Invest In Yourself - RD229

<h2>If you want to succeed as a designer, you must invest in yourself.</h2> <p>Have you heard the quote, “it takes money to make money?” The same concept applies to growing your design business as well as improving yourself as a designer. If you don’t invest in yourself, you’ll become stagnant, outdated, and eventually overlooked.</p> <p class="p1">Clients hire graphic and web designers because they want fresh ideas and skillsets to implement them. These clients will quickly tire of someone if all they ever produce are the same old things.</p> <p class="p1">No business or person, for that matter, can do the same thing over and over and expect to succeed. Sure they may thrive in the short term. But if I were to hazard a guess, I would say you have long term goals for yourself and your business. The only way for you to achieve those goals is to invest in yourself.</p> <p class="p1">To prosper and be successful as a designer, as well as live a content life. You must make sure you are always moving forward. Think of yourself as a shark. Certain species of sharks must keep moving if they want to breathe. If they stop moving for any length of time, they’ll die.</p> <p class="p1">Try to have a similar mentality as a shark. To flourish in this business of design, you can’t sit still. Keep learning, improving, acquiring, and more.</p> <p class="p1">I graduated from college in 1992 from a three-year graphic design program. It was only during the second half of our third year that we were introduced to computers. That means most of my design education was done using archaic methods compared to today’s standards. I learned how to use:</p> <ul> <li class="p1">Proportion wheels</li> <li class="p1">French curves</li> <li class="p1">blue non-repro pencils</li> <li class="p1">Rubylith or Amberlith</li> <li class="p1">Letraset rub-on type</li> <li class="p1">PMT cameras</li> <li class="p1">Waxers</li> <li class="p1">Xacto blades</li> <li class="p1">and the list goes on</li> </ul> <p class="p1">There’s no way I could have built a s