Ryan Sael
So you are aspired to be a designer but have no idea to draw? In your head, not being able to draw is a weakness, but you still don’t want to give up your dream career as a designer? And you always have this amazing idea in your head but can’t yet to really actualized it because your traditional drawing skill can’t comprehend with your brain?
Well, don’t be too sad and desperate yet because there are many types of designer in this world. With that said, your ability to draw will depend of what kind of designer you wish to be.
For reference, one of the most popular kind of designer is fashion designer. If you want to be a fashion designer you’ll have to at least be able to sketch the clothes you want to make. Of course the simple drawing will do, if in the end you can explain the detail of your design to the tailor. It’s even better if you can tailored the clothes yourself so that every little detail that you have in your head can be produced precisely.
In that case, of course, you don’t need to have Leonardo da Vinci talent’s level of drawing. Rather than having a good sketch, the final product is what really counts for a fashion designer.
So now that you have one example, let’s look at other important things a designer should have other than drawing.
Tech savvy
Being a graphic designer nowadays, rather than drawing with pen and pencil, it is more important to fully understand how digital software for graphic design works. Creating good art in this era has very little to do with being expert at traditional drawing.
Just to name a few recommended software from graphic design expert, there are Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop, CorelDraw, and Sketch for UX and UI.
Understand the basic of design
Relax, knowing the basic of design is not equivalent to actually drawing with pencil. This means, you have to understand about color theory, typography, perspective, user experience, composition, to the psychology behind the marketing.
Fully knowing this will make you capable of making great design that actually gain interest from your client.
Have a good communication skills
As a designer, you make a design to deliver the message behind it. With that said, it’s honestly way more important to brainstorm the communication strategy so you’re sure that your audience fully understand and follow the message.
The aesthetic of the design should come next after the designer has decided the optimal communication strategy. The beautiful design is there to support the communication strategy, and not vice-versa.
—
With the vast growth of technology, a designer is also spread into many different field. Now, there are tons of specialized role for a designer. If you haven’t noticed already, there are actually some type of designer that doesn’t really require you to have any drawing skills. They are the web designer, user interface (UI) designer, user experience (UX) designer, and front end developer.
For the web designer, their main job is as obvious as it’s called, which is to design the website. Manage the website layout which includes menu, banner, text, content position, link position, and many more. They have to make sure that the website looks pleasing and appealing.
Not too different from web designer, user interface (UI) designer also design its layout but for smartphone application or software interface. Now, let’s move on to user experience (UX) designer whose main job is to analyze whether or not the user has great experience visiting the website or the app. They analyze about what to improve to make user experience becomes better.
A bit different from all stated, front end developer is responsible to check if the HTML, CSS, and Javascript are functional enough for all users to use.
All that being said, if you start without a good drawing skills, you will eventually start to draw a lot if you want to become a designer. Drawing everyday will surely improves your design skill. Just remember every good results have a process.
So that’s how you can be a designer with little to no ability to traditionally draw with pencil or pen on a piece of paper. Keep in mind that if you’re creative, in this era full of digital technology, you can utilize any software out there to actualize every creative idea you have in mind. Just keep trying and never give up.
