Have you ever thought of a career change but felt handicapped with all the challenges and limitations? Or have you ever dreamed of becoming a designer or side earning from designing but you don’t know how well you manage to attend a design school? 

Well, this blog is for you! Feel confident and optimistic you don’t need to attend a design school (thousands of $ a year) for a rewarding professional path!

Here are the main steps to become a designer 

Understand the design concept and process

Design is a whole process of interrelated steps and visions to elaborate and plan the creation of concepts, objects, systems, etc

It has various approaches such as the wide applied user-centered design the heart of the design thinking in order to create solutions for the identified problem. 

What is design and how it evolved? The history and milestones to modern design! Those are important concepts to understand and read about as it plays a major role in building your “Design thinking” and vision towards specializing in a specific design field and practicing your own design process
Read more about the 7 steps of a professional design process 

Explore different fields of design

The design world career is very diversified. You sure can learn more than one field but you should ask yourself which design specialty would you like to specialize in such as:

• Software interfaces design (UI/UX)
• Product design 
• Interaction design
• Exterior/Interior design
• Game design 
• Car design 
• Etc 

Designers are problem solvers, who craft both the form and function of a product so that it can effectively fulfill its intended purpose. 

Adapt a design attitude

Although Design is a field with respected wages and income yet in order to become a successful designer you need to do things with passion and a real belief in your capacity to satisfy the user and create powerful experiences.

Adapting a designer attitude requires many technical  skills including 

•  Deep engagement in the process of concept development,
• Knowledge of prototyping
• Testing capabilities 
• Mastering or basic tools 

 It also demands many soft skills such as:

• Sense of Empathy for users 
• open-mindedness 
• Humility and criticism acceptance   

Practice basic tools

There numerous tools used in design per field! When it comes to practicing where to even start?? 

Most experts recommend starting with Illustrator then photoshop as fundamentals to building design skills

There tons of online tutorials, instructors, and youtube videos at a cheap price to help you master the tools. You can start imagining a project concept and put to life slowly by practicing and implementing design principles :

• Principles of visual organization 
• Gestalt principles 
• Color theory 
• Typography and font pairing 
• Design thinking
• Etc 

The modern world of design has evolved from simple tools to actual design systems. It is very important to try to catch on to the trends and practice the use of a design system 

Arsenic Design system is made to help all kinds of designers deliver outstanding consistent designs via its simple interface rich in tools, its very coherent framework, living guidelines, and unified set of UX design decisions.

Build your portfolio

You might not need to step inside a design school to get a job as a designer but you sure do need a solid outstanding portfolio!

Building a portfolio at the beginning of your career doesn’t require you to have experience with real client projects you can showcase in your portfolio what you have been practicing, your own creations, or recreation of projects you find on the net. Chose the work you will expose in your portfolio strategically 

I Hope this Blog came in the help! To sum up, just never give up, follow your dreams and practice, practice and practice more, then congrats you are a designer!