I want to be a "REAL" designer
Out of context: Reply #17
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- monNom0
There are really only two things you need to learn to be a designer.
Taste. You need to develop your taste. This is going to be really tough if you're not already the sort of person that eats up inspiration constantly, but just like any connoisseur, you need to spend a lot of time making distinctions about what is good, what isn't, and over time, you'll be better able to articulate 'why'. Art/Design history is a good place to start. Contemporary styles and trends from websites like be-hance are another avenue.
Tricks. You need to build a library of technical skills that you can draw on in your design projects. The best way to do this is to work on ambitious projects for yourself that you're not quite sure how you might get them done. Work until you hit a road-block, study and solve that problem, come at it another way, etc. Evenutally (like over a few years), you'll have a decent library of know-how that you can draw on and sell to clients, or use as a stepping stone to even more ambitious work.
So that's it -- easy. You can learn all this stuff on your own online, or you can go to school for it. You'll probably get there a bit faster through school, but you might end up with a broader and less differentiated skillset coming out. Plus a load of debt. Learning on your own you will learn how to learn and to break down and solve design problems, and you will earn the tacit knowledge of how to get things done, but you may spin your wheels conceptually without a mentor to push your work.
No matter what, develop a network of other designers you can bounce ideas off.. either online on a forum or twitter, or IRL.