Excellent communication skills are needed to present, charm and negotiate with clients (Wood,2015). Graphic designers should be curious and love art around them. In addition, they need to explore the   them. Graphic designers should be passionate because it means working odd hours. They should also be open-minded, willing to try new things and listen to advise.According to Wood (2015), a good graphic designer should take criticism positively. Designers should also have problem-solving skills. Creativity is needed not only to produce something brilliant but also to work out how the pieces fit together and turn ideas into a finished product. A successful graphic designer is reliable, patient and ready to evolve by trying new technology (Wood, 2015).

White or negative space is simply unmarked space in the design. It is the space between the layouts, designs, and paragraphs. According to Hegde(2017), White space does not imply an empty space with a white background; it can be of any texture or colour. Designers use whitespace to space to improve comprehension. Large spaces between layouts help in guiding users through the page and prioritising the area of focus. Effective use of whitespace helps the design to get the message through the user quickly and increase the probability of interaction. one of the highly practiced principles of design, white spaces helps users to make logical sense of the information presented to them. Heavy use of macro whitespaces brings in a sense of sophistication and luxury to the webpages. It also Creates a breathing space for users (Hegde,2017).

The first trend is the emerging popularity of pops of vivid colours which include intense, colourful and bright hues that attempt to grab attention and stand out against competition (McCready, 2018). The second trend is the use of strong typographic focal points. Bold fonts signify strength, innovation, and individuality.Thirdly, Mainstream Futuristic Influences Geometric shapes, Futuristic colour pallets, and abstract patterns will be a trend. The fourth trend is the use of bright and dark colour schemes. Fifth is the use of complex gradients and duotones.  According to McCready(2018), new colourful minimalism is already a trend that is expected to continue. The other trends are dynamic and hand-drawn illustrations and authentic and genuine stock photos.

Despite artists coming up with their own ideas on the pieces of art they create daily, their ideas are influenced by ethnicity and the culture of their country of origin (Smarart,2016). This is the case with graphic design as well. Similar to various works of art, graphic design varies from one culture to another and is dependent on the culture, history, and way of life of a country. The aesthetics of graphic design differ and some elements present in some culture’s creations may be absent in others. Different graphic designers around the world have different approaches to their art thus making it difficult to highlight every aspect of their artistic theme (Smarart, 2016).

It is important for designers to learn colour theory and understand the psychology of different colours. Colours are divided into primary, secondary and tertiary (You the Designer, 2013). Yellow is a primary colour that symbolises optimism, enlighten and brightness hence encouraging communication. Green is the other primary colour that is pervasive in the natural world. It has a soothing and relaxing effect making it an ideal backdrop in interior design. Blue is also a primary colour that is favourite of both males and females, it calms and sedates (You the Designer, 2013). Purple is a secondary colour with royal qualities and it is favoured by teenage girls it calms the mind and nerves. Pink promotes friendliness and discourages aggression. Red increases enthusiasm and action.Orange stimulates appetite. White symbolises purity and cleanliness, grey is the colour of wisdom and intellect while black projects authority and power(You the Designer,2013).

Less is more sounds like a cliché but with the minimalist design trend, it is the essence of this school of design (Schenker, 2018).Minimalism is a relatively new design concept has emerged in the ’70s. Minimalism is a concept where designers express only the most important and necessary elements of a piece of art by eliminating any excess and unnecessary components.Minimalism takes form, colour, and space and simplifies them. Minimalism resulted from the rejection of subjectivedesigns and abstract expressionism.Minimalism design first appeared in New York in the 1960s when a group of artists experimented with geometricabstraction (Schenker,2018).

Freelancers are professionals who offer their services to one or many clients at once without being obligated to a specific one.Freelancers can satisfy every demand that a business venture might have (Sayan, 2017). These include social media marketing, copywriting, and publicity. Many freelancers are capable of writing business-oriented articles and blogs while focusing on web programming and graphic design aspects of a business. Freelancers have greater control over the output but the work schedules are not flexible. According to Sayan (2017),Starting as a freelancer is quicker if an individual is well conversant with the skills and services they are willing to offer clients. A freelancer should invest in a website. Challenges faced by freelancers include the uncertainty of attracting clients and challenging clients.

Typography is the art and skill of arranging type. It is one of the most important skills a designer should possess and is not only making the words readable. According to CreativeBloq Staff (2017), the choice of typeface and how to match it with the layout, grid, colour scheme, and design theme is what affects the quality of a design. One of the factors graphic designers need to consider is the size of typefaces since words set in different typefaces occupy varying amounts of space on the page. Leading is the vertical space between each line. For readable body texts, the leading value should be more than the font size.Kerning refers to the spacing of characters and is applied uniformly (CreativeBloq Staff, 2017).

CMYK is an abbreviation that stands for Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Black. These are the 4 print colours that every printer and press use (Torrison, 2017). Every magazine, catalog, flyer, brochure, and newspaper gets printed with these 4 colours. Every CMYK colour can be defined by what percentage of the 4 colours it uses. The scale is from 0 % to 100%.On the other hand, RGB stands for Red, Yellow, and Green. These three colours are used by display screens to display colour. Each pixel square on a TV screen, computer monitor, giant LED sports screens and digital camera is made up of these 3 colours.The device changes the brightness of these 3 tiny led’s to display all the colours within its range. The biggest advantage RGB has over CMYK is that RGB can display much more intense colours than CMYK can print (Torrison, 2017).

Digital Art is art that makes use of digital technology as the product, process and as the subject. According to the Chicago School of Media Theory, products that use digital technology must in its last stage be viewed on a digital medium such as a laptop. Subcategories under these section are video  art, video game art, virtual reality, and internet art among others. Pieces that use digital technology processes are those created through a digital device, like a computer software. Subcategories are algorithmic art, computer painting, and computer-generated animation. Works that use digital technology as its subject refers to include any medium of art production, that refers to digital technology in its subject  (The Chicago School of Media Theory).