How to Become a Remote Graphic Designer with Zero Experience

If you’re looking for a new and exciting career why not consider becoming a graphic designer?

There are plenty of graphic design jobs out there and graphic design skills are relatively easy to learn.

Here’s everything you need to know to join the ranks of well-paid graphic designers even if you have no previous experience!

What Is Graphic Design?

A graphic designer is more than an artist. They use graphic design to communicate ideas and messaging for their companies to specific audiences.

Their work may involve print media, traditional media, and new media and it’s a very fast-paced and interesting field.

There are also plenty of remote work opportunities for graphic design jobs and that means you could be working anywhere as a graphic designer such as from a beach in Thailand or from a mountain in the Swiss Alps!

How Much Do Graphic Designers Earn?

This is a bit “how long is a piece of a string” as questions go. A graphic designer working part-time for a charity is going to make a lot less, typically, than a full-time remote graphic designer working for a major corporation on advertising projects for Fortune 500 companies.

We’d say that, on an hourly basis, a designer might earn around $10-$100 an hour though you can exceed that if you have very specialist skills.

On average, according to Payscale, the average US-based graphic designer makes $17.67 in their first job and this increases over time.

A full-time graphic designer will, of course, be on a salary (even if they work on a remote basis), and the average salary according to Payscale in this field is over $47,000!

Is Graphic Design Work In High Demand?

Yes, in fact, there’s a demand for many different skills in this field including:

• Web design
• Creative print and ad work
• Merchandising work
• Portfolio management
• UX/UI design
• Social/Content design
• Video animation and editing
• Packaging design
• Photography work (including retouching)
• Data display

… and more.

A good creative designer should never find it hard to land a full-time job or remote work. In addition, you can create a pretty good freelance job from this type of creative work too (and if you freelance, you can definitely work remotely).

What Tools Do I Need For This Work?

The tools you use for remote graphic design work will vary depending on your job/clients but there are some common tools that will help you win work and clients, in almost every field of design.

• Adobe Creative Suite – the beast of the digital design world. This suite contains packages for nearly every type of design from video editing to animation to classic packages like PhotoShop and Illustrator for static design and InDesign for layout work on publications.
• Sketch and Figma – if you want to go into User Interaction or User Experience design then Adobe’s not so useful and these two digital services are among the best to have in your portfolio if you want to create remote opportunities in this field.
• MS Office – clients and employers are likely to want to deliver presentations and PowerPoint remains the industry standard for this. However, you may find they also use GSuite, OpenOffice, etc. too.

What Skills Will I Need?

You can easily teach yourself the skills needed to use the software listed above and in addition to that, you will need creativity and innovation (this can also be learned), a deep understanding of design principles (hit Udemy for some ideas), and attention to detail and time management/organization.

You can learn all of these disciplines under your own steam at home and you don’t need to spend a fortune to find training on YouTube, Udemy, etc.

How Do I Find Graphic Design Jobs With No Experience?

If you want to work online full-time in a remote job or with freelance clients, you don’t need experience.

You need a good portfolio. So, decide on the work you want to do.

Create an online presence (website and social media) and build a portfolio of the services you want remote work for.

Then start applying for jobs, pointing potential customers and employers at that portfolio.

It’s really that simple. It might take a while to land your dream job, but if you pay attention to the feedback that you’re offered, you should find it’s not that hard to find work.

You should also review our guide to finding all types of work without any experience and

Final Thoughts On Graphic Design Work

Graphic design is a great field to get into and it’s one of the easiest fields to be a self-starter in too.

You will only be judged on the quality of your outputs and not on any previous experience, which means anyone can learn to be a graphic designer and start winning remote work in the field. Good luck!