If you’re an active social media user or even friends with socially active individuals, you must have come across the term ‘the Digital Revolution.’ And if you haven’t, it’s time we introduce you to it- so hi, and welcome to the Digital Revolution. But what does that mean exactly? Why is everyone talking about it? Does it even deserve the recognition it’s getting?

Let’s start with a small example. An artwork made with Midjourney recently won a huge art prize. Now, this brings quite a few questions to mind: Was the creator an illustrator, curator, or purely a digital artist? Or, did he just write prompts and enter them into an Artificial Intelligence image machine and miraculously won the art competition? If so, can’t everyone do it?

Whatever the plausible explanation may be, the truth is that AI in different forms, including digital art is taking over the world. It is an undeniable impact in all professional fields, such as business, design, and even medicine. 

Getting Into Digital Art & the Online Content Creation Space

Creators from all walks of life are contributing their unremarkable skills to make digital art an ever-expanding field. As it develops further, digital art is making way for tremendous opportunities for artists of all levels. 

The best news here is that it doesn’t stop here. Digital art is a vast field that opens ways to countless other lines of work, such as web development, writing, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), and so much more. Artists have taken advantage of computer technology in the best way possible ever since it became available in the 1950s. Which finally brings us to our next question- so, why all this hype now?

The Revolution of an Artist’s Perspective

Early and New Devices

Technological advancements have played a significant role in the rising popularity of digital art. Throughout recent ages, artists have come up with several new ways to incorporate technology into their artwork, expressing their messages through various images for the world to see. 

These contemporary advancements have also improved productivity and efficiency, as artists enjoy working with what they can see and viewers like actually seeing their favorite artist’s work instead of only imagining. 

Among the earliest devices used by artists are analog optical devices, such as camera obscura, the phenakistoscope, and camera lucida; all predecessors of animation and photography. Another one is the printing press, which was a paradigm-shifting pre-digital technological device that led to greater accessibility of mass production and dissemination of images and texts. 

The new phenomena of printing led to newer modes of artistic expression, including illustrations, printmaking, graphic designing, and book designing. 

Considering the current advancements, gone are the days when graphic design was merely about plain graphic elements, such as simple packaging and labels. Digital art has given brands the freedom to improve their overall customer experience, increase their online exposure, and ultimately boost sales.

Since so much is now into play for introducing and selling a single product, a significant number of artists from various backgrounds are needed to bring about every action. This includes writing- these artists can discuss the product’s details, how it is useful for the consumer, and how it can benefit them over other products. 

Web designers and devs are also game changers in today’s industrial world, as they can design any online platform in a way that highlights one or more products, as well as improve user interaction and experience with the site’s design by playing with colors, elements, and other relevant details. 

The artists skillful at SEO are also at a great advantage as digital art has also opened up several doors for them. Without a decent SEO ranking, there is little an online business can achieve. Therefore, undoubtedly, it is time for digital artists to shine. 

Graphic Design

How to Get Started

One of the most successful professions today is graphic design. Here, education level does not dictate your entire future, as it is a skill that you can master even with limited resources if you have the desire for it. 

Graphic designers primarily rely on their instinct to constantly evolve and keep up with the latest advancements and trends. Although difficult at first, it is an exciting field to get into. Let’s take a quick look at the basic steps for getting into graphic designing. 

While the field has its ever-increasing pros, one thing to keep in mind is that graphic design comes with tight deadlines and busy schedules. Therefore, if you plan to enter this field, remember to manage your time smartly. 

As a graphic designer, you are expected to develop various print publications for magazines, brochures, and newspapers. Some clients may also ask you to make formats for web applications and other online platforms. 

What you can do to enhance your skills is take classes for designing book layouts, make corporate identity designs, and digital illustrations. Focusing at one specific area helps as it adds significantly to your skills. You can pick one from the following: 

• Logos
• Typography 
• Book design 
• Web design 
• Product packaging 
• User interface design 
• User experience design 

Apart from getting the basic tools like a laptop, opt for reasonably priced but useful graphic software, such as Adobe Creative Cloud or Adobe Photoshop, depending on the specialty you have selected. 

Last but not least, get inspiration from fellow and senior graphic artists. Join free mobile chat rooms for artists, online art rooms, art chat rooms, and artist chatrooms. Discuss and exchange ideas, talk about the future of graphic designing, and how the world of graphic designing is evolving. 

Canva – The Easy Way to Become a Great Digital Artist

A free graphic designing platform, Canva is another great tool you can work with that allows you to make business cards, invitations, flyers, Zoom backgrounds, lesson plans, and other professional templates. 

In plain terms, Canva is a free version of.. something like Photoshop, that gives you access to numerous features. With over 50,000 professionally designed templates, you can pick the template of your choice, make appropriate changes, and use it as you please. 

