I Still Believe in Being a Good Graphic Designer

I still call myself a graphic designer. It seems a little old-fashioned now. Everyone appears to be a creative director, brand strategist or visual storyteller, and perhaps I should come up with something more impressive. But I quite like being a graphic designer.

I like typography. I like paper. I like photography and composition and the small decisions that nobody else probably notices. I like making things and figuring out why something isn't working. After more than fifteen years doing this, I actually think I'm more interested in the fundamentals than I used to be. There are so many tools now that it's easy to forget that the tool isn't the skill. Having Photoshop, Figma, AI or whatever comes next doesn't make you a better designer. Knowing what to do with them does.

I think that's particularly important for younger designers. There's an enormous amount of beautiful work online, but looking at good design isn't the same as understanding it. And presenting your work beautifully isn't the same as having a good idea.

You have to make things. Lots of them. You have to get things wrong and learn why they were wrong. You have to understand typography and layout and hierarchy. You have to develop your own judgement. I'm not particularly interested in design that is clever for the sake of being clever. I'm interested in work that has an idea behind it and has been properly thought through. Sometimes that's very simple. Sometimes it's loud and colourful and completely bonkers.

I don't think being a good graphic designer has changed that much. The tools have changed enormously, but the bit that matters is still the same.