The Importance of Learning From Your Peers

I try to learn something new everyday. With the internet and a seemingly endless supply of tutorials out there to teach anything about Photoshop, Illustrator and CSS that you’d every want to know, it’s not hard to fill every corner of your mind with new information. The internet is undoubtedly a great resource for learning new things about graphic and web design, but for me, learning from others in the field is much more powerful than any tutorial I’ve ever completed.
It wasn’t easy for me to head back to the cube, but when I made the decision to do so, I promised myself I would make the most of it and try to learn as much as possible from the team of designers I’d be working with. Luckily, my fellow designers and developers I work with feel the same. We’ve started holding “classes” dealing with HTML/CSS (taught by our developer) and Photoshop (taught by me and two other graphic designers). So far our adventure has been fruitful and I feel like we’re all building a better foundation of knowledge regarding our topics of interest. Our first class was taught by our developer, dealing with IDs, classes and the general set up of an HTML and CSS document, in turn we taught him about the lovely Photoshop pen tool. The pen tool can be a bear to master for a newbie, so we felt this was a good place to start since it’s one of the harder PS tools to grasp. Another topic we tackled was freelancing and dealing with difficult clients. We’ve all done some level of freelance work, whether it be designing for friends and family or big clients, and we would all like to continue learning from each others experiences and using each other as a resource in this endeavor.
Conclusion
Never stop learning. Never. The day you’ve decided you’ve done it all, quit, leave your graphic design career in the dust. and move on to something else. Deeming yourself an expert in this industry is the day the industry will pass you by. Graphic and web design is always changing and keeping your skills and knowledge in tip top shape is incredibly important, so learn where you can. The internet offers an infinite (and overwhelming) number of resources for designers and developers to learn, but always take the opportunity to learn from your peers and superiors. In my experience, those working and thriving in the design field offer the most valuable knowledge and expertise.

