Hello lovelies! I hope everyone had a fabulous week! I have been incredibly busy working and trying to wrap up school. As I am beginning to be thrown into the real world, I had the opportunity to chat with a student who is a freshman design major at another school. One of the questions she asked me is what is one thing I wish I knew about becoming a designer. Well, surprisingly I had more than one answer.

Here are the things I wish people told me about becoming a graphic designer 

1. I wish I knew how my world was going to change. What I mean by that is, now everywhere I look I see design. Before I decided to become a designer, you often overlook everything a designer does. We create everything from billboards, to ads, to page layouts and more. Every logo you come across a designer did that. I now see design everywhere.
2. On the flip side, I wish I knew that becoming a designer means being bothered by small things. Such as something be cut crooked or an image being cut off because it was not formatted correctly. Or when there’s too much white space, too little, or not enough contrast. Being a graphic designer you see all of it. The good, the bad, and the ugly. 
3. I wish I knew that technology, although our foundation, is not what makes you a designer. Most people believe that if you can work Illustrator or Photoshop you can be a designer. Although some people may feel that way, I personally think that being a great designer means you can create a design without technology or just use technology to enhance your ideas. I know far too many designers and myself included who limit their ideas in the little box that is the computer. I wish I knew that there is a whole world filled with artistic passion and abilities that can really illuminate any design. 
4. I wish I knew how hard being a designer is. All of the long hours revising the same project over and over again until it becomes just right. Having a client shoot down every idea you had making you start from scratch again. Sometimes ideas come easily, other times my creative bank is dry as the desert. On the other end, the client may go against your professional advice and pick something absolutely ridiculous. I wish I knew that sometimes designing feels like an uphill battle. (Pssst: I promise you though, all the battles, all the hard work will be worth it when you get that approval on a design and create something magical.) 
5. I wish I knew how happy designing would make me. For anyone who has read my bio, they know I was not always a design major. At one point I was in a completely different major and miserable. I always loved art but was clouded by the heavy weight of “you will never make money being an artist.” I wish I could go back and tell my freshman self just to have started with design because I would have been a thousand times happier. Being able to solve a problem by creating a visual is thrilling for me. Although it may be silly, the other day at work I had to design a GIANT window cling for this pharmacy, it was for their holiday hours. Being able to create a winter wonderland while still getting the message across was fun. Almost like a puzzle.