9 Traits of a Great Graphic Designer

Ever improving. Iteration is my friend.

It's important to define and refine the guideposts that keep me honest — about my skill, my growth, and my ability to show up well for the people who trust me with their work.

And that trust isn't small. Clients hand you something they've spent years building. Their brand, their business, the thing that represents them before they've said a word. It deserves to be treated with the same care and intention they've put into it.

I dug up this infographic I made a while back and honestly — these eight traits are as relevant now as the day I made it.

1. Communication

Communication is key. Sure, you can be responsive, but actually being clear, being proactive, letting your client know where things stand, asking what you need to ask solves problems before they begin.

Most problems in a design project aren't design problems. They're communication problems. Leveling up communication in design has a major spillover effect into all areas of life.

2. Patience

Clients that know what they want are a diamond in the rough. Clients that don't (love them) are a dime a dozen. Like I said, iteration is a friend. Ideas need room to breathe, directions need time to reveal themselves, and most clients need space to figure out what they actually want. Which is usually not what they said they wanted at the start.

The impatient designer rushes this. The great one stays and gets curious.

3. Receptive to criticism

Learn this early and it will be your superpower. Feedback isn't a personal attack on your taste or your ability. It's information. And information is what transforms the good into the right. (chef's kiss 🤌)

The best thing a client can do is tell you clearly what isn't working. The best thing you can do is get curious about it, not defensive.

It's not personal. It's inevitable. You can't please everyone all the time. Use criticism constructively. Lick your wounds and then grow from it.

Easier said than done. But worth practicing.

4. Curiosity

My favorite. And I think it's the trait that separates designers who execute from designers who think. It's also the key to unlocking the other traits.

Curious designers ask better questions, look beyond the surface and find clarity. They can make connections between things that might easily be overlooked. They research before during and after they open Illustrator.

Curiosity is also what makes the work interesting, for everyone. Why be a designer who just uses a program when you could be a designer that shapes the world (even if it's just your little corner of it).

5. Problem solving

Curiosity without direction is just wandering. This is where it lands.

I believe design is fundamentally a problem-solving discipline. The visual result, the emotion it invokes and actions taken from the emotion, that's the solution. Which means before you can design well, you have to understand the problem deeply.

What is this piece actually trying to do? Who is it for? What does success look like? These are the questions that open the flood gates to the adventure of problem solving.

6. Creativity

Duh! You're designing. That basically spells creativity.

The designers I admire most find inspiration everywhere and then filter it through the specific context of the problem they're solving. They think outside the obvious, beyond the typical. When everyone is going right, they go left. And then they bring it into alignment with what the work actually needs.

7. Always improving

"Change is the only constant" - so cliché, but so true. The tools evolve. The trends shift. The industry moves.

The designers with longevity are the ones who are genuinely curious about what's next. Mindset work is where it starts. It's easy to get anxious about the unknown, it's just as easy to get curious. Pro tip: the body can't tell the difference. Though there is a difference. Anxiety makes you defensive. Curiosity makes you better.

Having the growth mindset says that even though the technology and tools are changing, you can adapt and change with them. There's always room for improvement and it's easier than you think.

8. Reliability

The unglamorous one. But maybe the most important, and so simple.

Show up. Do what you said you'd do. Deliver when you said you'd deliver. Be honest and communicate if something isn't going to plan instead of going quiet and hoping nobody notices.

Talent gets you in the room. Reliability keeps you there.

I don't think I have all eight perfectly figured out. And I'm sure there are more. Some days I'm better at them than others. But I often reflect on this list because it keeps me grounded in the kind of designer I want to be.