Expectations are high when it comes to graphic designers, as the design industry became highly competitive over the years.
As demand for graphics increase with the shift to online — mainly because of the COVID-19 pandemic) — many challenges also came along with it for graphic designers. And though some of these roadblocks were already present before COVID, most of them have intensified during these times.
We want to help all of our graphic designers by lighting their way as they navigate through these rough times.
Without further ado, we listed five main challenges of graphic designers in their careers, as well as our recommended steps into overcoming them.
1. Art Blocks
The No. 1 enemy of every creative out there. With art blocks, creative people cannot bring themselves to conjure creative ideas and concepts for their artworks, leaving them in a rut.
Art blocks literally block the creatives’ way of accomplishing their work, and it is so frustrating. So here’s what you can do to counter art blocks.
HOW TO OVERCOME: Take a 30 minute to 1-hour break. Go for a refresh of your system — eat, drink, walk, breathe, focus, get inspiration from your hobbies and go-to media, or even meditate.
After that, go back to what you are doing and do the “30-Minute System”. With this system, you don’t think about anything; you just focus on getting started and pledge to do it even just for 30 minutes.
When you get started, creative ideas will eventually flow, and you will continue with your work, even not minding that 30 minutes have passed. When you feel tired again or get art blocks, just repeat this process. Try it. It works for sure! 😉
2. Balancing Creativity and Timekeeping
Being on time and hitting deadlines is a struggle as creatives get easily lost and be engrossed in the sea of creative thoughts and imagination. Yes, creating them can be fun and can be a process at times, but in reality, creatives need to keep time in check to deliver the client’s or team’s deadlines.
HOW TO OVERCOME: Make a habit of tracking your record — how fast you can do each artwork and how you can do it in less time each day.
Before starting, take deep breaths, put on good music, and let yourself go and be creative. Do this until you pin down your first draft. You can edit after through a quick rundown. Then you’re all set!
3. Staying Updated
The graphic design industry is fast evolving, and designers have to keep up with the latest trends to stay relevant. New software, platforms, design trends emerge yearly, which make the whole industry more competitive as humans compete more and more with AIs and technology.
HOW TO OVERCOME: Network with fellow graphic designers and join in groups to keep up with the latest trends. Joining a community will keep you up to date with trends and updates, and lead you to opportunities to get access to new technologies, as well as their tutorials and training.
4. Saturated and Highly Competitive Industry
The industry keeps growing. There are emerging self-taught graphic designers out there, which heightens the competition. Access to free training, tutorials, and demos give more opportunities for people to develop design skills.
There are also easy-to-use design platforms like Canva where one can design their own logos, banners, and other materials without the help of a human graphic designer.
The huge challenge is how to stand out among the crowd, be a valuable asset, and impress any client.
HOW TO OVERCOME: Be an outstanding professional graphic designer. Keep up to date with the latest trends and technologies in your industry. Connect with leaders and experts. Get their insights, absorb everything you can from them, even let them critique your work — and put all of the learnings into practice. Take advantage of the free courses, tutorials, and training out there so you can keep up with the times and present more value.
Also, last but not the least, don’t forget to have fun in the process of growing and development.
5. Finding Good Clients
Graphic designers struggle to find good clients who actually value good design for what it is and see it as an investment, rather than just another expense. This is the downside of the advancements and conveniences in the graphic design industry, where one can think that they don’t need to hire a graphic designer but instead just download a free editing app, or do templated materials via platforms like Canva.
HOW TO OVERCOME: Leverage being “social” for both online and in-person, which is a very important tool in business nowadays. Build connections, make friends, engage communities, have strong relationships with people, and exchange knowledge and skills with them. In the long term, they might help you in your career as a graphic designer.
It also really pays if you know the value you can bring to clients. Are you fast? Are you reliable? Are you flexible? Are your designs creative and capture what the client wants?
Learn how to communicate your value and focus on mastering those areas along with growing other skills on the side which complements your main value proposition.
We have fast, reliable, and flexible graphic designers who can capture the client’s needs
We are Dezynspace. We are the leading online platform where you can easily book a graphic designer, exclusively attending to your design needs the whole 8 hours of the day, on a per demand basis.
Our designers are all vetted, professionally trained, and dedicated to a client, thus can respond to requests and queries in as fast as 30 minutes.
We take care of our graphic designers, give them training, and encourage them to grow their skills in this fast-paced world of graphic design today. We also encourage our clients to give the designers words of encouragement as it would reflect back nicely on their outputs. 🙂
Learn more about the portfolio of our designers here, or go here to get started with working with our dedicated and professional graphic designers.