Owning graphic design software does not make you a graphic designer.
The software is a tool and only a tool. It doesn’t matter if you’re a Photoshop expert or not, there’s much more at play within a successful design than pretty fonts and pleasing color schemes.
A good designer: has a high level of taste, has a mastery of design tools and most importantly is an exemplary communicator. And by communicator, I don’t mean the most entertaining person at your next cocktail party. This type of person can take a pile of information, a comprehensive understanding of the client and their needs and transform that pile of information into an easily-digestible format for the general public. In actuality, the designer is a translator.
The title graphic designer is misleading. We’re labeling them by their end products, assuming that the graphic is the most important part of the process. Let’s compare: Researchers, sales associates, managers, accountants… they are all titled by the means to the end, the actual work they are performing.
I don’t design graphics.
I research, collaborate, organize, disseminate and translate ideas understandable, aesthetically pleasing ways. Call us what you want… but please realize what we actually do. “Making something pretty” is not as simple as it sounds.
All that being said, the only way a client can weed out good graphic designers (the ones that do much more than make something pretty) is to understand at least the basic concepts of design. My favorite illustrations of these concepts has been coined by the designer/author Robin Williams…
Good design is CRAP.
More specifically, it employs the concepts of: Contrast, Repetition, Alignment and Proximity. The elements of a design, working together, contrast, repeat, align and are placed in an meaningful proximity to each other. I highly recommend reading Robin’s book, which explains this in more detail than a blog post will allow.
But, least of all, know that with good design, graphics are put on a page with thoughtful intention. That intention, if understood by the client, will help them achieve the correct return on investment that they put into hiring a designer in the first place.
