Feeling stuck in your career and what a change? Think design is cool but don’t want to spend years in school to learn it? Maybe 100k+ salary sounds good but feels like it’s never achievable? I’ve come up with 7 steps that will take one full year of your time to equip yourself to become a professional designer. This may be a turning point in your life – if design is a thing for you.
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Learning resources:
Step 1 – Study the design principles (1 week)
http://learndesignprinciples.com/
https://www.thoughtco.com/principles-of-graphic-design-1077541
Step 2 – Learn the design softwares (1 week)
https://www.sketchapp.com/
https://www.youtube.com/user/learnsketch/videos
Step 3 – Study, Copy, Steal from other designers (1 week)
https://dribbble.com/designers?twitter=&dribbble=&sort=popular&group=members&skills=&location=
Step 4 – Start designing! Get real projects (2 months)
https://99designs.ca/website-app-design/contests?sort=start-date%3Adesc&status=won&entry-level=0&mid-level=0&top-level=0&dir=desc&order=start-date
Step 5 – Work with a mentor (3 months)
https://dribbble.com/
https://www.behance.net/
Step 6 – Put together a portfolio on dribbble (1 week)
http://draft.im/
https://medium.com/@Ali_Sayed/how-to-get-a-dribbble-invite-and-become-a-player-264cd5c6d5ec
Step 7 – Look for internship at 2 top agencies (6 months)
https://dribbble.com/teams?twitter=&dribbble=&sort=popular&group=teams&skills=&location=
https://www.viget.com (Highly recommended)
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Need UI/UX Mentorship? Book a session with me on Clascity
https://clascity.com/classes/83/caleb-lai/uiux-design-mentorship
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My startup – A Skill-Sharing Platform to teach and learn anything
http://clascity.com/
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Follow my work on Dribbble
https://dribbble.com/Caleblai
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Personal portfolio
http://www.caleblai.com/
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My design agency
http://www.alphaio.co/
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Follow me on instagram
https://www.instagram.com/caleb_kayunglai/