Graphics are everywhere. They’re numerous and they’re doing all sorts of things like entertaining, advertising, informing, and selling. With the sheer number of images around, graphic design can seem vague and overwhelming as an industry. What does a Graphic Designer even do?
The short, simple answer is that Graphic Designers are creative professionals who communicate through visual modes and representations. Their beautiful graphics can connect directly with an audience and inspire them to take action, inform them, or even simply get them engaged in a conversation.
It may seem hard to believe, but the graphic design industry has been around for more than 100 years. The term “graphic design” was coined in 1922. In the late 19th century, industrial technology grew quickly which made it possible to do more advanced design work and become a separate area from a publication’s written components. Designs like logos started even earlier. Some believe the first logo dates back to the 1200s when people started branding animals and cattle.
These days, talented Graphic Designers all around the world work on artistic projects their predecessors could never have imagined possible.
What’s Included in the Graphic Design Industry?
While there’s an overwhelming number of images and types of design, there’s actually a specific set of services Graphic Designers typically offer.
According to industry research by IBISWorld, the graphic design industry in comprised of the following activities:
- Visual Communication Design
- Corporate Identification Design like logos
- Graphic Art
- Creating Illustrations
- Medical Illustrations
There are limitless options for skilled Graphic Designers in the digital world.
3 Smart Ways Graphic Designers are Using InDesign
Graphic design is a broad industry that includes many facets of creative work.
There are Graphic Designers who specialize in almost every type of design work across industries. Some work on promotional materials like flyers and mailers. Some design books and magazines. Skilled professionals have an incredible number of possibilities throughout their career.
Graphic Designers who work with text and images likely use Adobe InDesign. A few common tasks professionals in the graphic design industry use the program for are branding documents, stationary, event invitations, and newsletters.
Branding Documents
Graphic design professionals, especially those who work closely with Marketers, can develop branding materials for a business. While InDesign isn’t the ideal program for logos (Illustrator or Photoshop are best for those), anything that needs quite a bit of text can be designed within the program.
Items like letterhead and business cards are often created in InDesign because of the unique ways users can manipulate text and typesetting. The margins, line spacing, and letter spacing are all adjustable in the program, which is important for creating a cohesive brand.
It’s also helpful that InDesign can easily place images and text on the same canvas and design with them together. On business cards, for instance, there’s a small area (usually 3.5 inches by 2 inches) that needs to include a logo image and several lines of text. InDesign can place these items on the correct sized card in creative ways to make a professional but memorable impact.
Stationery & Event Invitations
It’s likely you’ve received an event invitation, or seen what many call “fancy” stationery at the store. These printed materials often come with beautiful colors and fonts, even sometimes shapes, and are known for being pretty.
Within graphic design, InDesign is a useful tool for creating designs like these because of the flexibility to work with space and text on the canvas, as well as combine graphics and text. When designing stationery, Graphic Designers must think through the color palette and spacing because people will be writing on the paper or card.
For professionals who design event invitations, shapes, fonts, colors, and overall aesthetic is of utmost importance. This is particularly true of wedding and charity invitations which need to convey information in a pretty specific way. InDesign has the capabilities and tools to meet all of these customized needs with text and images.
Newsletters
Many newsletters, whether digital or print, are multi-page documents that share updates and images the audience wants to hear about. These elements are InDesign’s bread and butter.
The program excels at longer documents, particularly those with a combination of images and text. For the Graphic Designer needing to put together a professional and appealing newsletter, this program is ideal.
Professionals can lay out all of the page designs to see how they will look as a finished product, create layout templates to save themselves time on future projects, and import text and images from a number of places. InDesign can also export a number of different files, which is useful when sending out the design for review or to an audience.
Where to Learn InDesign Skills for Graphic Design
If you’re ready to learn InDesign, there are several good options in-person, live online, and as part of certification programs.
Noble Desktop offers several InDesign classes. For those looking to pick up knowledge quickly, InDesign in a Day might be a great option. If you want a deeper, more foundational understanding, Adobe InDesign Bootcamp is a longer, more comprehensive course. In addition, there’s a Graphic Design Certificate option, which includes InDesign coursework.
>If you don’t like the idea of being in the classroom, live online courses offer similar benefits to being in-person, with the flexibility of being able to learn from the comfort of your own home or office. You can use the Noble Desktop Classes Near Me tool to find live online InDesign courses or InDesign classes near you. The Classes Near Me tool is an easy way to see available training courses from reputable training programs in a specific subject area.