I’ll keep this short. These items are things I’ve seen a lot of designers in this industry use on a daily basis. Depending on your discipline you may or may not use these frequently but I’m sure you’ll recognize them all. If you’re just starting out, consider purchasing these products or saving up for them. Don’t go broke trying to look “legit”, sometimes you’ll have to fake it till you make it like buy a dell laptop instead of a mac. Get started with something! Here are 10 things every Graphic Designer should have:
- Sketchbook
You won’t go broke buying one of these but you may want to buy a few of them. Sketch books are great for drawing ideas, concepts or scribbles to get your brain flowing with creativity.
- Notebook
I’m always reading design/marketing related blogs that have a lot of good advice and information. I like to write down a few things that I can take away from each one to later reference.
- MacBook Pro/Air
I’m all for saving, so when I first started college all I could afford was a PC. It got me through my first few years of college, however the quality of the cheap Dell laptop that I bought compared to the MacBook Pro that I now have is drastically different! I know having a Retina screen now definitely makes a difference but there are so many reasons why investing in a Mac is so much better! Macs are widely used in this industry, and PC’s are often frowned upon, unless you pay for a higher end one, and in that case you should really consider just getting a Mac.
- Wacom Tablet
I honestly just got hipped to the Wacom Tablet movement and will never go back to using a traditional mouse ever again! It’s so much easier to use once you get the hang of it and for drawing capabilities it is outstanding! Check it out here -> Wacom Intuous Tablet
- 21+ inch Monitor/iMac
So I’ve been debating on getting a iMac for some time now but I can’t afford one so the alternative to that was just getting a PC monitor with HDMI capabilities to connect to my MacBook Pro. It’s almost a $2000 difference in price and functions as I need it to. Working on my 13inch laptop can be a challenge sometimes when I’m using Adobe programs like InDesign that sometimes require me to use a large layout. My HP monitor from Best Buy only costs me around $150, which is very reasonable and it works great! The resolution isn’t as great as my Mac but it works.
- Sticky notes
I love sticky notes, and I’m pretty sure I’ve used thousands of them by now. I like to have them handy in case I need to jot down color codes, or anything design related for future reference.
- Adobe Creative Cloud
There are several other programs that could be used for design and production purposes but Adobe Creative Suite is the industry standard. If you want a job in this field you have to be knowledgeable of Adobe InDesign, Photoshop and Illustrator. There are other programs in the suite that are great for video, photo editing and web development like Adobe Dreamweaver; a widely used Web Development platform.
- Font manager
You’ll more than likely gather a lot of fonts throughout your career so having a font manager will help you keep those fonts organized in one location. I use FontBase but there are a lot out there. Check out this article -> 10 Most Popular Font Managers for Mac & Windows
- Hard drive
Back up your work!! I repeat BACK UP YOUR WORK!! Invest in a Terabyte Hard Drive! I love using cloud-based storage but sometimes that’s just now enough for me, so backing my work up in various locations is my to go to. As I type this I need to do this right now!
- Inspiration Folder
I have several inspirational folders categorized by print, digital etc. on my desktop. I also use Pinterest to create inspiration/mood boards. There will be times when you have creative block and just need a little push! Start compiling designs that you like when you come across them, you never know what ideas you’ll get from doing this!
I hope this was helpful, thanks for reading <30 LikesShare