The graphic design industry calls for practical skills rather than theoretical knowledge. And the one way to evaluate the ability of any given individual, in the industry is through the exercise of an interview. Whether you have completed a virtual or physical course, you are subjected to a similar spate of questions. These questions in turn determine if you live up to the skills you mentioned in your portfolio.
To ensure the unhindered rhythm of your answering skills and to prevent you from getting blank, we have prepared a list of graphic design interview questions. These mostly touch upon your ability to put up a conversation about the industry and its corollaries with the interviewer.
Questions of Introduction
1. Tell us about yourself
This is perhaps one of the most commonly encountered graphic design interview questions. It also serves as an opportunity to express your previous work experience and its relevance in your progression as a graphic designer. But, this should not undermine the relevance of your description. It can be a mix of your previous experience and personal interests and its efficacy in bringing outcomes for the company. It would also convey to the hiring manager why you are a great match for the company.
Graphic design interview tips: Your past achievements and experiences must be highlighted while keeping them germane to the requirement of the job and the ambitions, and growth model of the firm you are applying in. Try rehearsing it a few times so that it gets on your tongue. This question will also determine your first impression of the interviewer and overall personality. So, you would not want to mess up this part.
2. What made you choose the graphic design profession ?
In order to overcome this graphic design interview question, you have to give a glimpse of your past. Like, what steered your interests towards this direction and what values that you acquired in your life influenced your decision-making process.
Graphic design interview tips: Graphic design interview questions prompt an individual to be reflective and this question certainly demands that. So, before answering this you must reflect upon your past decisions beforehand.
3. Why are you interested in being a member of our company?
This is the pivot of the interview questions-answers since it directly involves the company in which you are seeking the position. The company will be on an outlook for the amount of homework you have done in terms of research.
Graphic design interview tips: You have to be eloquent on how you can endow the team with utility. This graphic design interview question helps them discern your motivations and goals for the concerned job prospects. You must lay emphasis on the company’s work culture and ethics. This would leave an impression of you being an informed applicant. The alignment of your responsibilities with your experience and interests allows them to assess your suitability for the role.
4. In which level do you want to see yourself in five years?
On the face of this graphic design interview question, you are being checked for the appropriateness of your career move in terms of the role. The prudent answer to this graphic interview question would involve a far-sighted approach. This involves asserting your productivity for the time imminent.
Graphic design interview tips: You can put it this way, ‘’my vision in five years is to work for a company through which I would have ample opportunities to work with people and to gain their insights. With each successive year, I would want to help the company navigate through creative blocks’’.
Field-Based Questions
5. What qualities do you possess, which can prove you are a good graphic designer?
Graphic designing is a reconciliation act. You basically reconcile or juggle the requirements of clients while keeping your own designing sensibilities intact. Seldom do two overlaps. The fancied qualities in this field consist of curiosity, passion, appetite for criticism, patience, and flexibility.
Graphic design interview tips: After you are done mentioning all of these qualities, you have to briefly explain how you can be a great team player. Moreover, how your creative design can help evade any impediment that the clients may have. This should involve your way of approaching the problem.
6. How do you maintain your relevance in the field of design?
This is one of the most underprepared graphic design interview questions. It is also significant from the perspective of the company because you would want to hire someone who keeps up with the trends and fads. Obsolete or outdated designs may prompt the prospective customer to lose interest and conduct business with your competitors.
Graphic design interview tips: Formulate your ideas by grafting together your previous experience of handling a trend and relevant skills and the design software questions you used to carry out the task.
7. What consists of your strengths and weaknesses?
This graphic design interview question forces you to introspect into your shortcomings and your willingness to improve them. And also to check whether your intrinsic abilities fall abreast of the skills required for the role.
When mentioning your strengths, it’s essential to give an example of how people, and for that matter, you, were benefitted. Your power can involve technical facets such as UX or something less technical, i.e. problem-solving.
Graphic design interview tips ‘’ One of the aspects of my strengths is that I am curious, which enables me to pave my way through any given minuscule issue before they get escalated into bigger ones.
The weaknesses dimension must involve you being truthful and reflective about your actual weaknesses. Weaknesses that you have taken steps to do away with in the past.
‘’ Procrastination is a vice for me, and I have taken efforts to eradicate it by breaking a particular task into crumbs and using the Pomodoro technique.
8. What enhances your performance, working alone or working with a team?
Graphic designing is mostly an individual enterprise. But it doesn’t necessarily imply that working along with coworkers (developers, UX, copywriters, marketers) and clients would be undermined. Like the above graphic design interview question, this also involves you being truthful.
Graphic design interview tips: If you belong to the extremities of either side, then it would also require you to step up with how you would manage. You can also answer this graphic design interview question by intoning “In an attempt to get to an idea, I believe it can be done through concerted thinking while deadlines can be dealt with working individually’’.
9. If you were asked to design Z, which graphic design software would come in handy to you?
This graphic designs software question is a part of assessing your grip or how well versed you are in using tools of designing. If you name any redundant software then that would imply the negation of question number 6. This can cut you short of a few points. Considering the fact that they want to check how efficiently you can reach from a to z.
Graphic design interview tips: It would be propitious to have a command over Photoshop, InDesign, and Illustrator.
10. How do you submit your project within the bounds of your deadline?
The essence of being a designer lies in your capability of balancing the turnaround times with the quality of the work. You can begin by sharing an anecdote of how you managed a project which was time-limited. This graphic design interview question serves to give out an impression of how time-efficient and disciplined you are.
