Drawing counts as a fundamental skill for most art and design courses. According to Enstice and Peters in the book "Drawing: Space, Form, and Expression," artists from the Renaissance onward consider drawing to be the most important skill that an artist possesses. In terms of graphic design, the ability to draw gives the designer a visual tool with which to communicate his ideas to the client and the public who will view the design he creates.
Designers work with text daily in their jobs. From creating brochures that tell about a hospital's services to creating a trendy looking ad, the typography (or font) that a designer uses also adds to the overall message of the piece she's designing.
Some college programs have classes that concentrate just on typography for the graphic designer while others combine the teaching of typography along with other skill sets like page layout, according to Education Portal.
According to the Princeton Review, the graphic designer and artist must possess digital tools skills. These software programs include Adobe InDesign, Illustrator and Photoshop as well as QuarkXPress.
These courses are taught in most college graphic design programs. They should not only teach the designer the basics about how to operate the design program itself, but help the aspiring designer to develop a portfolio.
Website design is just one of the skill sets that a designer learns in the course of their education, according to the Department of Labor and Statistics. With the proliferation of video, animation and photographs that wind up on websites, the modern designer needs to possess not only the skills to design and build the website, but very often the ability to make these elements interactive too, according to Education Portal.
Aspiring graphic artists and designers must also take courses in art history, according to the Education Portal. Classes in art history give the graphic designer a background in the visual trends that have influenced art and design over the course of time. The study of art history additionally gives the graphic artist the ability to read culture from a visual standpoint and understand the messages contained in not only graphic design pieces, but paintings, drawings, sculpture and the mass media.