Do You Need Drawing Skills to Succeed as a Graphic Designer?
- Cajvanean C. Alexandru
- 4 days ago
- 10 min read
You do not need to possess any drawing skills in order to become a graphic designer. There are quite a few designers out there that don’t know how to draw and have a stable graphic design career. It is a bit exaggerated to say that you don’t need to know how to draw, because even at a basic level, using just lines and dots is a form of drawing and conceptualisation of ideas. So most of us do possess a minimum of drawing skills in order to put ideas on paper, but not at a decent level to be considered an advantage. I think lots of designers, or upcoming designers, who ask themselves this question are in fact looking for some validation, and maybe a little excuse for not spending extra time to develop a new competence which might prove useful in a flourishing design career. I am merely asking: Why not? Why not learn how to draw?
Do you need drawing skills as a graphic designer?
Quite a few graphic designers developed a particular style of designing fully dependent on geometric shapes. Often, I see in short-form content designers creating animal-based designs out of geometric shapes. Some might even call it the golden ratio, but it isn’t. In fact, it’s just a lazy way of recreating logo-like concepts and ideas. This trend is not new, and it is just a form of visual noise that doesn’t actually bring any form of value to the design world.
Creating complex concepts such as an animal representation out of geometric shapes requires a great understanding of composition, drawing, and style. Great designers may not be master artists, but they do possess the knowledge and the right understanding of composition, contrast, proportions, repetition, hierarchy, alignment, and colour to bring a whole new dimension of aesthetic to a field whose main purpose is visual communication in society.
Without fundamentals, there can be no intention. Even if you build an entire geometric system, it’s nothing but decoration pretending to be a concept.
“The death of graphic design” and the content economy that has a fetish for funerals
Graphic design kinda stayed unchanged over the years, but the approach and tools have changed, and every year we might hear similar affirmations, especially now, due to entertainment content, which will push out a plethora of narratives with the sole purpose of creating shock. Titles like “The Death of Graphic Design” or “Is AI really taking over Graphic Design?” or “We lost, Graphic Designers are obsolete” are becoming popular. You will see these things in all industries, but these content creators have to do what they do best: create content that is clickable. And if you think about it, who the f*ck will click a video or an article called “It’s all good, no need to worry”?
The graphic designer is dead, long live the graphic designer, which was called in the past a “commercial artist”. Damn, so graphic design is art after all? As I said in my previous article, design has an aesthetic component in order to seduce, persuade or comfort and a communicational component that informs, signals, guides or clarifies, so if you understand how it works. Art allows for ambiguity, but design is kept accountable. But once design works, why not tap into the beauty of things as well? Ignore the fucntionality and you will create decorations, disregard the beauty and give way to bureaucracy.
Steven Heller said in Design Studies that “in recent years even this job description has been scrutinised as too mundane, replaced by ‘communications designer’, ‘graphic communicator’, ‘media consultant’, and let’s not forget all the titles with ‘branding’ as prefix or suffix.” And I believe that while the language and design discourse can change, understanding the who, what, when, and why makes for a better picture of how our role in society has come to be. No matter the title, the essence and the final goal, it will always be to be relevant to the audience.
Nowadays, graphic design is more than just intuition, developing visual rhetoric. It is research (where research can be done), it is proven experience, and even more recently, a strategic approach.
Sure, the reputation of design being an intuition-fueled practice exists because of the affiliation with the arts, but straying away from the art world entirely is not going to give your occupation more credibility. I suggest taking as much inspiration from art and connecting our aesthetic with the data because, after all, intuition is “a flash of insight conditioned by experience, culture, and imagination,” as Paul Rand put it. Still, articulating one's intuition is an art in itself. It can take years to learn how to do it, and that requires a high degree of self-awareness.
Drawing is Power
Graphic design is defined as “the activity that organises visual communication in society”, so what does drawing have to do with it? What if I learn how to draw, and it won’t prove useful in my design career? That won’t happen. Rest assured: going to a client meeting and being able to render clear and beautiful images right under their eyes will not only shorten the time needed to come up with ideas, but will also put you as a figure of expertise and authority. I don’t know a person who knows how to draw who is not appreciated and respected, no matter the field they specialize in.
We designers are in a continuous dialogue with our clients, with our clients’ clients, with other designers, with society. Being able to communicate properly, be that with good vocabulary or with a drawing board, proves to be an advantage to be had in the market.
First advantage to have is speed. You enter into a meeting ready to help your audience visualise your ideas. You put down a fast concept, a quick storyboard, and a few compositions that help you test ideation. Now that’s power, that’s communication. You might even win a client by drawing on a napkin in a bar.
The second advantage is authorithy. Knowing how to draw in an industry that speaks visually should be a requirement. However, due to modern software, we can get away with it. As a practitioner, I see these limitations very clearly, though. I understand when a design is meant to have a specific appeal, and when there is a lack of skill to create a beautiful idea that the designer had.
Sure there are more advantages but the power of observation is a powerful tool. Again, you become a better observer, not only of the objects that you want to reproduce, but of life: perspectives, values. Never wondered why all these artists have their lives studied? Because they were interesting people. They see the world in so many different ways, and they can change the attitude and behaviour of societies at large, which goes without saying that this is the aim of graphic design too.
