The quality that distinguishes graphic designers from other professionals is the ability to think creatively. Designers are best known for their design aesthetics and sense of identity development. Now imagine if a graphic designer runs out flat of this exceptional trait…what would happen? Just consider for a second that your creativity and resourcefulness depletes to the extent that you cannot think of a single idea.

A graphic designer without creative instincts is like a locomotive without an engine. Your concept generation skills are paramount to your profession and you must make sure your creativity doesn’t dries out. So how does a graphic designer keep his creative juices flowing constantly?
Here are 8 simple yet effective ways of boosting your creative level in the field of graphic design:

1. Do Away With Pessimism:

The first thing that we need to do as graphic designers is stay optimistic. We must learn to believe in ourselves and our ability to think creatively. Most designers fail to think resourcefully because they lose their inner confidence. They fear that they might have reached a level of maturity where your creative skills diminish. But the truth of the matter is…creativity has no age limits.

2. Be an Entrepreneur – Take Risks:

In order to try something new, you must be daring and ready to take risks. Much like an entrepreneur, who never shies away from challenges and is willing to take risk in establishing a novel business venture. Likewise, graphic designers should also be willing to take risk in trying out new and different design concepts. So don’t be afraid, let your creativity run wild and you will find loads of fresh and novel logo design ideas and concepts.

3. Keep a ‘Creative Circle’:

There is a common saying “If you can’t beat them, join them”. Another easy way of staying creative is by surrounding yourself with a ‘creative circle’. A creative circle would include all the people and associates who are known for their dexterity and design intelligence. It is said that man learns from whatever environment he is exposed to. Hence, make sure that your environment is a creative and resourceful one.

4. Always Keep a Pen and Paper:

Many a times, you are sitting somewhere and a great idea pops into your mind. But you decide to work on it later and eventually forget it afterwards. In order to avoid wasting your creative thinking capacity, always carry a pen and paper with you. Or even more convenient in the age of technology is to use your notebooks and iPhones to jot down the bits and pieces of brilliance that come into your head.

5. Make Mistakes:

Another thing that stops most designers from thinking imaginatively is fear of making mistakes. Their apprehension is that if they think excessively, they might end up committing a major error. But in reality, one learns from his mistakes. It is well said that “The person that doesn’t make mistakes is unlikely to make anything.”

6. Be Liberal with Other’s Opinions:

Creativity is not always inherited or inborn. Sometimes you have to learn from your environment and peers by listening to their opinions and suggestions. Some designers have a knack of not keeping an open-mind when it comes to other’s views. In order to stay creative, you must be welcoming and liberal to client criticism and feedback.

7. Don’t be a Workaholic:

I remember my early days as a graphic designer when I used to be an extreme workaholic. Being relatively new to the professional graphic design world, I used to panic a lot and work day in day out on my assignments. It used to drain the creative juices out of me. Hence, my advice is never to be a workaholic as your mind needs adequate rest to think productively.

8. Get Inspiration from Design Galleries:

Sometimes a little inspiration is what you need to get your creative spark back on track. In order to that, there is no dearth of inspiration spots on the internet these days. There are many sites like Behance and deviantart that showcase inspirational designs from aspiring graphic designers. These sites will help you get your creative engine running back again.

What methods do you employ to stay creative as a graphic designer?

The first thing that pops up in graphic designers mind, when they get a project is how to get started? Should they start searching the internet for ideas or grabbing a paper and pencil will be a better way to kick off? Should he solely rely on inspiration to start with a graphic design project or should he work hard from scratch to conceive an original idea?

Based on the process of accomplishing a graphic design project, there are three major types of graphic designers. The first are the ‘Lazy Workers’ who directly scavenge the web for ‘inspiration’ and try to pass off the work as ‘original’. The other type is the ‘Hard Workers’ who toil and sweat to drain out original ideas from their brain. The last type of designers is what I would like to call the “Smart Workers” who combine the effects of both inspiration and hard work. Which type of graphic designer should you avoid being?

But before you reach to a conclusion, let us analyze the dual outcomes of both aspects… ‘inspiration’ and ‘hard work’.

• Outcomes of Inspiration in Graphic Design:

Each day, more and more sites are evolving that provide access to graphic design inspiration. No doubt, these sites provide graphic designers a lot of help to get their creative juices flowing, but they also pose some disadvantages. Following are the positive and negative effects of inspiration on graphic design.

