8 Mandatory Visual collaterals for creative Designers

What kind of a visual collaterals a designer needs to learn and what he needs to keep in his kit and library so that he can be very well utilizing skills during a project. Okay, so this particular podcast is going to give you eight different things. What you can have as a visual collaterals, you can getting you. You can start getting ahead in any of your project. Okay? With this, we'll dive into this topic. Guys, welcome, guys, welcome, welcome. This is Jagdish. Thank you for staying tuning with me Design for Change podcast. This particular podcast is going to give you clarity on what kind of a visual quality designer needs to have. The first important element a designer needs to have is typeface. He needs to understand how typeface really works, what are the different type of typeface, what is sans serif, what is serif and what are the different type of typefaces which has been evolved so that basic understanding and clarity about what is typeface needs to be there in his visual collaterals. Second is you need to be good in color theory. Understand basic primary colors, secondary colors, how it can be used for your brands or for your products and services, whatever you're building. The third is you need to understand layout and composition. Why certain product looks good, why certain websites really looks good, what is the way in which they have composed it, how visual beauty is being attained using that. So this kind of a layout and composition skill is very important for a designer. It's a very important visual collateral also. The fourth important thing is knowing what visual hierarchy you can do. See the thing is having lot many skills is not the point. But if you don't know how to hierarchically put it, your information in a visually representative way, what happens is people lose that flow. People really miss out. Which is the main heading, which is the subheading, which is a call to action, which is the thing which I need to see, which I need not have to see so that clarity will never come. There is a book I'll recommend you guys which is called don't make me think by Steve Krug. You can read that. You will get to know what is a visual hierarchy and how you can do it and why it is very important. When you're building information architectures and also providing an application or a website based solution for your customer, this visual hierarchy will largely help you. And the fifth is you can develop skill of iconography. See why icons is very important is not many people can understand this communication faster whether they're educated or non educated. Icons are most fastest way to communicate it. There is a field Called semiotics study about symbols and signs. You can read a basic symbols, why certain particular people or even able to understand and why it is important and why it is particularly communicating this message rather than writing a sentence. So the power of icons is very important and interesting. You can use many websites for free download of these icons and there are paid versions. Also what I normally use is noun project. It's a very good icons and you can find millions of icons there. You can use it for your colors or your black and whites or whatever is there. You can do it. And sixth important thing is imagery. You need to be imagery. You need to have a little bit photographic skill to capture certain photos, to take some images for your mood boards or maybe take some highlights and aspirations and inspiration to create your mood in order to resonate with the products and service and solution, whatever you're building. See, this visual collateral is very important. Guys, if you're not having the skill, what happens is you will not be able to bring a creative output when you're building a solution. So a lot of people miss it. See, when it comes to typeface, also a lot of people know like what is the spacing, what is kerning, what is the difference in terms of using sans serif, serif font and etc. But when it comes to photography and capturing the images, they really don't understand it. See guys, if you are able to good in. Good. If you are able to become good in photography, you will understand composition better. You will be able to understand to focus certain elements and make out of focus certain elements in a more clearer way. Same thing will be replicated in your design. See, people who do a lot of good photography for wedding album, Photoshop and all, they create a very good album. Why? It's because they see the pictures in that way, they take the communication in that way and they also replicate it in that way. That's why they are most creative. They are more creative in that. Okay, and the seventh important thing is branding and logo design. See, we already discussed about branding in a detailed podcast before. So you can also study about logo design, why logo is very important. Creating a logo will connect with people. Creating a logo will communicate what you wanted to say to the people. Creating a logo will have a front face of your industry and what is the communication you are intending to give. And the eighth important element is motion design. See, sometimes it is not needed for ui, UX designer, but it's good to learn some basic motion graphics skills in Premiere Pro or After Effects. It's a simple Tools you can learn. You will be able to create more GIFs and images and moving pictures so that people will connect with your brands. Like let's say if you're showing the same logo in motion graphics, what happens? People will try to even connect with you better, right? Have you seen the latest Microsoft Copilot logo? It's like beautifully designed and colors and graphics and motions are coming rather than just seeing the 3D logo. Visualizing that through motion graphics is something interesting. So this is the eight different visual collaterals what a designers can have. So let me iterate guys. The first is typeface. The second phase is having the color understanding and knowing what color to use when. And the third is layout and composition, understanding the elements of aesthetics and knowing about golden ratio and snail cut and all. Fourth is visual hierarchy, how you can really understand giving navigation and proper visual hierarchy for your user. Fifth is iconography. Sixth is imagery and photographic skill. Seventh is branding and logo design. And eighth is motion graphic skill. If you're able to implement all these things as a visual collateral, then you are ready for doing any kind of an industry project or any kind of interview task or any kind of design project for your freelancing at all. Okay? There are a lot many things also, but these are all the main important visual collaterals I would say to get started. Okay, so there are some materials and tools which I'll refer you guys. Okay? You can use tools such as Figma, you can use Adobe xt, you can use Miro. So these are all the tools where you can build some color palettes, where you can use some layouts, you can use some study, you can use that information architecture, you can put some icons and first have a trial. Once that is ready then you can build in software like Figma and Adobe XD so that you can build your websites and applications accordingly. Okay? So do not be too much obsessed with tools. The big problem is people love the tools. They don't use the tools. They spend a lot of time in tools. That is not the point. You have to spend a lot of time in understanding why this typeface and why this colors is going for this customer, for this project, for this need, for this app or this website. Then using the software will become easier for you and you can use the tools, you don't have to love the tools. Okay? And also you can use to join communities such as Behance Community, Dribble Community and you can join forums such as Stack Overflow, Reddit or Underspace design critiques. So these are some of the communities and forums where you can stay in touch and get connected with these people to collect more visual collaterals like this and let me tell you you need to be consistent guys you cannot do this one activity and leave it. You need to get feedback from your seniors and mentors and you need to stay updated then on only whatever eight visual collaterals whatever we discussed is going to make sense or else you will not do anything. Listening to this podcast will not change anything as you need to take action. Consistently getting feedback and stay updated will only make you as a well groomed designer. Okay I hope you would have enjoyed this podcast. Thank you so much guys. All the best for you and if you feel this podcast is valuable give me a best rating and if you wanted to take my mentorship you can send an email which I've given in the description below. I'll be more than happy to help you guys. Okay take care. Bye bye. All the best.