How long does it take to become a Graphic Designer?

How long it takes to become a graphic designer depends on a number of factors.

There are a number of variables to consider but generally self-taught designers can accomplish the goal of becoming a graphic designer faster than their university counterparts.  To become a graphic designer from studying at university can take up to 5 years. A university course is typically 3 to 4 years long and then it will take another year to complete a portfolio to get a graphic design internship. Self-taught designers can achieve the same goal, working for around 1 year to learn the basics of Graphic Design and then another 6 months to create a portfolio that will get them their first internship. 

Studying at University: Up to 5 years to go Pro

If you are thinking of going down the university route of learning Graphic Design, you can expect that you will turn Pro around 3 to 5 years after beginning your university design course. University courses in the UK can be around 3 years long, USA can be around 4 years long. But it is important to give yourself another year after the course to build up the software skillsets to put together your portfolio. University does have its benefits as it will give good connections into the industry and might even help you get your first internship with a company. I have reviewed many portfolios from university students and one of the main issues I see is that they are very conceptual. Broad expansive ideas, more akin to Art than Graphic Design. When applying to corporate graphic design jobs it’s important to keep in mind the kind of design output they have and make sure that your portfolio aligns with their needs.

We have an article all about whether you should go to University or not. It’s a big decision, but you can get some Professional insights by reading about it here: Should I Go To University To Study Graphic Design? 

University design student story: Marie

“So I went to a London university to study Graphic Design. I found that it was a fun course and we covered a really wide range of creative projects. I think one of the biggest benefits was the design library that they had on campus which had books on creativity and design that I just don’t know where you would find elsewhere. We learned how to properly research and evolve our ideas which will be useful in professional work later on. But I think the core skillsets that enable you to get a job were lacking. For instance, we didn’t even open Photoshop for the first year of our design course! After I left university it took me another year to learn the relevant Adobe programs to get the job I wanted. Even though I went to university to study graphic design, I actually feel more self-taught as I had to teach myself so much of the practical side of professional graphic design.”

Self-taught Graphic Designer: Up to 2 years to go Pro

Becoming a self-taught graphic designer can be daunting as there are so many variations of how you can achieve it. Listening to how other designers made their start in the design industry can be good but it’s worth remembering that everyone is on their own path. The way you get into the design industry is going to be different from me or any other designer. We all have our own story of how we got started. The first thing you would need to do is decide on the type of design you want to pursue as a self-taught designer. Let’s say it’s digital marketing design. It would take a year of dedicated learning every day to get past the learning curves of Photoshop, Illustrator, and After Effects. You won’t need to know everything there is to know about these programs, but enough to be able to produce high-quality professional design work. I have seen this done in under a year – and that is someone going from zero knowledge of Adobe to being able to output professional design work. The portfolio that you put together can be two or three case studies of design projects you have made and this will be enough to land you an internship. A portfolio of this kind can take around six months to complete.

Self-taught designer story: Robert

“After finishing school I had the choice of going to university or trying to teach myself graphic design. I chose to become a self-taught designer with the aim of going into Marketing design. I was pretty lucky in that I had a mentor that I could ask questions to and he helped me keep on track with my learning and portoflio. I concentrated on learning the basics of Photoshop, Illustrator and After Effects and made three projects which used a bit of each of these programs. I think it took me under a year from me starting out to having a portfolio that landed me my first internship. I am finding that I have to learn new skillsets whilst working but the company I work for is really good at giving me time to learn the extra bits of design that I need to know. I have just been offered a full-time junior position so the hard work has paid off!”

We have a full guide on how to become a self-taught designer that you can read here.

Portfolio: 6 months to complete

Portfolios are the keyway to become a Graphic Designer. Without one the chances of you getting started in the industry are very small. But a portfolio doesn’t need to be a massive expansive website that details everything you have ever done. In fact I think it is better if you have a few select projects but you create a detailed case study out of each one.

Let’s say that you made a project about advertising a mobile game you could show the following things in your case study of the project.

