Visual content is becoming increasingly important for various sectors, and many businesses are looking for remote graphic designers who can produce captivating designs for their brochures, web pages, social platforms, promotional materials, and many more.

The designation of the remote graphic designer has become an easygoing and rewarding career option for creative specialists who wish to work from anywhere, fix their adaptive schedule, and join hands with various clients. Nevertheless,  there are some obvious challenges, and it requires specific skills and strategies to succeed. This article will shed some light on how to flourish as a virtual graphic designer – setting up a remote workspace, using graphic design tools, managing communication, and retaining projects.

A graphic designer develops visual designs utilizing stylized typography, images, brand colors, and various design elements to express ideas and messages via diverse mediums. From advertising to marketing to web design to branding, graphic designers are in the limelight everywhere.

Graphic designing as a whole, entails various stages, such as comprehending the client’s requirements, studying the intended audience, developing concepts, drawing or making a layout, choosing suitable colors and fonts, and generating the final design output.

The process of graphic designing involves several steps, including understanding the client’s needs, researching the target audience, conceptualizing ideas, developing a layout, picking appropriate colors and fonts, and delivering the final design product.

Also Read: Why Businesses Need a Remote Graphic Designer in 2023 & Beyond

For a business running within its physical premises, the graphic designers it employs must be local inhabitants to attend work regularly. This narrows down the list of potential hires who might lack the skillset a business manager requires.

By hiring a fully remote graphic design team, the same business can tap into the global talent pool to hire exceptional graphic designers. This approach puts the company on the right track to develop impressive graphic designs and differentiate itself from competitors.

Whether companies source graphic design virtual assistants from LinkedIn, freelancer sites, or an outsourcing agency, the advantage of having desired expertise, experience, and flair remains the same!

If you want to thrive as an online graphic designer, you need a blend of technical and soft skills to deliver high-quality design services. We have curated a list for you with the skills that a graphic designer can’t do without:

You must be adept in design software such as Adobe Creative Suite, Sketch, and Figma. You must be able to utilize these tools to devise and edit design layouts, graphics, and images. While they are pretty easy to learn and use, you might have to spend some months learning them to become a pro!

You should have a strong understanding of design principles such as layout, typography, color theory, and composition. This knowledge will help you create visually appealing and effective designs.

Attention to detail concerning your graphic design is a tricky business. As the saying goes, “The Devil and the God are in the details”.

To make certain your designs are precise and satisfy the client’s requirements, you must have exceptional attention to detail.

Communication is the key to any remote work, even more so for virtual graphic design jobs. As a virtual graphic designer, you will connect with clients and fellow associates through chat, video conferencing platforms, emails, and collaboration tools. Thus, you must have stellar verbal and written communication skills.

You must organize your schedules effectively to meet project deadlines and deliver high-quality designs. This is more important because, in most scenarios, there won’t be anyone to micromanage you! While that might sound sweet, the downside is that you are not the only graphic designer in the market.

Creative problem-solving is the process of identifying a business’s communication goals, understanding its target audience, and developing a creative solution that aligns with both. This solution should be well-structured and multi-dimensional, and it should work effectively on all levels. As a graphic designer, it is an indispensable quality to have!

The biggest plus-point of cross-functional teams is the free-flowing conversations that take place between these teams. Without arbitrary departmental walls, communication blossoms. 

Once relegated to a bottled approach, designing has fast become the gold standard of collaboration for business teams. The free flow of ideas can reveal approaches that the design team might never have thought of. Therefore, an online graphic designer must be able to function collaboratively and provide/receive constructive feedback.

Adobe Creative Cloud is a collection of web development, graphic design, and video editing apps that enables users to produce and showcase their creative work. The app suite includes Photoshop, Acrobat DC, Illustrator, Premiere Pro, and InDesign.

Adobe Photoshop is one of the most widely utilized graphic design tools that graphic designers employ to develop digital art. It is renowned for its powerful features, user-friendliness, accessibility, and top-notch performance. The application also provides a variety of website design templates that designers can utilize to make stunning designs for clients and businesses.

Adobe Illustrator is a graphic designer’s favorite to develop alluring vector art and illustrations (accessible across desktop and iPad devices). The application is armed with a wide range of features – recolor, animated lettering, custom effects, layout text, and many more. A premium vector drawing cum editing tool, Adobe Illustrator is used for all media types. From miniature edits to urbane designs, Adobe Photoshop delivers users an assortment of tools for editing requirements.

Also, the application has a broad range of design templates that allow users to access videos, images, graphics, layouts, and additional creative assets. 

Canva is a simplistic and user-friendly platform that assists users in making attractive and professional designs. The tool is favored by both amateur designers and expert graphic designers, thanks to its freestyle features and simple drag-and-drop functionalities. From graphics to visual charts to posters and marketing content, Canva makes it simpler to produce elite designs for every utility.

Canva also offers a huge collection of fonts, images, and templates that allow its users to conceive projects from scratch. The drag-and-drop editor lets creative teams cooperate on custom designs/templates, incorporating relevant visual elements in accordance with the brand guides of clients.

If you love everything Apple, Procreate is for you! It is a powerful digital illustration app that lets graphic designers draw and paint their artwork from iPads. Armed with special features for developing art on a mobile app, the application paves the way for users to turn any of their ideas into reality. With Procreate, users can develop and enhance illustrations, portrayals, and 3D artwork.

