Creative Ways To Practice Your Graphic Design Skills

It’s a great feeling when you acquire new graphic design skills. If you’re anything like me, you can’t wait to put your new skillset to the test. I’m always so excited to see just how much I learned and put that into practice. I remember the very first graphic design project I completed. It was this terrible, low-resolution header image for my blog. I still have that design. I look at it sometimes and laugh at just how awful it was. I was so proud of that design when I first completed it. I couldn’t believe I had actually made something. It was possibly one of the best feelings I’d ever experienced.

I still get equally excited when I learn something new. No matter how many years you’ve practised graphic design (or anything else), there is also ways something new for you to discover. One of the best ways to keep the excitement going is to use your newly acquired skills in a fun and creative way. Let’s explore some of the unique ways you can practice your graphic design skills.

Have A Design Party

You can celebrate just about anything these days, so why not have a design party? Invite some friends over and design every aspect of the party from the invitations to the room decorations. Creating the items required for a party is a great way to step outside of the types of designs you would typically make. There aren’t too many people actively designing sleeves for the cups and party banners for the wall. Developing all these unique items will give everyone a chance to work on a single portion of a large project. This is great for future jobs that might require you to work with a large team of people.

Once you’re done designing everything that you’ll need for the party, it’s time to celebrate! Play graphic design themed games, have a cake created by one of the attendees and even give out graphic design themed party favours! Don’t have any friends who are graphic designers in your city? No problem! Take the party digital. There are tons of modifications that you can make to a traditional party to make it suitable for the digital space. Get creative and use your imagination.

Design Custom Skins Or Decals

The best part about being a graphic designer is the ability to customize everything. Several websites will allow you to upload your designs and create your own custom skins and decals. You can design skins for things like phones, laptops, gaming systems, tablets, and all sorts of other devices. If you want to see your designs come to life, try designing a wall decal. You can create an entire scene that can span across all the walls in a room or even an entire building. The possibilities are limitless.

Printing companies have a certain specification for the designs that you submit so there’s plenty of things you can learn from designing a skin or decal. For example, you’ll need to have an understanding of file formats, resolution and conversions. You’ll also have to overcome the challenge of having to design something that fits into an odd shape. Most people are used to creating something that will fit into a square, rectangle or circle. Think about the form of something like a pair of headphones. The skin that will be applied to the headphones won’t be in a basic square, rectangle or circle.

Create A Graphic Design Tutorial

A great way to reinforce something that you’ve learned is to teach it to someone else. Is there a project that you’re especially proud of? Create a tutorial based on that project. This can come in the form of a written tutorial, a picture book or even a video. No matter how you make the tutorial, you’ll get a chance to practice what you’ve learned and taught that skill to the next person. If you choose to make something like a picture book, you can practice your skills through both teaching the project as well as designing the book. Creating a tutorial is all about taking what you’ve learned to new heights and expressing those skills in new and exciting ways.

These are just a few of the many ways that you can add some creativity to your graphic design practice. It’s important to keep your love for graphic design strong through introducing diversity in the types of projects that you work on. So many talented designers give up on graphic design because they were bored with the projects they created a day in and day out. You don’t have to go down that path. Always look for opportunities to step outside of your comfort zone and spice up your graphic design routine!