• Having the clients brief as the problem you are trying to solve
• Show your initial thumbnails of the advert
• Break down the typography and the imagery
• Clearly describe what your role was in the project
• What were the time constraints or limitations you had to factor in?
• Show your design on its own, and in situ on a website mockup for example
• Perhaps show an animated version
• Show it as an Instagram story, Facebook post, or Social Feed post – detail how the design changes

The idea here is we take one project, which could just be one image. But instead, if it just being one image, we break our design process down and in doing so we give more context to the project by providing what the problem was that we are solving. how the design looks in different situations and what we personally did on the project.

If you have a few of these types of case studies it can tell a powerful story about you as a designer. I want to know how do you think and solve problems? Did you have to learn something new to solve the brief? These things would be interesting to know.

Finally, I would give yourself multiple months to put together your portfolio. It’s better to plan it out and systematically create projects and get them on to a website than to try and rush it.

Learning Curves

When you are at the start of your Graphic Design career, you might wonder, ‘Do I really need to know the entire Adobe Suite?‘

Each Adobe Program takes time to overcome the learning curve. And so each program you learn will add to the total time it will take you to go from zero to Pro. So it can be better to choose the design field you want to go into and double down on learning the core Adobe programs that you need to do that job. Throughout your entire career, you will be learning new programs and techniques. The learning never ends! So try not to overwhelm yourself when looking at the sheer scope of the Adobe Suite. It’s a massive set of tools, so I would suggest narrowing your focus.

So if you were going into Marketing Design, then learning Photoshop, Illustrator and After Effects would be a great set of tools to begin with. This is because you would get a digital-focused design, print-focused design, and motion design with just three design programs.

Going Freelance – 0 to 4 years

Going freelance can be an excellent way to test out areas of design and see what you like and what you don’t like. I have found that getting one or two clients as a freelancer is straightforward. But getting many clients to build a very stable income can be hard and takes years of work in navigating relationships with clients to get to a point where you can feel safe and comfortable. So when starting out, trying to get freelance work is highly recommended. However, if you are looking for income stability then you may want to look for part-time or full-time work until you can build up the client base you will need. Going Pro with freelance can happen almost instantly for you, but being a Freelance Pro with a stable income takes a lot longer and it’s good to keep this all in mind.

Becoming an Intern – 0 – 1 year

Whilst you are making your portfolio I would recommend finishing a section of it. For instance, finish one case study and then use that to see if you can land an Intern design job. It’s worth doing as if you can get an internship with just part of a portfolio then you can speed up your progress to going Pro in design. A design that has the basics done is called an MVP – a Minimal Viable Product. That is what your one project portfolio would be. I am telling you this because when you send out your portfolio to companies to land an internship you can talk about it in this way. Buiness people like business speak, so it’s worth knowing this kind of lingo.

Here is an example email I would send to a business if my portfolio wasn’t ready but I still wanted to apply for the job:

“I am in the process of building my portfolio, but I saw your job offer for the internship and I just had to apply. Your company looks like a great fit for me and a place where I could build up my skillsets with your mentorship. My portfolio is not yet complete, so I have put together an MVP portfolio to show you as I didn’t want to miss out on this opportunity!”

In this example, we are over-indexing on our excitement and enthusiasm for the role because in this context we don’t have a finished complete portfolio. Not having a portfolio is usually a reason to not give someone an interview. However, when hiring interns the employer already knows that they will be training this person up and that their portfolio is likely to be small. So hiring someone that is full of enthusiasm to learn and who wants to be a part of the company is highly desirable and so makes the fact that their portfolio is not finished, a smaller factor to consider. If I were hiring interns and I got a message like this, I would give them an interview at the very least. Finding people who are motivated and enthusiastic is hard – so as an employer it’s something we would look out for all the time.

If you want to read more about Becoming an Intern, you can read it here.

Recommendations

As you can see, there are tons of variables in figuring out how long this might take you to become a Pro Graphic Designer. But generally, I would narrow your focus to what area of design you want to go into. Build an MVP portfolio and start sending it out whilst you build the bigger portfolio. Learn something new with Graphic Design every day, if you make this into a habit you will have a long and successful career. I have seen people go from zero to full-time in about a year. But it took the sustained daily effort of learning and building a portfolio that got companies interested. Goodluck!