Multimedia design is the art of integrating different forms of media such as audio, text, and animation. In the IT industry, multimedia design is highly used on the Internet, where you might encounter a web page that uses a combination of animation, illustration, and audio.

Being the first multimedia designer in HOV is a lot of pressure for me, especially since I am still a beginner in the field. I am under the guidance of the Design Manager, but of course it would be different if I had a multimedia expert mentor me from time to time. If you ask me what my initial goals are, I would say solidifying and standardizing multimedia design processes in the company is something that I would want to achieve within 1 to 2 years. In the future, I also want to monetize my creations so that I could contribute to the business side of the company and of course, myself, financially.

However, I will not achieve any of this if I do not focus on building my creative and technical skills in multimedia design. In this blog, I will share with you my multimedia design starter pack to help you kickstart your career as a multimedia designer. Beware, I am still a beginner and all these things I will be sharing are rooted in my experience. So read at your own risk!

• Know the Design Principles

****The fact that multimedia designing is still “designing”, means that you must know at least the basic design principles. I assume you are familiar with the terms: balance, alignment, hierarchy, contrast, rhythm, proximity, color, and space. These are the design principles that would make your creation good-looking.

Keep in mind that user experience (UX) is always, if not, mostly part of the design. There are laws and principles of UX that you must also be familiar with in order to make your creations not just aesthetically pleasing, but sensible and impactful.

• Know Motion Graphics and Video Editing Principles

The multimedia design will not be complete without the existence of animation and video. Animation is used in so many areas of multimedia design such as in web and video production. Knowing the basic principles of motion graphics (animation) would really help you become a more effective creator and designer. Some of those principles are timing, spacing, rhythm, eases, anticipation, arcs, and exaggeration.

Meanwhile, as a multimedia designer, you will inevitably deal with video editing and production. This too becomes a must for you to learn. In video editing, you have to be particular with details, timing, use of transitions and shots, music & sound, color scheme, and other visuals. Currently, I edit weekly memo videos and one thing I could say is that you will need a lot of brain cells in choosing the most significant parts of the video, arranging the clips in a way that would relay an impactful message to the viewers, and choosing the right music and visual elements.

• Watch Videos for Inspiration; Join Online Courses; Read Blogs and Articles

We sometimes come to a point where we exhaust our creative juices and can no longer think or conceptualize original ideas. This becomes the perfect time for you to look for inspiration. The best tip I could give you is to watch and explore videos online and take note as to how designers execute their creations. Be keen on details and observe patterns. This activity definitely works for me when I run out of ideas. Even in your free time, you can just do more explorations to expand your creativity and knowledge.

Another tip I can give you is to join online courses on multimedia design. If possible, enroll in free online courses so that you can save money. You can also watch video tutorials on YouTube as an alternative. Lastly, if you are a reader, then this tip is for you: read blogs and articles. There are lots of online resources that you can read from to further expand your knowledge in multimedia design.

• Have a Color Accurate and Fast Device

Having a slow device with a screen that has an inaccurate color gamut is something that you do not want to happen. I started working with a laptop that has 8GB of RAM, 256GB of ROM, a pretty basic GPU, an outdated CPU, and a really bad screen in terms of color accuracy. When I was tasked to do some daily animation exercises in Adobe After Effects, as well as video editing in Adobe Premiere, my patience was really tested. I got so desperate in getting myself a new device. The rendering time is really long and the tools I use crash regularly. It adds backlog to tasks, and so I had to find a way to eliminate it. The only option I could think of is to buy a new one with much better specs. If you want to save money, you simply upgrade your device, but as for my situation, I did not opt for upgrading my laptop because the RAM is not upgradable, and the color accuracy of the screen is really bad.

If you ask me what laptop/desktop specs I recommend for content creation, I would say something that has a good color gamut of at least 90% sRGB and a contrast ratio of 1000:1, and a good GPU and CPU as well. Having a good screen color gamut would help you see colors accurately so you would not have problems in color grading and manipulating the colors of an image. Having a good GPU and CPU will definitely improve productivity – you can do more tasks simultaneously and be able to render work in a short amount of time.

• Exercise Daily

Just like exercising physically to achieve the body shape that you desire, in order to be an expert in multimedia design, it is recommended to also practice daily. In my work, I create daily content in After Effects by either replicating works from the internet or using what I learned in my explorations to create original work. Additionally, I took the opportunity to edit the weekly video memo of our CEO so I can practice my video editing skill.

I also noticed that as I kept on doing exercises, I get to learn and apply more techniques and at the same time, familiarize the tools that I use which are Adobe After Effects, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Premiere Pro, and Figma.

Right now, I am still in the process of learning, and I have a very long way to go. I want to take things gradually to avoid getting burnout. In the future, I envision myself leading a team of content creators. I hope the tips above helped!