How a Part Timer can gain Graphic Design skills in everyday encounters

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This past month has been hectic for me. Currently, I have 3 jobs for the remainder of these last two weeks of the month.

First and foremost, I am a Graphic Design student meaning time management is a huge skill to have when juggling school and work. Secondly, I am completing my last 2 weeks of service as a part-time worker at the first job I have ever gotten which is at an ice cream parlor. I worked there for exactly 1 year, 1 month, and 2 weeks and got promoted this year in July as a Shift Leader. Now if I got promoted why would I leave? Because I realized that the job was great to start, but I need to gain more work experience and skills to grow as a person. I gained some confidence there and learned the ways of customer service, but being there was preventing me from growing further because I did not get to meet new people or gained any new skills. The third job is the one I am currently training for as a cashier at a place I cannot say, but the atmosphere there is amazing as everyone treats each other like family.

Now you may be asking, how am I giving you this information relating to the topic? During my time training as a cashier in the third job, there was a phrase that the hiring manager said that stuck with me. “Build a network. Getting to know people and introducing yourself to your coworkers will help you build a network here.” This is a part-time position as a cashier, but the reality is that building strong relationships with people you meet will help you in your future endeavors. Building a network is important to Graphic Designers after all that is where a majority of getting work will rely on.

So don’t think that because you are working part-time and not working as a Graphic Designer while studying Graphic Design is a bad thing. Take it as an opportunity to build your social skills and build up a network because in the end sure you can have the best design ever, but if you don’t know how to market yourself or have a network, your design will have a high chance of not getting noticed.

What is Graphic Design?

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If you think about it, Graphic Design is all around you. Did you see a billboard advertisement driving down a highway? Did you notice the color of your gum wrapper or what joke it may or may not have? Did you take a business card on your visit to the dentist? Whether big or small a Graphic Designer was in charge of designing those. The design could be as big as a billboard or as small as a gum wrapper, but the importance of the design is still there.

Graphic Design is essentially an effective way of visually communicating an idea, concept, or message. Graphic Designers are in charge of creating designs that are easy to understand, effective at carrying out its message and importance, as well as keeping the audience in mind, and effectively carry out the needs of their clients or supervisors. It is a very important job especially since a major area of Graphic Design is an advertisement. As a Graphic Designer, you need to capture people’s attention with your design, making them inquire more about the product, service, or cause.

Graphic Design has an abundance of opportunities from animation, video production, illustrations, and so much more that I cannot wait to learn more about!

Intro to Graphic Arts and Design

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Ideally, I was supposed to post this blog last week, but because my life has been hectic these past few weeks it seems I will just have to post 2 blog posts this week to make up for it.

This month I started my class of Introduction to Graphic Arts and Design. For those that may be wondering, shouldn’t you be stating with that class first? You see, my class schedule was changed around due to issues, and so I started taking my general education classes completely online. When I started my major classes I was thrown into the rotation of classes with my first class being Digital Video and Audio Editing. The way my university works is that we take one class a month, so that students may focus on that one class. Thus, here we are with my new class for the month being Intro to Graphic Arts and Design.

Since this is technically the first introductory class, blog posts were not a requirement for this month. However, I decided to continue boggling once a week for this month because I want to keep my blog consistent. Being as I am late on this blog post I will keep it short and continue to talk about a better topic in the next blog post.

Web Builder Services

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After a long time of trying to figure out what to write about for my final blog of the month, I finally came up with an idea. Have you ever gone to a YouTube video and see an advertisement about Squarespace or Wix, or perhaps even a YouTuber has personally talked about these websites? Well, the topic of this blog is going to be about website builder services. Web builders are essentially websites designed to let anyone create their webpage in a much simpler manner.

I have not used these websites the only one I have ever used is the one I am currently writing on, WordPress. Many of these websites allow the user to customize webpages for their own needs, whether it be a blog or a place to sell their products without the need of having to code everything by hand themselves. These websites are created in such a way that anyone who doesn’t have experience with web design is capable of customizing their webpage.

That being said, is it better to learn how to build a webpage from scratch or is it better to use one of these web builders? I would say that the answer to that question depends on the person. I am more of a do-everything myself kind of gal but I also have my limits and lack of experience when it comes to certain things, web design being one of them. So putting myself in the shoes of someone who has no experience in web design, other than the one class I took on it, I could see why people decide to use these web builders as they are pretty efficient. The good thing about some of these web builders is that some are open-sourced, meaning someone with experience in coding can completely go in and change every little thing to how they want the webpage to look. Thus, these web builders are not only tailored for inexperienced people, but also for designers who can use it as a means to practice, or as a platform to begin their design on.

I would recommend starting with a web builder and if you feel more comfortable and find interest in designing websites, then definitely learn the magic of HTML and CSS coding.

Thoughts on Web Design

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I am a bit disappointed with myself, but only a tiny bit. This is because I had high hopes that I would enjoy my Web Design class, but at the end of the day, I’ve realized that I’ve been slacking quite a bit. I still get my work done don’t get me wrong, but I just lack the motivation and excitement I’ve had with my previous classes when it comes to getting the work done. I’m guessing I’ve found the part of Graphic Design that I can scratch out in terms of possible career fields I would want to do in the future.

This is my third week in the class and I have learned quite a bit. I felt that learning Web Design was difficult and not interesting at first, but once I sat down to do it and start coding and seeing the changes in action was the part that was fun for me. Maybe I’ll change my mind in a distant future about Web Design and take the time to research and learn more about it, but as of right now it is not something that catches my attention.

However, I will go on and mention the importance of Web Design. For starters, Web Design is important to online marketing as many businesses and companies create their websites to advertise and sell their products. A good website design reflects on the company’s image, message, and whether it is trustworthy enough to buy from them. Many people these days use the web to gather their information and do research for things like projects, school work, and the likes so an informative website needs to be interesting enough to maintain the viewer’s attention as well as be factual and easy to navigate. Essentially, the CSS coding is going to be a huge help to make your HTML code look interesting and appealing.