I have been in the graphic design industry since 1981 working in London, Los Angeles & Spain. My career started in the traditional way on a drawing board, using Rotoring Pens, Magic Markers, Pantone Pens & Letraset working as a Designer/Visualiser/Artworker. My design career has taken me through the music, toy, t-shirt, packaging & print industry. I am now a freelance graphic designer (British) based in Spain with many clients worldwide ...now using Photoshop, Illustrator & InDesign on a Mac.
UPDATE...I have now written a guide to becoming a graphic designer. It is available as Kindle or in print ...check it out here... AMAZON LINK . Well I am not sure how college courses last for nowadays. I was at art and design college back in the late 70's and had a 3 year course to get my qualifications.
I do not recommend going straight into being freelance ...you need to get experience within a company or design agency first to get a realistic view on how it works in this industry. So I guess (if you havent already) enrol into a design course first, then after a few years you really need to find a job within a company before thinking about being freelance.
Hope this helps
UPDATE...I have now written a guide to becoming a graphic designer. It is available as Kindle or in print ...check it out here... AMAZON LINK . Loving graphic design and being good at it are 2 different things. If you are very creative, fantastic at design and know your design softwares inside out there is always a need for you out there. And it is always a bonus if you are a good web developer too.
But if you are poor at design you will struggle ...apart from getting small underpaid jobs from clients you will not make money from it.
You need to be creative on paper as well as on the computer to impress bigger clients. I have been in this industry since 1981 and so been creative well before computers. I am never short of clients and have even recently merged with a large media company as they saw my potential to help grow their company.
If you are only average at design but better at web development I think you should concentrate on the web side of things and only offer a bit of graphic design on the side as part of the web package. You will make more money this way.
Hope this helps
UPDATE...I have now written a guide to becoming a graphic designer. It is available as Kindle or in print ...check it out here... AMAZON LINK . To be very honest I do not know ...all I can guess that it means a cool designed flyer ...but, as I said that is a complete guess ...you may have to Google this one.
UPDATE...I have now written a guide to becoming a graphic designer. It is available as Kindle or in print ...check it out here... AMAZON LINK . Well there are so many to list ...the easiest thing to do is to give you this link with an existing list: https://quizlet.com/9951659/layout-design-terminology-flash-cards/ ....this is not all by no least but it is a start and hopefully some help to you.
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UPDATE...I have now written a guide to becoming a graphic designer. It is available as Kindle or in print ...check it out here... AMAZON LINK . You can convert digital images into vector in Adobe Illustrator. You will need to get a good hi res scan of the watercolour and then open it up in Illustrator. Select the image and open the 'Image Trace' window. Here you will have different options for how many colours and quality you require as an end result. Its a bit hit and miss to the end result you will get so you may have to play around with different options until you get the final vector. If you do not have Illustrator I think there are free websites out there where you can upload your image to have it converted but you do not have control over the end result. A Google search will find a selection on these sites. Hope this helps.
UPDATE...I have now written a guide to becoming a graphic designer. It is available as Kindle or in print ...check it out here... AMAZON LINK . Be adaptable. Always meet deadlines however late you need to work. Never give clients a design if you are not happy with the artwork ...asking for a little more time is better than giving a bad job to them ...it's your reputation at stake. Do not copy other people work, especially logos. Do not use clip art. Take criticism constructively. Always keep up to date with the latest design trends. Never stop learning. Follow other designers work for inspiration. I could go on, but I think I have covered the main things. Hope this helps.
UPDATE...I have now written a guide to becoming a graphic designer. It is available as Kindle or in print ...check it out here... AMAZON LINK . Well apart from being creative ...time management is crucial. There is nothing worse than missing an important deadline. You need to take control of how your time is spent in a working day and project manage each job you have to make sure you do not let any client down with bad timings. In your time management make sure you also allow time to market yourself via social media, blogs, email campaigns etc.
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