The Canva template categories include posters, Zoom backgrounds, phone backgrounds, infographics, business cards, invitations, resumes, Instagram posts, menus, newsletters, photo collages, blog content, invoices, recipe cards, and so on.

From basic edits like straightening and cropping to adding fancy textures and playing with lights and colors, to millions of gorgeous image stocks, Canva offers it all. With Canva, create your own logo or brand name or add cool details to make your graphical skills stand out.

Things You Can Work on as a Digital Artist

Logos

A true graphic designer fully understands the importance of a first impression. Therefore, they design logos that are creative and compelling, prompting a buyer to purchase the product immediately or at least leave an impact. At a quick glance, the right logo helps build trust in your design skills and is what sets you apart from fellow competitors. 

Before making a logo for any organization or company, be sure to check the designs of similar agencies and organizations. Ensure that you are offering something unique so you retain the client. The logo must suit the niche and specialty but still be creative enough to catch the observer’s eye. 

Keep in mind that your logo may not only be for screens but also for t-shirts, books, calendars, pens, etc. Design logos considering the company’s color scheme, motive, layout, and background. Combine all the relevant details to create the most appropriate logo. 

You can make use of symbols, typography, or interesting somewhat intriguing designs that have the viewers looking twice. You can even pair different colors and fonts or play with lighting for an exquisite touch. 

While we discourage plagiarism, we do recommend checking how other similar brands have designed their logos. Once you understand what other brands are going for, make a logo that is better and something memorable or catchy. 

Branding

Another essential component of becoming a successful graphic designer is getting your branding skills right. Branding includes creating a tagline or conveying a message in a way that shows what a business is all about. 

Branding is what sets each business apart. If you know how to brand a business correctly, you have already done half the marketing. The right branding ensures consistency and briefly demonstrates what a business is all about, what it does, and its purpose. 

Typography

One of the most interesting ways to design logos is using Typography. To break it down, it has two main purposes- the first is to encourage legibility, while the second is to communicate of tone and sentiments of any design piece. 

Another excellent function of Typography in graphic designing is aesthetics. Naturally, the human mind is drawn to attractive designs that are neat and easy on the eyes. Therefore, include Typography in your graphic skills to remain at the top of the game.  

Graphic Content for Websites & Social Media

Photography

According to several surveys, photography is one of the most effective ways when it comes to running a business. If your clients can actually see what they are being offered, they are more likely to trust you and your products. 

As a graphic designer, knowing what photographs to use and their placement can help you tremendously. This particular skill leads to better design, and eventually, more clients. Photography can be a great way to show your clients what you can do and how well you can do it. Therefore, be sure to become a pro at photography when working as a graphic designer. 

What You Need to Know When Getting Started as a Digital Artist

Pixel Art vs. Vector Art: What’s the difference?

While pixel art and vector art may seem pretty similar, both hold quite some dissimilarities. The former is a form of digital art solely made with pixels on graphical software, whereas vector art uses graphics, including lines, points, shapes, and curves, and is based on mathematical formulas. 

The primary difference between pixel and vector art is structure. Pixels are basically small colored squares on a screen; when put together in a particular pattern, they make up a pixel-based graphical image. 

On the other hand, vector graphics are made using mathematical equations that calculate the edges of various shapes in relation to one another. For instance, fonts are part of vector graphics, which allows them to be scaled up or down without compromising on quality. 

However, digital photographs are made of pixels as they blend with one another without giving the look of an individual color only. This is why when a digital picture seems ‘pixelated’ when magnified to a great extent. 

Logos are mostly made with vectors as they do not seem ‘pixelated’ even when zoomed in. The vector-based logos do not lose their resolution or quality when printed or changed up a bit. Thus, pick a vector or pixel depending on what you are working on.

Adobe Photoshop & Illustrator

Adobe will be your best friend if you are looking into the graphic designing field. Learn to completely transform photos, edit them in fun and interesting ways, and make client-appropriate changes. Apart from Adobe, you can use applications like Photoshop and Illustrator to add greater value to your work. 

Expanding Your Domain

The Way Forward

So now that we know what it takes to get into graphic designing, let’s learn about how you can expand your domain further and reach the top. The way forward and the pathway to success is collaboration. 

While individuality is essential for any artist, what will take you a long way is a collaboration with experienced artists that are well aware of the skills needed for web development, SEO, and writing. Now, where do you find these artists? In the artist chatrooms.

Talk about your ideas and how you plan to execute them with senior and fellow artists and ask for input and healthy critique. You can also ask successful artists how they managed to build their empires and find inspiration. 

From graphical artists to musicians, 3-D design artists to songwriters, you will find all sorts of artists in our artist group chats. Plan beneficial collaborations and learn from artists of various backgrounds. 

Web Development

Another essential skill to excel at digital art is web development. A popular skill, web development can completely transform things for businesses. This skill will help you gain a significant number of clients as most need professional web developers to manage their online platforms. The right direction to start on is HTML & CSS to make websites for your client and make a stable income. It would be wise to learn the use of WordPress and other tools such as Elementor for animating, that we’ll speak of in another article relative to development. 

