A new year and a new beginning. Don't tell us that you've decided to study graphic design? That, as design lovers that we are, makes us very happy !! But first of all we let you know. This is not going to be an easy road at all.

There are moments in life when you have to make decisions. Sometimes we make the right decisions, sometimes not so much.

If you are one of those people who, arriving at a crucial moment, decide that they are going to spend their life in this noble world of color, typography, shapes and structures, today we bring you a series of practical tips that can help you to make one idea of ​​what you're up against, help you get started and see if this is really what you want to do.

The first and most important thing is that if you want to dedicate yourself to graphic design you have to train. It is not worth handling 5 Photoshop buttons and 3 Illustrator buttons. The ideal is to find a good school in which to train because, although the self-taught method is very valid if you drink from the right sources , many of those who learned alone would surely have paid for someone to tell them in their day "this is done like this" , «This is not worth». It is much faster, more efficient and safer to surround yourself with good professionals who teach and demand you.

That said, the basic online graphic design courses are very good to have a first contact and not jump into the pool without water.

In the previous point we already talked about drinking from the right sources. This is important. You can listen to Don Omar or Bob Dylan , both are just as legal in this country, but if you ask a professional musician he will advise you to listen to the second more than the first. Don't you think Designing is something like composing music, so better that your references are good .

If you are going to start studying graphic design this point is the title of a book by Austin Kleon that you should order right now at the nearest bookstore. It does not exceed 10 euros and it will give you a global idea of ​​what it is to work in this world. It's kind of a motivational and self-help book for designers. But he comes to say something very important: everything is invented, so what you have to do is go to the most primitive sources of inspiration so as not to fall into doing the same thing that everyone does. Take a little from here, take a little from there. And in that process of "theft" gradually acquire your own style .

Throughout your career you will come to a conclusion: the success of good graphic design is based, in a high percentage, on doing precision work. Be strict with distances, spaces, sizes, measurements. Making a correct design without errors is not art, it is rather science. Of course, there always has to be a place for experimentation. But you have to remember that the design responds to some needs and that your client will want to see their needs covered by a lot of artist soul that you have.

When you work and have a moment of divine inspiration, you have to be careful. It can be dangerous. What you think is wonderful is not so wonderful. Or it is, but it is not the best for the work you are doing.  You have to be open to constructive criticism (and destructive criticism too, because there is a lot of loose heater ) and to changes in your work. Your idea is not always the best and you have to know when to say "I'm not around here." There are times that it does not happen.

If the problem is that the ideas do not arrive, train your gray matter . From exercises to be more creative to the most basic brainstorming techniques , they can help you loosen that muscle that you had a little atrophied.

Studying graphic design and especially being a graphic designer is a long-distance career, like almost all of them. It is not worth studying a year and living on income. You have to train day after day, because trends change. What today is a brand structure with which you will surely succeed, tomorrow is more outdated than saying "you don't find out, Contreras. Between the fact that fashions change in a matter of months, that depending on the geographical point of the world that you work with, the color palettes in vogue have nothing to do with each other , and that the programs are updated every two days. Well, that, even if you don't live in a pineapple under the sea, you have to be a real sponge.

All jobs that need a certain dose of inspiration have a maxim: routine and perseverance. First, because creativity is a muscle that must be trained day by day, and only by working slowly but surely, every day, will you know which key you have to play to make it work. Not for nothing, if not because it is curious that everyone who orders a graphic design job is very urgent, it is always like the day before yesterday. For that reason and because time is money, and you have to optimize yours. You know, success is 10% talent and 90% hard and tireless work.

That of designer is a career that requires a vocation . Of a lot of vocation. The beginnings are hard, you have to get sick of working and build a good portfolio , and then get sick of working even more. After that, when you find a job, it 's quite likely that serving burgers will make a little more money, and it will require less mental effort. So you decide if it compensates you, if you really feel fulfilled with your work, and if this is what fulfills you in your life .