How to start as a Graphics designer

Many designers dream of running their own design business, but they have no idea how to get started. They wonder if they need a certain amount of money, if they need to hire other people, or if they’re even qualified to run a design business. This series aims to answer all those questions and more. If you’ve ever considering opening your own business, or if you’re just wondering how a design business works, you’ve come to the right place!

So, What Exactly Is A Design Business?

There are many ways to describe a design business, and all of them are technically correct. Loosely put, a design business is an established entity that provides design services to clients. The types of services you provides, the number of employees you have, and how you run that business will depend on several factors. The specific type of design you specialize in will be one of the the biggest contributing factors in how your business operates. We won’t be covering the specifics of each genre of design, but rather the general principles and concepts of establishing a design business.

Step 1: Establish Your Goals And Motivation

Before starting any business, you need to set clear goals and expectations. Why are you establishing your business? Is it to follow your passion? Is it to make money? Is it to fill a need in a certain niche or community? Your goals and motivations are unique and specific to you. It might take some time to narrow down the goals for your business. You may need to do some online research or talk to someone who’s running a successful design business. Take notes on some of the things you’d like to accomplish with your business.
Once you’ve established your goals for your business, it’s time to think about how those goals fit with your overall expectations. It’s important to think about if your expectations for your business can be met based on the goals you’ve set. Often businesses fail because there was a mismatch between the goals of the business and how those goals interacted with the expectations of the business. In addition to evaluating the expectations of your business, you should identity what is considered to be reasonable. Setting expectations is important, but more important is making sure that your expectations are reasonable. Find out what milestones are typical for your genre, and when the average business reaches those milestone. How much money does the average business make? How often are new clients attained? What are some of pitfalls other companies experience?

Step 2: Identify The Skills You Have And The Resources That Are Available To You

You’ve set your goals and managed your expectations. Now it’s time to identity the skills you have. Start by listing your genre of graphic design, and what skills you’ve acquired while working in that genre. If you haven’t started designing yet, think about the genre of design you’d like to work in and list the skills required for that genre. Next, list any general design skills that you have. Finally think about the technical skills that you have that are unrelated to graphic design. These could be coding skills, social media skills, crafting skills etc. The idea is to get into the mindset of identifying skills that will be helpful in setting up and running your design business.
Skills and resources work together and are equally important. List the resources that you have available to you that will help you when establishing your design business. Resources can be anything from extra computers to a friend or family member who’s willing to help you move into your studio. The resources you’ll need to get started will vary based on your genre. In general, you’ll need a computer, an area to work in, access to internet, and possibly some money saved up to buy any basic things you don’t already own that will help with your business. In most cases, people have the things that need to get started, but again, what you need will depend on your genre.

Planning is the first step to setting up your design business. Establishing clear goals and expectations will save you a lot of hassle in the future. So many people waste a lot of time and money in the early days of their business because they didn’t take the time to do the appropriate research. In addition to saving you time and money in terms of the business costs, planning ahead may prevent you from starting a business you’re not really passionate about or even interested in. After researching, you may find that your motivation for starting a design business may not be suited for that industry, or you may find that there are more effective ways to achieve your goals. No matter what you decide to do with the information you find, research is still one of the most important steps to starting your design business.