Practice and advice for a noob

[IKRuga]

Greetings. I am a Graphic Designer, with only a Diploma, and have been working in an Advertising company for a few months.

Frankly, I SUCK...I've tried reading and practising design, copying, trying to emulate other people's design, but they just wouldn't work. I'm not reaching my client's expectations. It makes me effing sad not being able to perform well at my job.

I really liked to design, to create something new,beautiful,functional, means a lot to me....but I just can't make mine work...I've been told that my designs were 'empty','rigid','ugly' although the ideas proposed were very strong.

I would really love to get some advice (please) from you all (I know you guys are awesome designers), so I could grasp some understanding on how to 'see' and 'make' things 'beautifully', some proposed practise would be very good as well...hehehe I sound pretty cheesy...

And thanks for reading...

[LuckyDevil]

Well we can't give you advice on what you need work on without seeing how you approach projects or some example of your work. so i suggest post some stuff to give you tips or see where you are having trouble.

Also something i noticed when starting is knowing what is good composition and good color composition, knowing what is warm and cool colors and how they play with each other, white space, contrast in shapes and such. Basically all the basics of art apply to graphic design. so if you don't have a good grasp of the basics you may have trouble making things "look good" even if you know how to use the software technically.

[IKRuga]

Thanks alot for the reply LuckyDevil. Unfortunately I don't think I could post my works here yet, cus I'm a little busy with a few projects, but I really appreciate your advice, I'll try looking for some good practices on basic art asap...