The research is in and it’s true – Indian professionals are global leaders in digital transformation preparedness. We’re leading the way with AI adoption and integration, and we’re firm believers in digital preparedness across all industries.
As a result of this shift in India’s business landscape, we’re seeing more young professionals investing in professional development strategies that include digital preparedness, and that includes developing digital-ready design skills.
So what graphic design skills are set to be most in-demand for the next generation of Indian professionals? Below, we’ll be outlining seven key graphic design and design-related disciplines that are sure to elevate any CV.
Photo Editing
Information sharing online has become a staple of virtually all industries. From cultivating social media engagement to sharing newsworthy company updates and media statements, digital-era professionals need to be proficient with using photo editing software to prepare visual content for publication.
For young professionals looking to hone their skills in this area, you can find plenty of short courses on how to use industry-leading software like Adobe Lightroom. Lightroom includes a wide variety of features and editing effects for professional photographers working across everything from landscape shots to product photography, so it’s well worth experimenting to see what kinds of edits you can generate. Any showstoppers will definitely be a worthy addition to your professional portfolio.
Pro tip: regarding Lightroom for students Adobe also offers discounts for Creative Cloud subscribers who are currently enrolled with a tertiary institution or college. Be sure to check if you’re eligible to utilise Adobe’s student discount offer.
Video Editing
A picture is worth a thousand words, they say, but a video is worth ten thousand. So it stands to reason that alongside building familiarity with photo editing tools like Lightroom and Photoshop, young professionals can put themselves at an advantage by honing their video editing skills as well.
Whilst you can use AI to generate photos and videos nowadays, young professionals can still expect to work with video files in their future roles here and there, so building familiarity with video editing software like Premiere Pro, CapCut, and Final Cut Pro can help pad out your CV further.
Pro tip: hone your own video editing skills by posting your own Reels on social media, or making short-form videos for LinkedIn. Creating your own content of your own volition will not only help you build your skills via hands-on learning, but will also allow you to showcase your skills to prospective employers.
Digital Communications
More professional teams are converting to hybrid and remote working arrangements, which means that young professionals can expect to work across borders with their colleagues and clients. For this reason, it’s no longer become optional for young professionals to equip themselves with robust digital communication skills. This means being able to confidently prepare and share files like edited screenshots, signed contracts and other PDF documents, and even vector image files.
Thankfully, most tertiary institutions already do a pretty good job of setting students up with all the file prep and management skills they need. After all, having to annotate digital notes and readings or send assessments with the right formatting specifications and file types requires graduates to build technological proficiency and attention to detail. You can also build digital communication and management skills when undertaking professional roles like full-time or part-time office work, or even internships.
Data Presentation
Alongside basic file management spanning across Word documents, spreadsheets, and PDFs, young professionals should also build confidence in working with powerpoint presentations and other types of data presentation tasks. Digital-era businesses are looking to data analytics increasingly to make sense of not only Big Data, but also their own internal insights.
For young professionals looking to impress their supervisors, being proficient with preparing compelling reports and presentations is an absolute must, which means being able to design graphs and tables that can be clearly understood.
Pro tip: data presentation isn’t just about visuals – it’s also about feeling confident sifting through numbers and finding patterns and correlations. Short courses in data management can help young professionals bridge the gap between left and right brained thinking required when transforming raw data insights into focused presentations.
UX/UI Design
Building effective digital experiences is paramount to business success in today’s day and age. From landing pages for digital advertising campaigns to considerations for user experience in digital articles and blog posts, professionals today can definitely benefit from building a working understanding of UX (user experience) and UI (user interface) design principles and how they can be applied to their own work.
Tools like Adobe XD and Figma are ideal for learning the basics of UX/UI design application, including how to create UX flowcharts for websites and apps. These skills aren’t just valuable web and software developers, but also for digital marketers and advertisers, as well as SEOs and content creators and designers.
HTML & CSS Coding
Alongside being proficient with UX and UI design, young professionals looking to work in digital-facing roles can also be greatly advantaged by developing basic HTML and CSS, and even JavaScript coding skills. This is also a great skill to develop for any professionals looking to dabble in entrepreneurship. If you ever manage your own website, knowing how to quickly fix a little error in your code can save valuable time and money, and keep your business activities agile and sustainable.
Even if you don’t have entrepreneurial ambitions, anyone looking to work in digital content can still benefit from building HTML and CSS coding skills for either publishing their content or even just for identifying any publishing errors that may arise in the transition from your computer drive to the World Wide Web.
AI & Prompt Engineering Skills
Finally, we’re returning back to the digital skills that started today’s guide: AI and prompt engineering. If you are a young professional looking to build an illustrious career in India and abroad and you’re yet to start engaging with AI tools and all their capabilities, then consider today’s guide to be your call to action. There are so many high-performance and commercially oriented AI tools to build proficiency with today, and getting started now will allow young professionals to build knowledge from the ground floor, as most of these tools are updating and evolving every day.
Chat-GPT is definitely a great place to start for AI prompt engineering, but there are other great generative AI tools like Adobe Firefly and Midjourney which also provide high-performance outputs with the right prompts. You can find plenty of short courses in prompt engineering and even free to download prompt libraries to keep in your professional resource repositories.
Equip your CV with these In-Demand Graphic Design Skills
How many of these digital-ready graphic design skills do you have represented in your CV? If your answer to this question is less than you’d like, then there’s no better time than now to start preparing your tailored professional development strategy.
Just start by picking the top priority skills we’ve listed above that will be the strongest asset to your CV, put in your hours to hone those skills, and no doubt from there, the interest in your applications with employers will surely grow in turn.
(The views, opinions, and claims in this article are solely those of the author’s and do not represent the editorial stance of The Assam Tribune)