collection of thirty five heart shape logo designs. These will surely make you fall in love with designing all over again

What Do Heart Logo Designs Represent?

Over the years, the symbol of heart has come to represent good health. Being a vital organ of the human body, the heart stands for good health and happiness. This is why you will see numerous health institutes that have a heart in their logo designs as the main metaphor for human health.

The heart symbol also represents the feeling of love; coupled with the color red for passion it expresses a deep enthusiasm and excitement. For centuries people have related the heart symbol to expressing care and deep feelings of love.

Businesses with heart logos want to communicate the message of care for their customers and show their passion for their product and/or services. This is why the heart is often used in the beauty, art, jewelry, entertainment and even food industries.

Happy Valentine’s Day to our Design Community – have a good one!

Have you designed any heart shaped logo lately? Share it with us.

Images Courtesy: LogoPond.com and MycroBurst.com

We are always educating our designers about submission standards to ensure a hassle free design process. In today’s post we are reaching out to our web designers to share some important submission guidelines.

Web Design Submission Checklist – Web Designing 101

When submitting web design drafts to Logo Design Guru and MycroBurst, web designers must be sure that their design drafts are up to standards. Please make sure that you follow all of the following criteria:

1. Web Template Draft Size

Your design template should be 1001px in 72 DPI, PNG format. Do not stick to the traditional 800 x 600 pixels as it is outdated.

With various screen options available today, web templates should be flexible enough to adjust to all sizes. Customers can sometimes also demand for liquid or fluid templates that are meant to consume all 100% of screen width. You may send in liquid drafts only when it has been specially requested by the client.

2. Correct Color Standard

Nearly all monitors are RGB calibrated, which is why your web template should also be in RGB mode. Web designers can also manipulate CMYK, HSB, LAB and hexadecimal values to get the right RGB colors. You can search online for color values to find the perfect shades for your web template design.

3. Web Template Optimum for HTML

Web template should always be optimum for both Table & Table, less html methodology. Odd designs or design elements may look good as a template, but optimization on several different browsers does not often look right.

4. Prefer Using Adobe Photoshop

Photoshop is not good for logo designing. However, it is exclusively recommended for web template designs. At Logo Design Guru and MycroBurst we accept layer based web designs in PSD format, with each layer having specific folders and names.

This allows the customer to easily review the template and analyze details of various layers. We highly recommend using Adobe Photoshop 7.0 or higher.

5. Avoid Clipart and 3^rd Party Stock Images

Do not use clipart. Images from a 3rd party source can be used only if the source website has deemed images as royalty free. An alternative option is to use images from a 3^rd party that has a watermarked logo. You can then supply image ID along with the final source files so the client can buy those images.

6. Don’t Use Watermarks On Web Design Draft

Do not add watermarks on web design drafts as it hampers visibility.

Before submitting a web design to any project make sure you have fulfilled all the requirement given above. In case of any query regarding submission guidelines, feel free to contact us.

Designing a logo can be one of the hardest things to do, especially when you are responsible for creating a brand. A logo design can be beautiful and creative, or it can be clever and professional. It helps a business stand out in the industry; this is why it needs to reflect the true meaning of the company it represents.

About a month ago, I shared post regarding secrets to creating real estate logos. This post educated logo designers about avoiding clichéd symbols and learning to think different. We like to believe that it helped our design community become skilled at creating better logos for the real estate industry

Consider today’s post an extension to our previous post as we are sharing twenty five creative real estate logo designs for inspiration. These were designed by our design community. I hope these help to inspire more designers in their logo design ventures.

Have you designed a Real Estate Logo recently?

Share it with us!