What skills are most important for a graphic designer?
It’s important to have a visual sensibility, to understand what works and what doesn’t work visually. You need a type sensibility—what types look good and how to space out the letters right. I’m not sure if they teach that anymore. We used to have to set type by hand, in school. My kids don’t even get handwriting lessons in school, which I think is really sad. Regardless of whether they’re going to be typing their correspondence or not, there’s a sensibility of being able to make pretty letter forms by hand. It makes for visual sensitivity. It’s good to do anything that forces you to make things by hand. Manual craftsmanship, which seems to be pretty well gone in the visual arts field today, would be useful. Take a pottery class, a life drawing class, anything tactile. There’s a difference between seeing something on a screen and actually putting it together by hand.
