Please raise your hand if you know Carolyn Davidson.
This is the lady that designed the celebrated Nike swoosh logo as you know it today.
And do you know what’s amazing? She designed it while she was a graphic design student at Portland State University for just $35.
And because every good work deserves compensation, three years after Nike went public in 1983, the executives surprised her with a party.
In that party, she was given an undisclosed amount of shares of Nike stock. Reports suggest they are worth close to $1 Million.
That’s graphic design for you.
But is graphic design all about logos?
I’ll say No!
There are different graphic design practices where you can shine. Some already practiced here in Cameroon and others yet to come.
Either ways, these are opportunities you should know exist.
Get more information about our Graphic Design & Video Editing course on WhatsApp Now.
All the Different Ways You Can Earn Money Practicing Graphic Design in Cameroon Today and in the Future.
Advertising Design
Advertising design refers to the creation and organization of visual artwork used in advertisements (ads) for products and services. This kind of design attracts attention and makes a compelling marketing pitch to influence the desired audience.
Apart from promoting products and services, political or social messages that encourage people to adopt an opinion or change behavior fall under this category.
Book Design
With self publishing platforms growing by the day, authors ask. Should I design my own book or hire a designer?
For publishers and authors who want a book that will gain the respect of the book industry buyers and distributors, a graphic designer is indispensable.
Brand Design
According to Interbrand, here is a list of the top successful global brands.
All these brands have a couple of things in common: value, a clear identity, brand experience, and consistency. Graphic designers have a huge role to play in all these.
Design Management
As you progress into your career as a graphic designer, opportunities in management will come.
A Design Manager manager manages creative activities within a business or design practice to further the mission of the organization.
These managers focus on the processes and structures through which businesses and consulting firms deliver solutions to communication, product, environment, and service problems.
Design Research
Design Research is a field of research focused on learning about the people we as designers are designing for.
This is another career path you may want to pursue after some years of experience. The problem is that it’s hard to know where to begin, who to talk to, which resources to invest time in.
Luckily, Izzie Zahorian shared a guide on how to get started. It is a basic how-to guide featuring various design research groups, websites, tools, and tutorials he has found helpful in the process of transitioning in his career from Designer to Design Researcher without going back to school.
Environmental Signage and Wayfinding Design
According to the Society for Experiential Graphic Design:
“Environmental Graphic Design (EGD) embraces many design disciplines including graphic, architectural, interior, landscape, and industrial design, all concerned with the visual aspects of wayfinding, communicating identity and information, and shaping the idea of creating experiences that connect people to place.”
Simply put, environmental graphic design communicates the story of an environment with thoughtful, branded navigation solutions to link signage to the community it serves.
Experience Design (UX)
A good question to begin with is: what is User Experience?
User experience is how a person feels when interacting with a system. This includes a website, mobile application, desktop software and basically any form of human/device interaction.
It is a design career path that is becoming popular even here in Cameroon. Companies see the value because it is design practice that tries to fulfill the user’s needs.
Exhibition and Display Design
The essence of an exhibition is to display. In a trade show or retail store for instance, the end goal is advertising.
For a museum, the design of a showroom is an extension of a curatorial viewpoint.
But whatever the role you play as a graphic designer in projects like these, you’ll need to develop some spatial and structural expertise, as well as graphic communication skills.
Film, Video, Television Graphics
The opportunities are endless here. As a film and video graphics designer, you’ll be organizing information in time, using images in sequence with narration, music and text.
In countries where the film industry is well developed, Main title design is in high demand. Main title design is the practice that addresses the opening sequences of movies.
In television, News on-air graphics include over-the-shoulder graphic information that supports stories.
Game Design
Let’s be clear. To design a 3D video game, you need more than graphic design skills.
However, you can work on a video game as a graphic designer. This is because in the process of creating, developing and launching a video game, the skills of a graphic designer is in high demand.
A company as large as EA Sports for instance has an entire team of graphic designers who work on assets as well as marketing materials.
Information Design
In the world of data, information design plays an important role. Information design clarifies data, helps orient a viewer, and guides the search for what is important.
With information design, making patterns in abstract data comprehensible is a primary goal. As an information designer, you use the full capabilities of digital technology – time, sound, motion, and informational layering – to show changes in data over time.
Package Design
Packaging is a primary means for communicating a brand and featuring the qualities of a product.
As a graphic designer, you’ll conceptualize, design and execute a prototype for attention-grabbing packaging materials, using design elements such as shape, color, graphics and typography to create packaging that is functional and appealing to customers.
Publication Design
Think of magazines and newspapers.
Publication design explores the overall layout, structure, hierarchy, sequence, page design, text, and images in the editorial material of a magazine or newspaper.
Before, this kind of design was only for print. Today, publication designers are in high demand with the growth of online reading.
Web Design
Many graphic designers have been able to cross-over to web design especially with the birth of WordPress and other drag-and-drop content management systems.
How’ll you like to earn money practicing graphic design in Cameroon?
Logo design is only one graphic design practice. There are many graphic design practices that you can make money from here in Cameroon namely:
- Advertising design
- Book design
- Brand design
- Design management
- Design research
- Environmental signage and wayfinding design
- Experience design
- Exhibition and display design
- Film, video, television graphic design
- Game design
- Information Design
- Package design
- Publication design
- Web design.
Get more information about our Graphic Design & Video Editing course on WhatsApp Now.
