If you are not a professional designer or lack a graphic design background, choosing the DIY approach may be more beneficial. This allows you to enhance your graphic design skills while having fun, or perhaps you have a few graphic design ideas that you want to explore.
Viewing each DIY project as a stepping stone towards progress is essential. Whether experiencing a creative block, seeking inspiration, operating on a tight budget or lacking professional design skills, DIY projects can be an excellent way to delve into graphic design.
Evolution of Graphic Design is Here to Stay
Yes, PR and marketing graph design comes have become expensive over time. And that’s because graphic design continues to evolve at a faster pace. It is the main reason companies hire talented freelancers or independent contractors to save money and receive the best graphic design service.
DIY Graphic Design: It’s Easier than You Think
Contrary to a naïve misconception, graphic design applications have become simpler and easier than ever. So, why is it so hard to create a logo for a company? Well, you have to be subtle and intuitive to create a logo. If you want the design to be truly great, it would be more practical to hire a professional graphic designer who understands intricacies such as curves and perfect lines.
Focus on 8 DIY Graphic Design Projects
Now, without further ado, let’s look at the 8 most easy and straightforward DIY graphic design projects you can try today:
1. Infographics
Infographics have become an essential graphic design tool for communicating information practically and effectively. They have become a staple element in modern blog posts and are highly favored by digital marketers for their ability to simplify complex information through data charts.
Creating intuitive infographics doesn’t necessarily require advanced graphic design skills. Anyone can create stunning infographics with tools like Canva and a bit of bravery, curiosity, and creative ingenuity. It’s essential to experiment with different visualizations of your complex data and determine which style stands out the most.
2. Logos
Logos are the official representation of an organization or company and creating an attractive logo requires a personalized approach and attention to detail. To create the best logo, it’s important to focus on the needs, culture, and business position of the company. The most effective logo becomes synonymous and natural to the company.
A DIY logo should be appropriate and precise at the same time.
For a DIY logo, simplicity and appropriateness are key. The logo should accurately reflect the essence and values of the company while following the KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) principle. Take some time to examine the logos of major brands and note their clean, catchy, understandable, and minimalist design.
You don’t need to be an expert in Adobe Illustrator to create a simple logo. Free tools like Wix Logo Maker can help you create a professional-looking logo with ease.
3. Brochures
The last thing you want to do is design your brochure in haste. On the bright side, now you can create a professional brochure on various online and dedicated graphic design platforms. Once you figure out the brochure details, you can try out various color palettes and aesthetic choices that make the brochure appealing to users.
PR, communication, and marketing professionals today design brochures for specific events or promotions. Avoid using complicated software and use a simple online platform like Lucidpress or Canva. In fact, you can browse an ocean of brochure templates. After you select a design, you can adjust the template and add more features. It is a much better option to craft a brochure design from scratch.
4. Banners and Photo Collages
Banners are not so different from social media covers. It would be fair to state that banners are the most standard graphic design for PR and marketing professionals. Whether it’s print banners or digital ad banners, you can design a banner in a few steps.
You can use Canva or Creatopy to design banners effortlessly. Just follow the basic design rules and your banner will look like professionals design it. Similarly, you can use a collage maker to create a series of photo collages for business or personal use.
For instance, you can use free photo editing tools like PicMonkeyand Fotor to craft impressive collages. You can use designed templates and add image effects to make collages look more attractive. Focus on authenticity and simplicity in each collage to ensure a creative experience.
5. Business Cards
Business cards still represent the professional face of a business entity. In fact, designing business cards is more common than you think. For instance, when a company hires a new executive or manager, it already has a dedicated business card template.
You can use the vector graphics editor to create visually impressive business cards. Pay attention to the size of the DIY project to create a perfect design. Ordinarily, 1050 x 600 pixels is the common standard for business cards.
6. Icons
It is hard to think about websites, mockups, and presentations without icons, right? Well, now you can make your custom designs of icons. Besides, professional graphic designers charge a lot of money for a single icon package.
Entrepreneurs and startup business owners who decide to design their personalized icons garner more attraction. In the end, designing icons boils down to simplicity. But if you don’t want to design icons from scratch, you can buy high-quality icons from Iconfinder. After that, you can customize as per your specific needs.
If you want to play around with graphic designs online, Canva is undeniably the best platform. You’d be surprised to find basic and complex graphic designs on Canva. But for the most part, you should be able to take care of icon customization independently.
7. UI Mockups
If you’re not a graphic designer, UI mockups may sound too complicated, and that’s fair. But you can’t communicate with your developers about the user interface when you don’t have the budget to hire a UI/UX designer team.
In this case, you don’t have to opt for expensive tools. Instead, get a free mock-up software or vector graphics editor. You can use the Moqups tool to craft detailed and simple UI mockups. Remember, your UI mockups don’t have to be perfect. They should just be good enough to help you convey your UI ideas to developers.
8. YouTube Visual Graphics
To become an influential YouTuber or social media manager, you must learn to craft various ideas for graphic design projects. Most YouTubers with dedicated channels have acquired pro graphic design skills over time.
Your objective should be to teach yourself throughout the journey.
Start with designing the cover image of your channel and then move on to the icons. Consider the sizes of the cover to find pre-built design templates. As mentioned earlier, you can use Vectr or Canva platforms to create YouTube designs.
DIY Graphic Design Projects: What Should be YOUR Approach?
From non-graphic designer to beginner designer, you can focus on DIY projects to make a swift transition. Your objective should be to teach yourself throughout the journey. If you want to learn or polish your graphic design skills, practice is the key.
Conclusion
As a graphic designer, you must understand that your work speaks for itself. You will need graphic design project ideas. So, gain complete creative freedom over your work and make the most out of each project. Your combination of skills, completed projects, and graphic design experience is bound to impress others.
As a beginner graphic designer, you should follow the lead of creative directors and professional graphic designers who exercise utmost caution in each project. Also, take your time no matter what DIY project you want to start.
In retrospect, you must be broadminded and innovative from the start to start any graphic design DIY project. Besides, you no longer have to depend on traditional methods to create graphic design. In the digital age, more than enough tools can help you render an impressive graphic design.