The application is utilized for making and designing anything and everything – banners, logos, packaging designs, full-size posters, etc. With its sleek user-friendly interface, Procreate empowers users to deliver their craft quicker. It even supports multi-touch gestures for effortless control.

One of the most widely used file storage solutions for remote graphic design teams is inevitably Dropbox. It enables designers to store, sync, and share high-quality bulky files, such as Illustrator, PostScript, Photoshop, SVG, and Sketch files effortlessly. The best part is that the file quality is not compromised. Agencies, freelancers, vendors, and in-house teams prefer Dropbox for the same. 

In a remote setup, the platform offers enormous storage, file-sharing capabilities, and collaboration features that help designers work hand-in-hand on challenging design projects.

Sketching and graphic designing are inseparable. A designer’s mind is always buzzing with creative ideas. But, the days of carrying around a backpack full of sketching tools are over!

With Sketchbook Pro, an app that offers a variety of digital pencils, pens, brushes, and markers, a designing mind can quickly seize its ideas on a canvas of various sizes. They can doodle and draw their designs with ease and convenience.

A strong portfolio is essential for achieving professional success in virtual graphic design jobs. It is a visual representation of your skills and accomplishments, allowing potential clients to see your work and assess your abilities.

Your graphic design portfolio should showcase the best of your skills and abilities. This way, you can impress potential employers, providing them with a glimpse of what you can bring to the table. Even if you are new to graphic design, a short portfolio can still make a strong impact. The key is to include a range of work that demonstrates your versatility and creativity. You should also mark your designs as either paid or self-initiated, as this reflects professionalism.

Only include work that you are proud of. Every graphic designer has some projects that are not quite up to the mark. You can learn from them, but don’t let them ruin your portfolio. Also, avoid including the same style of work too many times. Pick the best five distinct instances for your portfolio to have a positive effect on your recruitment process.

You can make your portfolio more appealing by giving it a story-like flow. It can have an introduction, a body, and a conclusion. You can place the most dazzling of your work in the beginning and end. This will showcase your skills and ensure that potential employers are captivated by your best work even after they exit your portfolio. You should keep your captions concise, as those who will be hiring you will not have a lot of time to read a lot of text. However, make sure that the contact information can be quickly scanned by eyes.

Graphic design virtual assistants can spice up their portfolio by including your social media handles. This reveals your online presence and social media handles can be effective platforms to project personal branding.

You can tweet a web poster that you crafted for an event, or flaunt your Instagram feed. Adding your social media handles also lets the employer have a glimpse of your personality. Nevertheless, if you are doing this, it is important to keep your feeds professional.

Your portfolio should be dynamic and evolving. You should keep adding new content that you create regularly. As you accrue more experience over time, your work will improve.

After developing your portfolio, you can evaluate if it appears fresh and well-selected. When you are content with the final draft, you can send it to fellow designers for constructive feedback.

As 2024 approaches, here are the trends that you would not like to miss as a graphic designer!

The design process is transforming, thanks to artificial intelligence, and one of the signs of this transformation is the growing use of generative and algorithmic design. With AI design tools, designers can explore designs beyond human imagination, and the technology is only getting better and better.

The public access to OpenAI’s DALL-E 2, which can produce AI-generated images, took the globe by storm! Thousands have flocked to the online image generator, that creates graphics simply relying on text descriptions.

Holographic surrealism is a trend that spawns a futuristic, otherworldly feel. It uses holographic patterns, iridescent colors, and neon lights, soft-soaped by science fiction and emerging technology. As evident in 2023, designers will utilize holographic elements to create stunning designs in 2024 adapting the trend that will captivate viewers.

Is it the age of anti-branding? It seems so, as many brands are opting to go against the tide and adopt an ‘anti-branding’ approach to exemplify their authenticity and relatability. This trend is closely linked to the “new eco” movement that will reshape branding in this decade, as it is minimal, future-focused, and aspirational.

Monochromatic packaging, minimalist messaging, and subtle branding reflect the traits of this anti-branding trend. It’s more of a bare-bones style that includes neutrally embossed logos, handwriting, and rough typography. All of these lend a design a much-craved human touch.

Pastels are timeless colors that never go out of style! They offer a soft and soothing contrast to the bright and bold colors that are always trending. These gentle, cooling shades can enhance any design project – packaging, branding, marketing, and social media graphic designs.

With the advancement in digital displays and color richness, these calming tones are gaining prominence across web design and social media assets.

The pandemic has revved up the digital transformation of everything, and the virtual reality (VR) market has grown exponentially as a result. According to a report by Facts and Factors, the metaverse industry was worth USD 210 billion in 2021, and it is expected to almost quadruple to $730B by 2028.

It is no surprise that graphic designers are fascinated by the endless possibilities of its technological prowess, offering magnificent image renderings, futuristic liquid gradients, neon palettes, and 3D components.

This Apple iPad Pro ad can serve as the perfect example!

Virtual graphic design jobs have emerged as one of the significant trends in the creative industry in 2023, and it is gaining momentum as offsite design teams grow by leaps and bounds. While graphic designers rely on a wide range of tools, setups, and communication channels to get a design project done, only a select few remote graphic designers can actually get things done when they’re working in a remote setup. Whether you are a beginner or an intermediate graphic designer who is looking to switch to remote work, let’s hope that this article has answered all your questions!