8 Important Graphic Design Skills Employers Are Looking For

The graphic design industry is extensive. There are numerous jobs available, from graphic designers of websites to fine artists and everything in between. To find the right professional, you must understand precisely what type of graphic designer you want. Then, you may concentrate on identifying the job skills that most closely align with your projects.

If you are searching for essential skills for graphic designers, we have listed the eight key skills that top graphic design companies look for before hiring graphic designers. Whether you are looking for a graphic designer in South Africa, India, the USA, or the Philippines, these skills are essential to assess before hiring graphic designers.

1. Ideation

For graphic designers, having the ability to generate new ideas is essential. They should create unique and exciting designs for projects, products, and campaigns. Large companies require graphic designers to create campaigns or plans for their products. Ideation is one of the essential graphic design skills for conceptualizing and developing design plans.

2. Expertise in software programs

The right software is needed to design and create visual content. Essential skills for graphic designers include expertise in Illustrator, InDesign, and the entire Adobe suite of design applications. Employers want to hire people already familiar with the software they use in the office. This will cut down training and learning costs by 70% or more.

3. Creativity

All designers need creativity, but designers in the graphic design industry need a high level of it. Graphic designers create and design all the visuals for branding, advertising, marketing, promotions, corporate communication, and other functions.

To design anything, from logos to posters and websites, a high level of creativity is what sets apart an average graphic designer from an excellent one. Creative people can look at something and develop a different or new way of doing it. Employers want designers who can come up with new and innovative ideas. Whether searching for graphic artists in Canada or a graphic designer in South Africa, employers will assess creativity through tests, sample work, and interview sessions.

4. Typography

Typography is an essential skill for graphic designers. Choosing the right font can elevate designs to a whole new level. Typography is the art and science of designing letters and text—by manipulating its appearance, legibility, and flow—and combining it with content to convey a message. It is based on the conscious and permanent choice of letterforms and the resulting composition concerning the text’s context, culture, and environment.

Good typeface design involves knowledge of multiple disciplines, such as typography, graphic design, fine arts, and sometimes psychology. To create typeface designs that communicate effectively across cultures, languages, and platforms while maintaining legibility and consistency, type designers will often combine their artistic ideas with well-informed knowledge from other disciplines such as interaction design or graphic design; They might even do user testing during development phases.

5. Problem-solving

Graphic designers are often given creative freedom to do their job. However, that freedom comes with specific responsibilities. They need to adhere to the overall branding and marketing strategies of the company they are working with. Keeping to the brand’s message is essential.

Essential skills for graphic designers include the ability to solve any problems that arise when creating designs and visuals. Graphic designers will be given guidelines on what they can and can’t do with the brand, but design being a subjective area, there will always be scope for misinterpretation. The ability to retain client attention depends on the ability to innovatively and smoothly solve problems.

6. Animation Skills

Animation is one of the most demanded graphic design skills. From seasonal branding to advertising campaigns and web designs, animations are prevalent everywhere.

Animation skills do not refer to just the skills required to create animations using graphic design software (e.g., Photoshop or Illustrator. Amateurs can easily create GIFs or videos using software that auto-generates animations.

Employers seek graphic designers to have high-quality animation skills that combine artistic knowledge, conceptual skills, and customized design planning skills. Such levels of animation skills allow graphic designers to communicate complex ideas in a simple and effective manner.

7. Communication skills

Communication skills are essential, no matter what job you want to do. A graphic designer will be creating and planning out campaign ideas for which he or she will be communicating with marketing teams, branding teams, content teams, and external stakeholders. If they can’t share their ideas well or have problems getting their point across, they will not be successful as a graphic designer. Companies seek candidates who can express their ideas succinctly and precisely.

8. Management skills

For senior graphic designer positions, such as team leader, project coordinator, quality control head, or project manager, management skills are also assessed through situational judgment assessments. The ability to quickly assign tasks to the right artists or designers, manage workflow, and ensure timely deliverables is key to graphic design project success.

Tips For Finding Great Talent

Experience

Employers will hire people with less experience if they have other skills that make up for it. If graphic designers have 3-5 years of experience and a strong portfolio, companies will consider hiring them based on the valuable knowledge and skills they bring to the table. For people choosing a graphic design career, the initial focus should be on learning and gaining rich and diverse experiences.

Learning Abilities

Graphic design companies and corporate graphic design divisions have begun to value the ability of graphic designers to quickly learn new techniques, trends, and design applications.

Many employers motivate graphic designers to learn as much as possible by upgrading their skills through online or offline courses. Graphic designers who continually upgrade their skills are able to take on diverse projects and deliver on complex goals. We advise graphic designers to take classes, attend workshops, follow industry leaders on social media, or whatever works best for them. The more they learn, the more likely they will succeed in this field.

Strong Portfolio

One of the most crucial things to check is the graphic designer’s portfolio. Their work and examples of designs are compiled in a portfolio.

Employers need to evaluate the portfolio from different perspectives. They need to assess creativity, originality, and the relevance of the designs for their requirements. Portfolios include logos and branding materials, advertisements, posters, websites, and anything else related to design. If employers require specific techniques as part of graphic design skills, they will look for examples of that design in the portfolio.

Språk Design

If you are looking to hire graphic designers, find excellent professionals at Språk Design. The company has experience in over 1,000 projects (huge and small) for advertising, marketing, branding, and social campaigns, business promotion, event management, business launch, product launch, and many other activities.

Hire our graphic designers for your projects and benefit from outstanding designs that are affordable and outcome-enriched.