Hey everyone, today. I will talk about how you can have a wonderful career in UX/UI with a graphic design background. I know this is possible because I did it myself. So I’m going to tell you some things you can do to prepare to get a job, how you can make that transition, and things that you can learn once you get your foot in the door, how to keep going and keep succeeding.

Tip №1: Learn the Basics of Web Development

So if you’re in college and you are studying graphic design, and you know, you want to change your way over into the technology, I highly recommend that you take a few web design classes, if they offer them. This will be invaluable to you as you go into technology; even though you won’t be a coder or developer, it is important for a designer who wants to work in tech to understand how your design will be built in tech in the future. Now, that doesn’t mean you have to understand everything there is to know about coding or development, but you need to know the basics of HTML, CSS, and some user experience principles if you want to get more into the app or software side.

Personally, I was able to teach myself HTML in high school, and then later on in college, I moved on to learn CSS. I know it doesn't sound very comforting if you’ve never done it, but trust me, it’s easy to learn, and there are tons of resources out there to teach yourself how to code. Really the reason this is important is that you need to know how your design will translate into digital design through a developer. So you’ll learn things like how elements are displayed or created through code, which will help you understand what you can and cannot do easily in a design. You basically want to make sure that you’re making the developer's life easier and that the products that you’re making are actually usable and are going to be easily adapted to an online technology or an app.

Tip №2: Add your Work to your Portfolio

I would also recommend that you get some digital pieces in your portfolio. So say you have a bunch of print pieces in your portfolio and you don’t have anything for Web design or an app markup, that’s really going to be a challenge for you in trying to get hired as a digital designer in technology. So even if you have to come up with a creative prompt for yourself or go out and find a friend or family member who has a business and maybe they need a website design to create something, whether or not it actually gets built and have that in your portfolio to show and build your skills in the digital design sphere.

With portfolios in getting hired at a job, it’s kind of the thing you get what you put out. So if you’re putting out nothing but logo designs, you’re probably going to get hired as a logo designer, and they may not want you to be designing software. So basically, put what you want to do in your portfolio, and as much as you can, the better you’ll get out of it. Any experience will help you get your foot in the door at a place that does digital design, and that brings me to my next recommendation.

Tip №3: Choose the Appropriate Internship

So if you’re looking for an internship or an entry-level position in a tech company as a designer, they’re pretty hard to find; trust me, I’m not going to lie. But look for things that are advertising for visual designers. What that means is basically a graphic designer who happens to work at a tech company; we have many names for design these days, but if you look for visual design, that at least will usually get you a graphic design job within the tech environment. Then you can slowly make your way over to the more UI/UX side of it if you want.

So this is kind of what happened in my situation. I did have some web design examples in my portfolio, but I really didn’t know much about technology in the software world, UI, UX, but I got hired at a place that did both traditional design and more technical stuff. So I got my foot in the door there, and I was able to really learn and see how these other projects were built, the process behind them, everything was different, actually. So if you can get somewhere where you can get in and do what you’re good at, then also observe from other people how to design for different applications that you’ve done, which allows you to move over and slowly make your way up.

When I got my job in a tech company, I was so confused for months. I had no idea what these new terms were and these new ways of working, and how the projects were run. It was just completely different than the traditional graphic design agencies I had worked at before. So I really recommend that you get in there, learn as much as you can, ask as many questions as you can, and don’t be afraid to get to know your developers so the people that are actually going to be building the things that you’re designing, ask them for feedback like what did I do in this design that made your job easier? And what did I do that really wasn’t possible in the development world? And maybe next time I won’t do that, and I’ll know better how to build something for the Web or an app or software.

Getting that constructive feedback will only make you better, so don’t be afraid of it. Just take it and make yourself better. Keep going, and you will get the experience eventually. Again, learn as much as possible. Make sure you are open to criticism and improvement, and you will find yourself in a good position. Trust me, I have this experience for a few years, and now I’m ready to make the complete leap into a tech role. So that’s really exciting for me, and I’m really thankful I had the opportunity to learn from a place that did both things, and that’s really allowed me to make this sort of step into product design that I would never have thought I would have done before. So it’s really cool.

Final Thoughts

I recommend that you research user experience design as much as possible, learn what you can figure out, study the apps and the websites you like, and think about how are these working? What about this? And you decide what you need to do.

So yeah, basically learn as much as possible, whether in a job or on your own, show examples in your portfolio; the more you do, the better you’ll get. I see that in my case, every time I do a new project, it’s better than the one before. So don’t be afraid to keep improving and if you want to get into tech, get into tech. There is no better time. There are so many jobs right now for you, UI designers, UX designers. The field is blown up, so this is definitely the time. The salaries are excellent. Tech is so hot right now, so I definitely encourage you to pursue it if this is something you’re interested in.

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