5 common graphic design mistakes and how to avoid them…
Let's be honest, nobody is perfect, and human errors can always happen, no matter how experienced you are. However, when you know what the most common mistakes designers make are, then you can take measures to avoid them.
It's also great to know if you are hiring a graphic designer, and it will give you an idea of what to look out for when choosing a graphic designer to work with.
Here we take a look at the 5 most common mistakes by graphic designers.
1. Not understanding the brief
Without a doubt this is the most important thing for any graphic designer - the brief from the client. If you do not fully understand what the client is trying to achieve, how can you design for them? When thinking about the brief you should follow these steps. Read the brief carefully, make notes and jot down ideas as you go. If there is something unclear or ambiguous, double check the meaning with the client before you start work. Lastly, once you have gathered your notes and come up with some rough ideas, run it past the client. There is no point in putting your heart and soul into something if it is the total opposite to what the client was imagining.
2. Using too many fonts!
Consistency throughout a campaign is what holds it together. The same goes for your fonts. It would be easy to get carried away with the thousands of fonts that are on offer, but all it will end up doing is looking messy and confusing the audience. If you have to use a different font, either to highlight part of the copy, or to create a relevant link between the words and what they are saying, then try to use only one other, so you r piece of artwork finishes with a maximum of two fonts in total.
3. Copying other people's designs
For any designer, originality is key. Passing off another designers work as your own will eventually get you caught out and land you a bad reputation. Of course, that's not to say that you can't look to others for inspiration, of course you can - but blatantly copying them is completely unacceptable. Put the work in, come up with original designs, and you will be held in much higher regards by your clients and piers.
4. Using the wrong type of font
Different contexts call for different fonts. For example a classical music themes flyer may like to use italic, script-type fonts, but this would not be appropriate for a 5th birthday party invite; that would call for something big, bold and block like, as it fits the purpose better.
And finally....
5. Not proofreading
Spelling errors; one of the easiest things to check, yet also one of the easiest things to miss. Either way, spelling mistakes in the copy of your graphic will not go down well. Always proofread your work, regardless of whether you have written the text yourself, or if the client has sent it to you and you have copied and pasted. Not only do spelling and grammatical mistakes look sloppy, but they also give the graphic designer a bad reputation for not checking the art, and they also mean you have to spend even more time correcting them. So, as a standard good practice, read through every work carefully, and where possible, get someone else to read it too, just to be on the safe side!
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