What skill set's are needed by a Graphic Designer?

As a graphic designer you will need some passive skills to be able to have a basic understanding of the area of work and the programs/materials that you will encounter. There will be specific skills however that you will need to know for a chosen job within the Graphic Design area. For example;

• Logo design - Knowledge of Adobe Photoshop/Illustrator, basic understanding of colours, understanding of copyright, layout and how images are conveyed.
• Clothing printing - Knowledge of Adobe Photoshop/Illustrator, Sign cutting software, Embroidery software, ability to vectorise images, understanding of copyright, previous experience within t-shirt printing or willing to learn the process to produce a design onto garment.
• Website design - Knowledge of Adobe Dreamweaver, Photoshop/Illustrator, Flash, understanding of copyright, competant with HTML, JAVASCRIPT, CSS.

So you can see, three very different jobs within graphic design, that have many specific skills/knowledge required, but also common skills which are generic within this area of work. Knowing your colours, layout, copyright, representations of images and competant to learn digital programs quickly are vital to being a successful graphic designer in this generation. Most jobs will require you to be competant within a program for the creation, whilst others will also require you to learn the machines and how they work (setting up correctly, what to do when it has finished, what to do next etc).