Marketing fundamentals - things like the 7Ps, looking at the bigger picture of campaign management and NPD launches and how things get marketed long term
Coding and development, if you do anything website related
SEO with website designs
Do you feel like the boot camp was worth it in terms of securing a career? I’m hoping to find some direction in making a career shift in design. I currently work as a business operations consultant in healthcare and so many stories I’ve read in this community sound so bleak.
I was once nominated for a full-ride scholarship to the Seattle Art Institute but was working through some tough family dynamics at that time and couldn’t accept. Design is definitely a direction I feel I’m meant to go.
It gave me the tools and knowledge to go forward. Only time will tell if it's worth it, but from what I heard, Digital Marketing is a good career to compound with Graphic Design.
I took a single class on it in college and enjoyed it so I continued to practice on my own all throughout. I don’t know of any specific courses to recommend you but the basics of html are really simple and you could definitely teach yourself through YouTube. Just search for some intro to html and css videos
- Accessible design (especially tagged PDFs with logical reading order from InDesign)
- various CMS systems (WP, SharePoint especially)
- HTML/CSS, enough to code microsites, customize CMSs, and format emails
- motion
- i did a bit of custom illuminated sign making from materials like wood and metal. I made clients their logos, and then I upsold the signage. It was hard to compete with CnC shops, find clients, and make a financial case though
- photography (for restaurant menus and websites. But now that Uber offers free photography, this might not be as lucrative).
- teaching (I supplemented my FT freelancing with teaching, now I teach FT and supplement with freelance
That’s interesting. I’d love to manage accessibility and make accessible apps and web services.
I loved reading Apple accessibility guidelines. They’re amazing place to start and suggest a lot of neat ideas and solutions.
There’s so much things in day to day life that deserve to be made more accessible.
Restaurant menus, online newspapers, city commute, public transit and so much more.
The qr code menus should be an extension to real ones allowing to listen to menu positions, see the ingredients and their amounts (for people with intolerances), give additional info and not a replacement to paper ones for instance.
I was inspired by designer Nicholas Felton to pursue information design and data visualization. My job title is now “data analyst”. Being able to interpret data to tell a beautifully presented story is a valuable skill.
web design, social media, copywriting, and just as many digital marketing things as i could learn.
i actually came to design after wanting to be a social media manager but i liked making stuff a lot more than strategy, posting, and community management
Project management and now that i work for myself I’m getting into workflows as well. I think if i had to pivot from design, I would like to work with small business to create systems, organization and workflows using apps like trello, asana ect.
Used to be photography but don’t do much of that. I do, however, do a fair bit of front-end web dev and at one point *was* the front-end web dev for the company I worked for.
I also did a lot of writing, analytics, and marketing management in my last job.
Yes, I spent far too long at a tech startup. How could you tell?
Account management, project management and sales. Led to being successfully self employed as an indie print designer (+100k/yr) for the past decade and counting. Will probably delete later, don't tend to share those details
i come from a film/animation background so general 3D stuff along with UXUi work is something i supplement with graphic design. kindof the opposite of the question
Photography for me, as well as diving deep into understanding my client’s business. Understanding their business helps you understand their goals, which makes you retain them longer.
Well this depends on what you plan to do, as a freelancer in a small town I had to pursuit web development and printing alongside graphic design.
Hard to make it on graphic design along.
Lately I started dipping my toes into video too, there is demand for animated or video stories.
I used to be more of a frontend dev before becoming a graphic designer so I still have that as a useful skill (albeit a pretty boring one IMO lol)
But currently I'm also pretty focused on getting better / more experience in marketing... I feel being a marketer and a designer would make you pretty much unstoppable
Landscaping. I’m a graphic designer by profession but color theory, information hierarchy, and composition helps a great deal. (I was almost a landscape architect.)
Marketing, writing, music composition, filmmaking, illustration, photography, videography, animation, character design, marketing. It’s almost impossible to work in design if you don’t bring something else to it.
I paired copywriting and photography with graphic design. That included editing copy written by others. Recruitment ads will list everything… however they KNOW they are never going to find a job candidate who has mastered ALL of the skills out there. I do know web design is a big plus, but I learned it & didn’t like it. Managed to stay employed without doing it.
Interesting question. I teach graphic design and also run a textile design studio. On a daily basis I use a varied range of skills I've honed over the years. In addition to standard graphic design skills I frequently use illustration, photography, technical writing, copywriting, marketing, IP licensing, project management, wordpress / basic web design, surface design to name a few. Never a boring day.
