What programs do I need as a graphic designer?


Now in my experience, I have created work across many forms of media, from print to digital. Being a freelancer, I go into a lot of design agencies during the course of a year. And I'm expected to be efficient in various software to deliver work to deadline. As a graphic designer, depending on what job you're doing, you will have to use particular design software. In this, I'm going to discuss the creative software tools you will need as a graphic designer, and which software you might use for which design scenario.

So as a graphic designer, the main software you will find yourself using is Adobe InDesign, Adobe Photoshop, and Adobe Illustrator. As you broaden your skillset, you may find yourself using Adobe After Effects or Adobe Muse. As a graphic designer, you will find yourself using a combination of the big three, Adobe InDesign, Adobe Photoshop, and Adobe Illustrator. Each one of these programs has been designed for a particular design task, and each has their particular tools. Depending on the complexity of your design task, you may have to use a specific tool and a particular program, or use a combination of programs and tools to develop your end result. So now I'm going to talk a little about Adobe InDesign,
Photoshop, and Illustrator. Adobe InDesign.

Adobe InDesign is the most powerful desktop publishing program and has become the industry standard,
specializing in design for layout. InDesign provides the ability to create and manage multi-page documents with ease. InDesign provides powerful tools to work with grids and typography, while offering maximum creative freedom to create dynamic layouts for both print and digital media. InDesign works by placing external links, both raster and vector, into compositions. These links are images or files, otherwise prepared in Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator. Compositions are exported out as single, portable documents, which are distributed and can be viewed online or sent to be printed. The type of work you'd expect to do in InDesign is multi-page leaflets and flyers, posters, books, magazines, print banners, brochures, business cards, presentations for print or digital, interactive PDFs, typesetting, and bespoke prints. InDesign is one of the key programs any designer should have in their toolkit. If you're new to InDesign and wish to learn how to use the software, I have a 13-episode beginner's guide course on my channel.

Adobe Photoshop specializes in working with raster images and creating raster graphics using layers and applying affects with filters. Put simply, a raster image is made with many little square pixels. Together, these pixels build a picture, which we see in Photoshop. If you're new to the subject of raster images, I have another video dedicated to raster image principles. Adobe Photoshop was created specifically for image enhancement and the modification of pixels that make up an image. However, since Photoshop's release, it has been adding more and more tools that has broadened the type of work you can do. In Photoshop, you'll be working with images, creating initial layouts, and generally creating assets to be used in other programs, such as InDesign or Illustrator. The type of work you'd expect to do in Photoshop is image retouching, modification, and enhancements, digital art and image effects, web design layouts and image preparation, web banners and animated gifs, posters, simple print layouts,
and social media.

Adobe Illustrator offers specialized creative tools for creating and modifying vector graphics and working with color. In recent years, Illustrator has introduced tools that make it behave like a desktop publishing program, though has limitations when compared to InDesign. Adobe Illustrator was designed to create and modify vector graphics, which are very different to raster images. Raster images are limited to the quality of their resolution and DPI. Instead of being made of square pixels, vectors are made with anchor points, which are joined with paths to form curves, lines, and points. Vector shapes are mathematical expressions, represented visually. This means that vectors can be scaled up to any size and will not lose any superficial quality. Once created, a variety of color and stroke effects can be applied. So, the type of work you would expect to do in Illustrator is logo design, iconography, design for T-shirts and clothing, creating typefaces, creating simple leaflets, flyers, business cards, and posters, presentations for print or digital, infographics and blueprints and plans.

So those are the three main programs any designer will need. Now I am of the opinion that none of these programs are better than the other. Each has been designed and developed with a specific task in mind. They are simply different tools in the toolbox that can be used to tackle a particular creative task. Used together in the right way, there is nothing you can't create. Now as you broaden your skillset, there are other programs that you may want to explore. For example, Adobe After Effects or Adobe Muse.

If you start to work with video or motion graphics, After Effects offer specialized creative tools to create motion graphics. As a graphic designer myself, I don't find myself using the advanced tools of this program, only the basics. For me, I find this program is great to enhance my video presentations. For me, I find it great for animated type, color correcting footage, video presentations, video effects and transitions, and simple animations.

So, the last program I'm going to talk about here is Adobe Muse. In recent years, Adobe Muse has emerged as a contender to the web design scene. For designers, this is the dream web design product and puts the power in the designer's hands. Muse empowers designers to create custom online experiences for desktop, tablet, or mobile, without having to edit any code. Muse is much like Adobe InDesign, in the way you can create a layout and import external files, which have been prepared using Photoshop or Illustrator. You can then export your web design directly to your FTP server. Adobe Muse works by exporting your web layout into HTML 5 and JavaScript. Muse offers some great features like publishing with a range of typefaces, parallax scrolling effects, social widgets, and the ability to embed HTML. If you're interested in web design, I could not recommend this program enough.

So those are the programs you'll need in order to bring your design to life.


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