Designing the best UI/UX with Figma

An online application, Figma allows file handling of organizations by displaying current projects and their relevant details. It supports multiple pages per file, such as Sketch, so teams can arrange their projects systemically and improve efficiency. 

Figma is incredible for designing web pages and landing pages.

You can also use Figma to design your UI app.

Start with wireframing your app; follow this by downloading the plug-ins. Once that’s done, add appropriate content to your wireframe. Next, collaborate with other artists and get feedback on your design or share it with the Figma community.

How Learning a Bit About Writing and SEO Can Set You Up for Success in this Field

Let’s get into this one and simplify it for anyone reading this article!

“Search engine optimization”, SEO in short, is the practice of optimizing content on your website to make it more visible and rank higher on search engine results pages (SERPs). Overall, it’s about making our websites more attractive to Google so that our target audience can find us easily.

If you want to visualize how Google’s algorithm works; imagine a spider crawling the web, visiting millions of websites and pages and collecting information about them. Google’s algorithm then analyzes the information and ranks websites based on factors like relevance, authority, and user experience is a massive factor too.

One important aspect of SEO is research, analysis, and planning. It will sound like a lot, because a lot does go into SEO. Industry and competitor analysis, design research, keyword research, and understanding the search intent of your target audience is more important than anything. By doing all that, you’d be able to identify the most relevant and valuable keywords to target on your website, and create content that resonates with your audience.

Another important aspect of SEO is on-site and off-site optimization. Let me explain.

‘On-site’ SEO involves optimizing the content and structure of the actual website itself, so as to make it more search engine friendly. That includes things like optimizing meta tags, headings, content, as well as ensuring that the website is mobile-friendly and has a good user experience.

‘Off-site’ SEO, on the other hand, is the part of SEO that involves building backlinks and social media presence to increase the website’s authority and credibility. That’s how you would improve a website’s visibility and increase its chances of ranking higher on a search engine like Google.

Design plays a crucial role in SEO. A well-designed website that’s easy to navigate and has a good user experience is going to improve rankings. It’s important to note that UI/UX design can affect how users interact with your website and ultimately impact your conversion rates.

So how does being a good writer and learning about writing or design for SEO benefit us when becoming a graphic designer? If we understand the principles, we can create content that is optimized for search engines and resonates with our target audience. That will help someone attract more traffic to their website and ultimately increase their chances of converting visitors into customers or even chatters.

For example, let’s say you run an artist chat room, you can use SEO to make sure that your chat room is visible to people all over the world who are looking for a chat room for artists. See? Again. That’s how you can attract more visitors to the chat room and build a community of like-minded artists.

In conclusion, learning a bit about writing and SEO in our generation can definitely set you up for success as a graphic artist or designer. By understanding the principles and creating optimized content for Google to see, you can design in a way that attracts more traffic to your website. Ultimately it would increase your chances of converting visitors into fun chatters or engaging users, and of course ranking higher for the keywords you want.

The Importance of Collaboration in Your Growth

Collaborations do not only add to your revenue but are a great way to grow and expand your field of work further. Use trustable platforms like CMX to make valuable connections that last you a lifetime and help you grow every step of the way.

Join different chat rooms made specifically for different artists, such as musicians and graphic designers to find like-minded people. Join chatrooms for artists, and chatrooms for musicians, and start chatting away with people from all walks of life, making lifelong friendships. 

Apart from making good friends, see how the world of graphic designing is evolving each day and what advancements are taking place. Look for opportunities to learn more and add to your skills. If you know where to go, CMX Chat is that one platform where you can find friends that may help transform your life. Connect with the world from your phone or little laptop screen at home and become a part of something big with a bit of networking and collaboration. 

Collaborate & Grow

Once you have found your people and made reliable connections, generate ideas for setting up a profitable business. No task is too small; learn with each step and see how to get to the top right from the bottom. As you progress through each step with your CMX graphic designer fellows, see how you outperform yourself each time. 

Your group can also give positive criticism, helping each of you perform better than before and learn from mistakes. Apart from investing in the right things, you can also adapt ways to save money, time, and resources without limiting your income. Get to the top and remain there by keeping quality output a priority rather than a speedy output. Learn how to balance time and resources without compromising on quality and celebrate as you generate more business and clientele. 

Conclusion

While there are several popular fields, digital art remains among the top. It is a vast field with several sub-fields that can help you make multi-million-dollar establishments. With the right skills learned through hands-on and online courses, such as photography, copywriting, and logo designing, you can transform your life completely.

Reliable sites, like CMX Chat, are a helping hand in current times. CMX Chat can help you connect with experienced artists and find inspiration. Make handsome revenues by learning the basic skills of graphic designing and expanding your business with the friends you make on CMX.