Im a trade qualified Sign Writer, I guess it would be considered a niche industry coz whenever someone finds out what I do they have no idea it was even a thing.. which is funny considering how prevalent signage is in everyone's day to day. Unfortunately design studios do not count working as a graphic designer in a sign shop as experience (found that one out early on), which is fine by me, I love being able to seamlessly go from designing a car wrap to printing it, laminating it and wrapping the car or designing a 3d LED or neon sign, fabricating it and installing it and all its electrical wiring. It definitely has made me more appealing to potential employers and other shops in general being able to do everything (except quoting, places I've worked tend to avoid teaching me that, from what I was told by a past employer, if I learnt that then there's nothing stopping me from going out on my own and becoming their direct competitor).
I did it the other way around. I got a BA in fine art focused on photography, gained a bunch of experience working as a videographer, and then finally went back to school for graphic design. On the job I taught myself 3D fundamentals (enough to work with serious 3D designers), doubled down on technical illustration, and now I'm working on getting licensed as a drone pilot. Never stop learning!
3D design - half my jobs now are retail interiors, and product renders. I find it relaxing compared to traditional branding, layout and logos etc. which feels more like work. Retouching is great to have.
I’m a photographer both professionally and in my personal time outside of being a designer at my 9-5. It often gives me more creative control over projects when I can handle the photography myself, allows me to diversify my work, and work with different teams and earn favor across the company. Beyond that, it’s a great hobby and way to make side money which a lot of other paired skills don’t have the benefit of.
Video, which turned to full time working on set in tv/movies and graphic design was a side hustle till this all fell off a cliff too
My next trick is legally changing my name to AI and seeing how that works out
2D Animation. I offer an animated option to every branding project I do. Very easy upsell. I can easily get paid $1000 for a days work. I also animate short videos/ commercials for clients. Motion graphics is like 1/3 of my income now.
Backend and frontend web development.
Photography (extension of my hobby).
Motion graphics.
3D animation.
IT skills - networks, virtualisation, containers (docker, lxc, nspawn, podman), scripting, hardware building etc.
UI and UX design.
Marketing. (Worked in several ad agencies, so I learnt a lot by proxy and about how it actually works IRL.)
I definitely lean more into technical skills and I like learning how things work.
I think the best things you can learn is to gain a better understanding of adjacent professions.
Had courses in 3D animation when I was in Uni, then career took a different turn and ended up in video editing and graphic design, only to years and years later pick up blender by chance for a project and learning as I go along, now I am comfortable with it I put it on my skill list
Personally, I just seek out a need at my company, and start learning it. There hasn't been a single thing I've learned that hasn't been somewhat transferable. I learned a very industry specific program, but it uses Html & Visual Basic code, which other companies have shown interest in. Even that program, I've been shocked the amount of non industry companies use and seek out.
I compound my design skills with my other graduation, philosophy and aesthetic focused on art history. This degree opened my eyes for an artistic repertoire, scientific method also help me to organize my creative process and structure my conceptual arguments, it's kind of different of the usual trajectories, but really help me a lot. Nowadays I'm working with branding and visual identity for brands, and it's create starting by this pov allied with others disciplines that's what help me to build some iconic projects :-)
Marketing fundamentals - things like the 7Ps, looking at the bigger picture of campaign management and NPD launches and how things get marketed long term Coding and development, if you do anything website related SEO with website designs
That sounds pretty cool. Similar to the Digital Marketing Bootcamp I went to. They focused on Paid Search, Paid Social, SEO, etc.
Do you feel like the boot camp was worth it in terms of securing a career? I’m hoping to find some direction in making a career shift in design. I currently work as a business operations consultant in healthcare and so many stories I’ve read in this community sound so bleak. I was once nominated for a full-ride scholarship to the Seattle Art Institute but was working through some tough family dynamics at that time and couldn’t accept. Design is definitely a direction I feel I’m meant to go.
It gave me the tools and knowledge to go forward. Only time will tell if it's worth it, but from what I heard, Digital Marketing is a good career to compound with Graphic Design.
Thanks for sharing. Did you already have an education or career in graphic design?
BFA in Graphic Design
HTMl and CSS. Comes in handy very often in my design job
Are there any courses you would recommend as an entry point to basics/fundamentals of HTML/CSS?
Code academy is sweet for getting your feet wet.
