What Skills Should Digital Designers Have?
The most important skill for a Digital Designer is being able to communicate their vision and ideas through digital technology. Digital Designers are expected to know design theory like typography, color composition, design thinking, etc. You’ll need to be open to constructive criticism to provide clients with their desired end goals. Digital Designers will be doing collaborative projects, client management, and deadline planning on top of their design work on a daily basis.
Digital Designers must be proficient in software like Photoshop, InDesign, and Illustrator. They might also find it useful, depending on their niche, to be skilled with software for prototyping, animation, presentations, client management, and project management. They’ll also need skills like drawing, photo or video production, and any industry-specific technology.
Learn the Skills You Need to Become a Digital Designer
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Graphic Design
Graphic design is the creation of visual content to communicate a message. Graphic design uses visual hierarchy, typography, photo editing, spacial awareness, empathy, color theory, and more to create visually appealing and communicative images. Graphic design can be done with software like Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator, Figma, and Sketch.
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Web Design
Web design is the process of creating the look and feel of a website. This includes web page layout, content production, copywriting, graphic design, typography, user-flow, and some coding. Web design can be done using tools like a code editor, templates, and photoshop.
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Photoshop
Photoshop is a software application created by Adobe for image editing and photo retouching on Windows or macOS computers. Photoshop can be used to manipulate and retouch photos. It can also be used to create compositions, collages, design comprehensives, and more.
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UX Design
UX Design stands for User Experience Design which is the practice of designing software and other applications with the user in mind. This means researching, testing, and designing a product using empathy and end-user avatars.
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Adobe
Adobe is an international software company based in the United States. Adobe is best known for its web software ecosystem Flash but also distributes creative software like Photoshop, Illustrator, Acrobat, Lightroom, InDesign, XD, Muse, Dreamweaver, Spark, Premiere Pro, After Effects, Audition, and more.
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InDesign
InDesign is a computer software created by Adobe for publishing and typesetting. It can also be used to create posts, flyers, magazines, brochures, newspapers, books, and presentations.
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Illustrator
Illustrator is a computer program for design developed by Adobe. Illustrator is used by designers to create and edit vector graphics. It can be used for print, web, applications, videos, animations, and more.
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HTML & CSS
HTML is Hypertext Markup Language and CSS is Cascading Style Sheets. HTML is used to create web page structure and text while CSS is used to style the structure and text visually. HTML can be used to create objects like sections, menus, and functions within a webpage. CSS is used to select those objects and style them with fonts, colors, layout, and more to make the webpage visually appealing.
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Sketch
Sketch is a design platform used to create, share, and collaborate prototypes and wireframes.
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Visual Design
Visual design is a set of strategic best practices used to improve a design or product's aesthetic appeal and usability through the selection of appropriate images, typography, use of space, hierarchy, color, and layout.