Who can skip drawing?
As a graphic designer, most of you might avoid drawing altogether since your expertise might be UI design, or motion design using templates, or even fulfilling other production roles more dependent on layout and typography. And you might be right.
As I mentioned before, there are strong carriers built without drawing because there are so many factors that come into play when we talk about success. Some are very good at strategising, others have the knowledge and resources for good research, typography, and art direction. A little luck that happens to sync with the design instinct can get you far. But why not have options, why not have a little speed and freedom when you might need it?
But for the rest of the designers who started due to some artistic inclinations or the love for beauty, and want to make better use of their imagination, learning to draw is one of the best skills to have.
How do I learn to draw?
Fortunately, drawing is a skill that can be taught. Some might have a little boost by being born with a bit of natural talent, but for the rest of us, the world is a little cruel, and we have to learn by ourselves. The fun part is that for our type of work, we require basic drawing knowledge and a little practice, which you will do anyway, even when you are sketching a logo or trying to build a typeface.
First things first: there are a gazillion courses on drawing. In fact, there are so many that you won’t even know where to start. I wouldn’t start with anatomy or composition rules first. A few images which you can try to reproduce in a sketchbook will prove better than a class. Drawing is mostly learned by practising, and the joy of drawing is that it is a meditative and beautiful process once you remove the need to create “perfect” images or reproductions. It might take you a few tries to see how fun it is, but once you get going, it will become one of your favourite pastimes. Drawing requires you to be a good observer of reality, not only an active participant in it.
Take the sketchbook with you and try to sketch everything you find beautiful in different places. It will make you more present, and you will definitely feel like you are experiencing the world, not just existing in it. With enough practice, the mind will create a connection with the pencil, and you will be amazed to find that even muscles have their own ideas without you even thinking about it. I knooooow, I was mindf*cked. That’s it. That’s all you need to do to get you going. If you do this for long enough, inevitably you will find the right courses and the right people to learn more, if you want to explore this deeper.
What is a good drawing routine?
Take your reference photo you want to draw for the day and set up a 30-minute session.
Find the simple shapes of the composition/animal/object/landscape/whatever and put simple lines on the paper that are meant to capture the image at large. Go from big to small, because it's easy to get lost in the details. If the structure is good, the stylisation is going to be fun.
Every athlete trains daily for their competitions. In fact, there is more training than actual spectacle. Each design project might be that sprint, all the while you’ve been jogging like it ain’t no thang. Practising will help you understand yourself better. It will make you think. It will be frustrating and tedious. But so is everything else worth doing, so you'd better train daily just like an athlete. I find that drawing often keeps my mind engaged, and I rarely, if ever, have burnouts or creative blocks. In fact, I feel like the design work is much more linear and pleasant.
Maybe you will find, after all this time, that the inner drive to create that got you into graphic design was in fact a call to become multidisciplinary, to understand, digest, and deliver complex ideas through simple-to-understand art. Who knows? I guess we will never know if you won’t get past yourself and your ego. It would be a shame not to experience the creative flow of the universe passing through your imagination.
Now that I know how to draw, where is my success?
Obviously, being good at drawing does not suffice. You have to learn how to speak and how to articulate your vision. You must understand audiences and see how they interact with your design work. You need to be a good observer, have know-how of the business world because we are, after all, “commercial artists”. You must have mastery, and so on. There are so many more skills to be learned, one more important than the other. You don’t have to reach artist level, but being able to sketch and draw will set you apart from a lot of the competition, and it will give you so much more freedom of expression rather than relying on the usual “subscription plan” type of tools.
Personally . . .
I don’t consider myself good at drawing, and if I really think about it, the idea is refreshing and liberating because I can express myself without having to fulfil certain standards. This feels right, and I think it’s a healthy place to be in. It is a form of freedom, if you will.
When I started working as a graphic designer, I used to submit to logo design contests, and I had no digital tools, not even a computer of any sort to help me. I used to check contests, pick ideas from briefs, sketch (if you could call those abominations sketches), and when one of my
roommates lent me a computer, I digitised the idea and submitted my design. Down the road, this became part of my process, and now I don’t start any project without sketching. Everything I did, even if it was just an illustration or a simple logo, started from a hand-drawn sketch, and I decided to push on this story because it is, after all, who I am. Through drawing, lots of the designs I did had this organic aesthetic to them, and it became somewhat of a “personal style”. I am grateful that my past self decided to keep on drawing even if it was trash.
Drawing is one of the few things that come naturally to a human, like speaking, singing, dancing, and walking. You were inclined to draw since you were a baby. Learning to draw takes your entire life. It’s a journey. I can’t give you a direction or show you how to do it. This is but a framework. I once read a quote that goes something like "life unfolds in proportion to your courage", so I hope you will find the courage to do what you love because inner fulfilment will surpass external validation. Be devoted to yourself.
I'm Cajva, a graphic designer from Timișoara, Romania. I work on logos, brand identities, illustrations and I hand-draw everything I make. If you enjoyed this article, there's more where that came from, and if you ever need a designer, you know where to find me.