1. Saves Time and Effort:

For those graphic designers who are looking for a quick guidance for their graphic design project, inspiration is a wonderful tool to save time and efforts. Although it is not prudent to rely solely on inspiration, nonetheless it does save your time on brainstorming and conjuring up logo design ideas. For those designers who like to procrastinate or run short of time, it is a shrewd way of getting the job done.

2. Limits Creative Power:

As said earlier, inspiration has its advantages but also yields some drawbacks too. When you become overly reliant of ‘inspirational sites’ to give you design ideas, your creative and thinking power becomes restricted. For any graphic designer, it is not a good sign and also limits your ability to grow as a designer.

3. Higher Chances of Plagiarism:

On the downside, using inspiration can cause serious issues of copyright and plagiarism. Since you are just amending some aspects of an already existing design, there are chances that your design will look similar. One of the biggest personality types of graphic designer is uniqueness. This cannot be achieved by solely using inspirational material.

4. Learn About New Trends:

Regardless of the fact that inspiration limits your creative thinking, it gives you a lot to learn as well. Since thousands of creative designers upload their design concepts and ideas on inspirational platforms, it gives you a diverse spectrum of graphic and logo design trends to learn.

5. Causes Distraction:

The thing about using internet for ideas is that it causes a significant distraction. Considering the myriad blogs and websites that offer design inspiration have chains of ‘related stuff’ on each page, graphic designers are bound to keep on clicking one after the other. Moreover, the social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook will always be a constant waste of time.

• Outcomes of Hard Work in Graphic Design:

Having discussed the dual effects of inspiration, let us now turn our focus to the other side of the story. Those designers who work hard using their brain to generate a concept from scratch also reap various benefits. But there are a few drawbacks to this as well. Following are the dual outcomes of only using your head in graphic design:

1. Generate Unique Ideas:

Firstly, when you don’t take aid from any source, you are bound to generate ideas that are unique, fresh and distinctive. The concept that you create using your head will be something that hasn’t been done before.

2. Boundless Creativity:

As I highlighted earlier, inspiration bounds your ability to think as a graphic designer. Hence, by working solely on the basis of your own intellect you can employ boundless creativity and ingenuity. Since your thinking is not limited to the designs you search on the net, you will have freedom over your creative though process. You can brainstorm for novel and fresh ideas, which is an important stage of developing a creative design idea.

3. Sense of Pride:

4. Create Your Own Trend:

Design inspiration is all about following already existing trends and movements in graphic design. But when you use your intellect and brain power, you create an entirely new trend. Instead of being a trend-follower, you will become a trend-setter.

5. Requires Relatively More Time:

On the downside, relying solely on your intellect is relatively more time taking. Since these types of designers follow a comprehensive process, it involves more time that the designers who directly take inspiration from various sites and finish off the project.

Most clients consider graphic designers to be magicians who can come up with creative ideas with a swish of their wands. But the reality is otherwise. Thinking of an original design idea isn’t magic that can be whipped up in a matter of seconds. It entails an entire and elaborative procedure of transporting the idea from the designer’s brain to its final end-result.

But the hardest part for a graphic designer is to explain their creative process to bad type of clients or project managers. Even though designers go through the entire process, still they cannot put in words the feelings attached with the entire endeavor. So how does a creative design idea reach to its final destination? Today, we analyze the different stages through which a graphic designer goes in order to develop a brilliant design idea.

1. Learning:

The conception of a design idea starts with a deep learning and understanding of the fundamentals of design. Your creative thinking is backed by a firm groundwork of knowledge and wisdom regarding the design trends and developments. Although this is not a necessary condition for achieving creativity, but with a solid background of the field, you will know how to convert your ideas into reality.

2. Training:

Training is essential in learning how to do things properly. Regardless of the fact that a designer designs by hand or uses some design software, they must be fully trained in operating the tools so that they don’t hinder the creative process of generating a logo design. Being a graphic designer, training is crucial in effectively delivering the concepts to their final stage.

3. Investigation:

Before you can even conceive an idea, you must gain sufficient information of the client’s business. A graphic designer’s worst mistake is to jump straight to the designing stage, but this stage is crucial in yielding factual and relevant ideas. In a majority of cases, you will obtain this information from the client via a design brief. But if the client doesn’t provide sufficient information, then the burden falls onto the designer to conduct a full-throttle investigation of the relevant things required in the design.

4. Enlightenment:

After filling your mind with sufficient data and information related to the subject, you will now encounter the enlightenment phase where several small but creative revelations pop into your head that you can utilize in your design. In this stage, the idea is not fully hatched and needs to be incubated in order to emerge. The designers note down all the tiny bits and pieces of thoughts and inspiration that come in their mind.