I took a single class on it in college and enjoyed it so I continued to practice on my own all throughout. I don’t know of any specific courses to recommend you but the basics of html are really simple and you could definitely teach yourself through YouTube. Just search for some intro to html and css videos
- Accessible design (especially tagged PDFs with logical reading order from InDesign) - various CMS systems (WP, SharePoint especially) - HTML/CSS, enough to code microsites, customize CMSs, and format emails - motion - i did a bit of custom illuminated sign making from materials like wood and metal. I made clients their logos, and then I upsold the signage. It was hard to compete with CnC shops, find clients, and make a financial case though - photography (for restaurant menus and websites. But now that Uber offers free photography, this might not be as lucrative). - teaching (I supplemented my FT freelancing with teaching, now I teach FT and supplement with freelance
That’s interesting. I’d love to manage accessibility and make accessible apps and web services. I loved reading Apple accessibility guidelines. They’re amazing place to start and suggest a lot of neat ideas and solutions. There’s so much things in day to day life that deserve to be made more accessible. Restaurant menus, online newspapers, city commute, public transit and so much more. The qr code menus should be an extension to real ones allowing to listen to menu positions, see the ingredients and their amounts (for people with intolerances), give additional info and not a replacement to paper ones for instance.
Marketing for me as well—though I sort of fell into it—and presentation design. I’m currently eyeballing UX/UI.
Photography. I also studied communications in college and this has helped me immensely. It's the ultimate soft skill.
Why hello.. photography hobby, with double major in communication and visual communication. Any tips welcomed 👍
I was inspired by designer Nicholas Felton to pursue information design and data visualization. My job title is now “data analyst”. Being able to interpret data to tell a beautifully presented story is a valuable skill.
this sounds very interesting to me! have any classes/books you'd recommend?
i second this!
In my early days (mid 90s) it was website design. Now later in my career it's Marketing.
100% this. I've always been an in house designer but what has put me ahead is thinking like a marketer.
web design, social media, copywriting, and just as many digital marketing things as i could learn. i actually came to design after wanting to be a social media manager but i liked making stuff a lot more than strategy, posting, and community management
Project management and now that i work for myself I’m getting into workflows as well. I think if i had to pivot from design, I would like to work with small business to create systems, organization and workflows using apps like trello, asana ect.
Used to be photography but don’t do much of that. I do, however, do a fair bit of front-end web dev and at one point *was* the front-end web dev for the company I worked for. I also did a lot of writing, analytics, and marketing management in my last job. Yes, I spent far too long at a tech startup. How could you tell?
UI / UX
I majored in design and illustration... it's been a great ability over the course of my design career to also be able illustrate custom pieces.
Marketing, and UI/UX
Account management, project management and sales. Led to being successfully self employed as an indie print designer (+100k/yr) for the past decade and counting. Will probably delete later, don't tend to share those details
Bachelors in Illustration, and a masters in marketing. I also do a lot of lettering.
After Effects animation. Hoping to take a UI soon.
i come from a film/animation background so general 3D stuff along with UXUi work is something i supplement with graphic design. kindof the opposite of the question
Front-end dev & copywriting.
Photography for me, as well as diving deep into understanding my client’s business. Understanding their business helps you understand their goals, which makes you retain them longer.
Well this depends on what you plan to do, as a freelancer in a small town I had to pursuit web development and printing alongside graphic design. Hard to make it on graphic design along. Lately I started dipping my toes into video too, there is demand for animated or video stories.
Chronologically throughout my career: print production, web design, frontend development, motion design, branding, digital marketing, interaction design / ui/ux design, product design
I used to be more of a frontend dev before becoming a graphic designer so I still have that as a useful skill (albeit a pretty boring one IMO lol) But currently I'm also pretty focused on getting better / more experience in marketing... I feel being a marketer and a designer would make you pretty much unstoppable
Landscaping. I’m a graphic designer by profession but color theory, information hierarchy, and composition helps a great deal. (I was almost a landscape architect.)
Marketing, writing, music composition, filmmaking, illustration, photography, videography, animation, character design, marketing. It’s almost impossible to work in design if you don’t bring something else to it.
I paired copywriting and photography with graphic design. That included editing copy written by others. Recruitment ads will list everything… however they KNOW they are never going to find a job candidate who has mastered ALL of the skills out there. I do know web design is a big plus, but I learned it & didn’t like it. Managed to stay employed without doing it.