Graphic design interview tips: Brief out a story of how you managed to successfully meet a tight deadline. And what were your motivations behind completing it on time while also staying focused?
11. What kind of design projects are you looking forward to?
The objective of this graphic design interview question is to judge your personality, your work ethic, your passions, and the projects you take pleasure in. Mentioning the projects you like the most tells a lot about your diversified areas and range of skills and experience. In this one also, you have to mention your previous experiences in detail and what you liked about them.
Graphic design interview tips: If there is a particular area that you find interesting or you specialize in, you can mention that in the answer to this graphic design interview question. Your specialization would highlight your preference in the type of work you want to do more of.
12. Do you have any experience of conflict at work?
This involves any displeasing experiences ranging from uncooperative co workers to arbitrariness of and disagreement with the client. It would help if you kept in mind that the purpose of this graphic design interview question is to see how you can navigate different problems with diligence.
Graphic design interview tips: You can implement the STAR method to answer this graphic design interview question.
- Situation or Task(S or T): “I was steering the team of infographic developers. However, the key developer would skip the meetings and provide any vital information only at the end”.
- Approach (A):” I decided to have a word with him and explained how the team’s overall productivity was being undermined. I proposed that he tell us of his preferred timings if the previous one was not favourable. Eventually, he told me how his commitments to other work left him with a short time at his hand”.
- Results (R): The conversation turned out to be informative for him, and he managed to get on board with our workflow. As a result, we were able to complete the project before the deadline.
13. Walk us through your portfolio and one project which you are proud to bring into fruition?
The projects that you select from your portfolio should only consist of the relevant ones, given the fact that you are applying for a certain design position. Explain tersely about the whole process, your approach, Softwares, tools deployed, the philosophy behind a particular design, and finally the outcome. The whole journey of this explanation would also emit qualities such as your passion, which you might be unaware of at the time of expounding. The answer to this graphic design interview question can also include your inspirations and your awareness of the ongoing trends in the industry.
Graphic design interview tips: If you have applied for the position of an illustrator, then you might want to pick a certain piece from your portfolio that exhibits your finesse in that area. The manager would be taking notice of how eloquently you can describe the whole process, from ideation to the fruition of the work. The way you brief up about the hurdles that you faced, may subtly impact the answer to this graphic design interview question.
14. What is the latest design approach you have stumbled upon and what do you like or dislike about it?
This graphic design interview question helps you exercise your critical thinking skills. Leaving the answer to just a single statement won’t suffice. You would require to put forth a systemic and structured criticism with logic intact, in the context of the designing approach.
Graphic design interview tips: Mention any approach that you came across on social media. Then start from the briefing about the idea and then critique how it didn’t appeal to the intended demographic and how you would have come to its remedy.
15. What are the major stages in your creative thinking?
This answer is purely subjective, and hence no correct solution can be attributed to it. However, the bottom line of this graphic design interview question is that the designer carries a specific process in his mind which he has honed and refined to increase the efficacy of their work.
Graphic design interview tips: More or less, it should include the origination of the idea, research, assertion, and collecting feedback.
16. Do you want to ask us something?
This graphic design interview question comes in the last, as it is evident from its looks. So, it would help if you were prepared, suggesting that you are interested in the company and curious to know more about them.
Graphic design interview tips: you can inquire into the demands of the position and how the team works together to bring results. Moreover, you can ask questions that may include your most-liked aspect of this company, the group’s structure, what sort of projects will be assigned to you, and the scope of getting quality projects after acquiring ample experience.
There goes more in an interview besides these few graphic design interview questions. They are not to be taken literally but as a blueprint since all graphic design interview questions have an underlying pattern that if cracked, can open the doors of you facing any interview. It must be kept in mind that not all of the eligible candidates will be able to answer all these questions flawlessly. That’s where the concept of practice comes into the picture. It will help you realize where you get hampered and will alleviate your answer speaking ability to the level of instinct.
At the end of the day, graphic design interviews remain purely reflective, the more you can think logically and reasonably, the more you will be able to express your idea, which is the quintessence of this profession.
Frequently asked interview questions answers
1. Is Graphic design a good career?
Yes, graphic designing is a plausible career option for those who indulge in technology, communication and exhibit a creative outlook towards things. The age of digitalization has put a very heavy demand on their work. Various firms seek the help of visual communicators or graphic designers to create their brand identity and convey the essence of the company in a way that text-based information disallows.
2. How much time does it require to be a graphic designer?
No, it is not that hard. You just have to be creative, have room for improvement and a bent towards art and design. But like any other profession, it also demands your time and persistence. No one is born creative, we become creative by indulging in creativity. The amount of time that will require to become an esteemed graphic designer depends upon your own abilities. How faster you can learn or unlearn certain principles are all part of the process.
3. What is graphic designing and what are its uses?
As per the American Institute of Graphic art (AIGA), graphic designing is the visual and textual content that conveys and projects ideas and experiences. It is majorly used by companies who wish to promote their products using advertisements or give a piece of information in a much understandable way through infographics and building a brand identity from scratch by employing logos.
4. What makes a graphic designer different from others?
Graphic designers are naturally blessed with creative skills, but they also have to study various design principles like any other discipline. The profession needs to understand the nuances and use of design principles to set across their unimaginable ideas. The use of concepts such as typography, space, balance, and colours are leveraged by visual communicators.
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