Broaden Your Design Experience

Recently I went through the process of leaving my full-time job to take up part-time work. One of the main reasons for doing so was to broaden my skills and gather more experience in the Graphic and Web Design industry.

In the industry of graphic design and web design our past experience and work variety is everything. When going for a job, it’s your portfolio and having a broad range of design styles that makes you stand out as a unique designer. You must have a good variety of portfolio samples and have worked on many different jobs to really be experienced.

The reason I left my full-time job was I was not getting enough creative variety. I was mainly working on the same website doing maintenance tasks, banner ads and layout adjustments. There was minimal creative work that needed doing as the site had already been designed and built, (by me).

So … after a few months of career boredom and creative starvation I decided it was time to rekindle my design flame and dedicate more time to my freelance business and contract work.

Working on a range of jobs not only gives you different design styles but it keeps you up-to-date with new design techniques and technologies. Working on the same project or website for too long creates habits, which in the design industry are bad. Working on new jobs and having to create unique designs for diferent clients forces you to learn new ways of pushing your creative boundaries.