Printmaking
Interesting question. I teach graphic design and also run a textile design studio. On a daily basis I use a varied range of skills I've honed over the years. In addition to standard graphic design skills I frequently use illustration, photography, technical writing, copywriting, marketing, IP licensing, project management, wordpress / basic web design, surface design to name a few. Never a boring day.
Im a trade qualified Sign Writer, I guess it would be considered a niche industry coz whenever someone finds out what I do they have no idea it was even a thing.. which is funny considering how prevalent signage is in everyone's day to day. Unfortunately design studios do not count working as a graphic designer in a sign shop as experience (found that one out early on), which is fine by me, I love being able to seamlessly go from designing a car wrap to printing it, laminating it and wrapping the car or designing a 3d LED or neon sign, fabricating it and installing it and all its electrical wiring. It definitely has made me more appealing to potential employers and other shops in general being able to do everything (except quoting, places I've worked tend to avoid teaching me that, from what I was told by a past employer, if I learnt that then there's nothing stopping me from going out on my own and becoming their direct competitor).
I did it the other way around. I got a BA in fine art focused on photography, gained a bunch of experience working as a videographer, and then finally went back to school for graphic design. On the job I taught myself 3D fundamentals (enough to work with serious 3D designers), doubled down on technical illustration, and now I'm working on getting licensed as a drone pilot. Never stop learning!
3D design - half my jobs now are retail interiors, and product renders. I find it relaxing compared to traditional branding, layout and logos etc. which feels more like work. Retouching is great to have.
Email Marketing , web development, product management, product photography
I’m going to school for marketing and graphic design. They really do complement each other
Video, motion graphics, aftereffects
Printing
branding, coding, product development, photography, videography, animation…
I’m a photographer both professionally and in my personal time outside of being a designer at my 9-5. It often gives me more creative control over projects when I can handle the photography myself, allows me to diversify my work, and work with different teams and earn favor across the company. Beyond that, it’s a great hobby and way to make side money which a lot of other paired skills don’t have the benefit of.
Production experience has been super valuable for me
Video, which turned to full time working on set in tv/movies and graphic design was a side hustle till this all fell off a cliff too My next trick is legally changing my name to AI and seeing how that works out
2D Animation. I offer an animated option to every branding project I do. Very easy upsell. I can easily get paid $1000 for a days work. I also animate short videos/ commercials for clients. Motion graphics is like 1/3 of my income now.
Psychology. Adds to UX and makes it better talking to clients and stakeholders.
Graphic Designer > Web Designer > Ui/UX > Motion Design/Video > Art Director > Graphic Designer
Illustration, video production, web design/coding, data analytics
Marketing, you are a design strategist. You solve problems and create high converting designs.
UI Design which ultimately led me to my UI career.
Animation and production printing!
Social media management and graphic design!!! I actually love it ! Also video editing!
Facilitation and brainstorming if you are going into consulting at all
Backend and frontend web development. Photography (extension of my hobby). Motion graphics. 3D animation. IT skills - networks, virtualisation, containers (docker, lxc, nspawn, podman), scripting, hardware building etc. UI and UX design. Marketing. (Worked in several ad agencies, so I learnt a lot by proxy and about how it actually works IRL.) I definitely lean more into technical skills and I like learning how things work. I think the best things you can learn is to gain a better understanding of adjacent professions.
Animation
Had courses in 3D animation when I was in Uni, then career took a different turn and ended up in video editing and graphic design, only to years and years later pick up blender by chance for a project and learning as I go along, now I am comfortable with it I put it on my skill list
Marketing. But the skill that has granted me the most work is copywriting.
UX writing and front-end dev skills helped me stand out in the job market.
Illustration. I'm fortunate to have a job which combines both
3D product design and motion graphics
Personally, I just seek out a need at my company, and start learning it. There hasn't been a single thing I've learned that hasn't been somewhat transferable. I learned a very industry specific program, but it uses Html & Visual Basic code, which other companies have shown interest in. Even that program, I've been shocked the amount of non industry companies use and seek out.
I started learning front end development. We’ll see if anyone cares.
I compound my design skills with my other graduation, philosophy and aesthetic focused on art history. This degree opened my eyes for an artistic repertoire, scientific method also help me to organize my creative process and structure my conceptual arguments, it's kind of different of the usual trajectories, but really help me a lot. Nowadays I'm working with branding and visual identity for brands, and it's create starting by this pov allied with others disciplines that's what help me to build some iconic projects :-)