It’s imperative that you learn what you are designing for. If it’s a printed product, you need to learn about printing techniques, paper types, color (Pantone vs CMYK) layout, etc. If you’re designing something to be produced on the web (a banner ad, a website, etc), there are a completely different set of “rules” for that. If you’re designing to produce a product, you need to know how to design correctly to get that product produced, be it a large electrical sign, a small sign, a logo…..whatever. Figure out what kind of graphic design you want to do, then learn as much as you can about that niche. The more you know and the more innovative you can be, the more you will thrive!