5. Ideation:

After a series of strenuous phases, the graphic designer is finally in the stage to produce a creative idea. I call this stage IDEATION (Idea + Generation). This is where designers filter out the small bits and pieces of creativity obtained in the previous stage and convert it into a proper graphic design idea. This process involves analyzing all the possible designs and eliminating each one at a time until you are left with the best one.

6. Execution:

The creative process isn’t over just yet. One of the common misconceptions in graphic designing is that creative process terminates once the idea has been generated. Without proper execution, you creative ideas are bound to fail and your strenuous labor will go down the drain. The execution phase involves converting the sketches into digital format, adding colors, effects and final testing on various mediums. After the final approval from the client, then only can your creative design process be considered as successfully completed.

Lately, I came across a project posted on the inspirational site behance.net termed “The Greatest Brandversations”. This incredibly creative assignment was completed by Stefan Asafti, a designer from Cluj-Napoca, Romania. The project visually portrays a sort of a brand war between famous brands. The designer has taken two top rivals from 5 different industries and switched the logo design of both rival companies to make a sort of visual confusion for the brand lovers.

The project revolves around the idea that the modern day brands have established a history among their customers. There have been several famous brand rivalries like the one between Coke and Pepsi. These brands used to visually communicate this rivalry through their creative and conceptual ads. Stefan, in his project, has shown this visual communication by showing how the logos of both rivals influence one another.
Stefan has successfully demonstrated that he is among the talented and creative graphic designers. I thoroughly enjoyed watching these mind-boggling brandversations of 5 famous brands and surely hope that you guys will also be amazed to watch them.

1. McDonalds – Burger King Brandversation

2. Pepsi – Coke Brandversation

3. Nikkon – Canon Brandversation

4. Apple – Windows Brandversation

5. Internet Explorer – Firefox Brandversation

We are living in a world where information travels faster than light and people communicate faster than ever. In this rapid age of technological advancements, the field of graphic design has immensely developed as well. Every other day, new and innovative techniques of graphic designing surface from here and there. These times make the life of a graphic designer all the more challenging since they must keep the pace with the latest developments in graphic design.

Especially for newbie and aspiring graphic designers, it is essential to stay in touch with the latest developments and advancements in the world of graphic design. And for those designers who are seasoned, it is all the more essential to pace up with the next generation of design. However, the question arises…how to catch-up with all that is novel and upcoming?

Following are some simple and easy ways of staying in touch with the latest developments in the field of graphic design:

1. Surf on the Google Wave:

2. Blogging – Creates Discussions and Ideas:

Most people believe that starting a successful blog requires immense knowledge on a particular subject. But I beg to differ. This is because the purpose of a blog is to generate discussions and dialogue on various issues. By starting your own blog, you will be able to learn from other people who will comment on your blog. Through discussions, you will stay in touch with the latest developments in your line of work.

3. Be Conservative – Read Books:

Another incisive approach that has been neglected nowadays is the concept of reading books. Many people perceive books as old fashioned. Many also term the concept of book reading as geeky and nerdy. Well, if this were true, then J.K Rowling would have never been a super hit. Being a graphic designer, your thirst for knowledge should never quench. Always take pleasure in reading design books and keep yourself on track with what’s new in your field.

4. Follow Other Designers:

We waste countless hours of our time on social media and networking sites like facebook and twitter. So why not use it constructively to gain knowledge and information about graphic design? Simply follow other designers and be a part of the designer community. This way, you will be tweeted about the latest movements on the web and you will be updated every second.

5. Keep an Open Mindset:

The foremost thing for a graphic designer to accept any major developments is to keep an open mindset. This is because, in order to accept any change, you need to broaden your horizons and learn to keep a flexible attitude. Being in the designer community, you will get heaps of opinions, thoughts and viewpoints from other designers. Always learn to accept others opinions and ideas. You never know when they might come in handy in the near future.

One question which every graphic designer confronts in his graphic design career is…should he follow the design trends or make his own? This is because when we create designs, we have several alternatives to explore from. We can either use our own expert design aesthetics to conjure up a design or incorporate a currently existing design trend into our work.

But what difference does it make between using design trends and following our expert design sense? This is the crux of today’s post where I try to differentiate between the various effects of graphic designing style. At the end, you can decide which style you fancy using as graphic designers.

Following Design Trends:

1. Reflects Consumer Preferences:

2. Misses out Innovation:

3. Time Saving:

Expert Designer Approach:

1. Unique and Distinct:

2. Creates a new trend:

3. Everlasting design: