Professional designers are worth their weight in gold these days. Although you can observe that more people decide to enter the designing field, finding a skilled individual is still a challenge.

Of course, learning the nuts and bolts of the area you want to work within is essential. But considering the tight competition, you are way better off getting an additional set of abilities to tip the scales of your application.

Besides, keep in mind that many companies expect plenty from applicants; other than using paid apps, people should use software like these free graphic design tools.

What else do they need to be good at? The following list casts some light on skills professional designers should have today.

Rudimentary programming

Like any other field, designing–web, graphic, or motion–values diversity. It often isn’t enough to know how to handle tasks that pertain to your area of expertise. You should also be capable of tackling assignments peripherally related to your work scope. And programming is one of such elements.

People decide to become programmers for various reasons, with a well-paid field being one of them. And although you may think that learning how to code is unnecessary for designers, having some basic understanding of a specific programming language will only boost your candidacy. Learning HTML or CSS will give you plenty of credit and make your application stand out.

Good Communication

The ability to communicate clearly and effectively is a soft skill every professional designer must have. The designing position often requires communicating with various departments and customers to buckle down the undertaking and meet everyone’s expectations.

Not only that, regular communication allows designers to expand their creative abilities and look at tasks from different angles. This often determines a designer’s expertise.

Coherent font, headlines, and overall typography

Visual elements have always been impactful, so it’s critical to approach them professionally and seriously. Also, it’s not enough to come up with an appealing font and put it in the right place. Often, designers do tremendous work, analyzing the web page, audience, competitors, and other aspects that help determine what font and other typographical items will be the best.

Companies tend to pay closer attention to their typesetting, as it significantly influences the user’s experience (UX) and interface (UI). That’s why if you want to become an expert designer, knowledge of typography and typesetting is necessary.

Technical prowess in print production

Although graphic designers focus mainly on the digital area, overlooking the real world is a no-go. In fact, knowing how to generate impeccable banners and an awful lot of other elements is crucial nowadays. Creating digital posters is one thing, but printing them is different. In printing, it isn’t enough to know how to use Photoshop. You should also know the ink density, saturation, bleed, etc.

You may not employ print production abilities daily, but knowing its fundamental principles will come in handy, whatever your task is.

Digital and analog photography

Being a photographer is hard, and it often doesn’t pay off. But when you’re a designer and want to boost your skillset, gaining some rudimentary understanding of photography is recommended. Apart from digital photography, which is predominant now, you are encouraged to pay attention to analog photography.

Gaining experience in photography will help you get various perspectives on photos. It will also improve your portfolio and allow you to hone your Photoshop skills.

Manual drawing

As outdated as it may seem, manual drawing is not nearly a thing of the past. On the contrary, it’s becoming more popular among designers, and here is why. Manual drawing, sketching, and modeling lets people generate creative concepts and test their effectiveness. The great thing about sketches is that prolific designers can put them on paper speedily and visualize what such layouts might look like when developed.

Such a method doesn’t touch upon creativity solely. Logo designers also benefit from manual drawing, as it helps evaluate the font, quality of illustrations, and the work’s up and downsides. The ability to create illustrations manually makes designers more productive, fruitful, and ingenious.

Solid finesse in Adobe

Despite the industry's diversity and uniqueness, Adobe Photoshop is what every branch of design heavily relies on. Whether you are a graphic or motion designer, your skills will often be evaluated based on how good you are with Photoshop.

Like it or not, Adobe is a universal tool, and using it when designing an ad campaign, flyers, posters, and banners is very much common everywhere.

The more you can do in Photoshop, the better. So ensure learning the ropes of retouching, masking, and other things designers are involved in.

Conclusion

Well-rounded professionals are sought-after everywhere, and design is no exception. Becoming a skillful designer might be demanding and take some time. With the mentioned list, though, it will be less time-consuming. Provided maps out critical skills every professional should currently have. Make sure to pick them up to increase your chances of landing a perfect job.