You know, the team behind Gingersauce has worked in the design industry for years. There is a common thing we notice in the majority of designers – especially in novices, but not exclusively – it’s extreme disbelief in their skills. Designers are highly self-conscious and self-critiquing people. We would say, they are their worst judges.
(don’t do that)
We think it’s wrong. Every graphic designer is uniques, and awesome, and they need to think that too. That is why we dedicate today to helping you, the lovely creative out there, to boost your creative confidence, and treat yourself as you deserve to be treated.
Why is it important to have adequate creative confidence?
Most of the designers do not pay enough attention to boosting their design confidence. But, it’s an important part of the designing process, even if you don’t consider it as one. Improving your creative confidence is important, because then:
- You can experience less anxiety and stress while working. Being confident in yourself and your abilities allows you to truly enjoy your work, and not dread getting to it.
- You can avoid art block. One of the most common reasons for art block is a fear of starting the task and failing in it. If you gain enough creative confidence, you will treat new challenges as a way to improve and will have more motivation to actually sit down and get to work.
- You can be adequately compensated. One of the most frustrating things we noticed in graphic designers – illustrators especially – is that they tend to underestimate the value of their work. They are so anxious about setting the price at the level it deserves to be at, that they compromise the whole market. Example: the art community. Illustrators, especially the ones only setting foot into the world of commissions are often asking a very small pay. The result: the customers have stopped embracing the higher prices; they now only expect a beautiful artwork, made in 6 hours, to be worth like, 2 dollars.
Conclusion: underestimating the worth of your work can affect the whole industry.
How to build creative confidence?
Now that we established why it’s about time designer boosted their creative confidence, let’s move on to some (hopefully) helpful tips on how to do that.
Find a creative network to share ideas and learn from.
Join communities of designers, if you do not have anyone in your network who can help you. Having professionals assess the work you do is one of the best ways to improve and raise your skill. They know exactly what you’re doing wrong.
Also, try to find a mentor who will be interested in checking out your work and offer advice.
Stop comparing your work to others. Understand your unique style differentiates you from others.
There will always be people who appear more talented, more creative than you. Comparing yourself to others won’t do any good for your confidence, it can only drop it below sea levels.
You do not have to be like them to be skilled, successful, and awesome.
Compare yourself to yourself.
Now that we established that you should never compare yourself to others, here’s what you should do: check your own growth. Take your work from the past, and compare it to the most recent one. See how much you’ve grown! The best confidence booster you can ever think of.
Set up weekly challenges and allow yourself to use them to experiment with different styles.
Setting up weekly challenges can help you to try yourself in different styles, and find a few that you really enjoy doing. The important thing is not to be strict with yourself. One of the main conditions should be that you don’t have to be perfect. Just try different things and have fun.
Determine your weaknesses and focus on them.
Weaknesses are the main source of our insecurities. The only way to overcome them is to make them your strengths. Pin down every weakness you have, and work them through, one by one. With that, new skills learned, creative confidence boosted, confidence in your own abilities boosted.
Don’t be afraid to share your work with the world.
Yes, the internet can be a scary place. But you know, try to muster up the courage to post your works somewhere where people can judge them. For 50 trolls, there are 5 commentators who will actually provide helpful feedback. It will be your outsider view of your designs, which is just as important as a professional one.
Don’t be afraid to start over.
Sometimes working on a visual that just won’t come out right is frustrating. While you do, you slowly start to lose confidence in your own skills. In that case, we recommend you start scraping the whole thing off and starting over. You’ll see, this will give you a boost of new ideas and creative ways to go about the task.
Do as professionals do.
There are practices in graphic design that are common among professionals. Research them, and incorporate them into your workflow. One of them is the right presentation. Here’s a tip: stop sending your visuals in email attachments. It gives off an amateur vibe. If you’re presenting logo prototypes, for example, try creating brand books around them: that way you will be offering full-fledged brand identity to your clients.
How is that a tip if it will take days to create brand books for each of the prototypes, you may ask. Well, in Gingersauce, you can create an awesome brand book much faster. A team of experienced designers gathered to create the first professional tool for creating brand books. Gingersauce will help you cut off the time you spend on technical template pixel-pushing, and allow you to design an awesome brand book in a matter of minutes.
