Great designers are everywhere you go, and they could make anything. It is a matter of finding out why a designer is as great as he is and what you can do to fully capture that greatness. While you study great designers, you will see some common characteristics. And, if you’ve been trying to start a career as a designer, you surely should know these six best characterstics that make a great designer.
1. Uniqueness
There are a handful of designs you can find everywhere. There is a large number of amazing art depicting a plate of fruit. However, even in a case, a painter sets perfect approach into canvas you’ll not say that it was a great design. An excellent design is one of a sort or kind. It could be congruent or even inspired by other designs, but it must have the ability to stand alone as a distinctive design. Take the Mona Lisa for example. You’ll see other portraits of other women. However, the Mona Lisa is exclusive. Maybe it’s the wonderfully wry look, or it might even be the fact that the Mona Lisa does not have any eyebrows and maybe that is what makes her unique.
2. Symmetry
A symmetrical design is eye catching since it calls the interest of the viewer. The attention sees that both sides will be the same and the mind automatically picks it up. The Eiffel Tower is a vintage exemplary case of symmetry at the job. Since it towers over Paris, you cannot help but be mesmerized by its magnificence. The excess attention as a result of symmetry is exactly what provides a design like the Eiffel Tower an edge over other designs.
3. Dedication to coherence and continuity
An excellent design conveys a note successfully, but no-one will know what you want to say if you haven’t put any thought into it. Find out what you would like to state and say it in a concise and clear manner. This is especially true for billboards and other large format printing. In this particular form of media, the viewer has only a short time to soak up your message so that it is important that it can easily be read and understood.
4. An endless learning process
You have to improve your art even after you are fully trained. Usually, we short-circuit and lose our cool. But you have to stay calm and concentrated and find strategies and tools to help you save time. Many great designers began very humble. They truly became sponges and soaked everything in. They got notes and attempted new things. They were receptive and grew because they paid attention to the people around them. There wasn’t an attitude of pride or arrogance, but a conscious decision to be humble, to be teachable. Today, in the age of digital media, someone wants to create great designs might have a hard time to thrive with all the competition that is out there. A great designer tries to seek inspiration and knows digital marketing skills that can help him market his art.
5. Being ready to take criticism
Criticism is a difficult thing. As a designer, we should learn that whenever our work is under criticism there is no need to take it personally. There is no reason to get protective and constitute lame excuses. Be open-minded and receptive.
6. Looking for inspiration constantly
You must come in contact with what’s happening in the world. Constantly considering what is currently being discussed in the art world will enable you to apply a professionalism and reliability to your work. You can also monitor what the existing design trends are and where they go. Keeping a pool of design inspiration, also, has proven helpful. Whenever a project is started, you can get back to it and discover inspiring design work that you have saved to help kick-start the creative process.
7. Exiting the comfort zone
Ask any successful designer, and they’ll inform you they were prepared to learn and explore new design stunts. It’s hard! I get that. However, how will a creator ever expand or learn if they are never forced beyond their limitations? Almost every day, you can meet a designer who is eager to know his limits and pass them to explore the vastness he is yet to know. Featured photo credit: Wikipedia via upload.wikimedia.org
