Before you read this, be warned that this is not a tutorial. It won't teach you a new skill or method. It's simply here to teach you to be a better designer in general.
This guide is mostly directed at sig designers, but I'm sure it can be applied to just about any field of art.

I think the current level of graphics design can be stepped up a few notches, so here's a few tips.

1 -- Your own style

The most valuable thing to any sort of artist is to have their own distinct style. Everyone needs it...Picasso, Mozart, Poe, and you. It's what sets you apart from the rest of the world, shows everyone that this piece is by -you-. So as you start to do more and more sigs, try and find a niche for yourself to fit into. What type of design do you like to do? Grunge, tech, vector, bright colors, dark colors, realistic, minimalistic, photomanip, black and white, freehand...find what style you like to do best, and try and stick with it. Of course you don't want every sig to be the same style, because that's repetitive and boring, but you do want to do most of your sigs in whatever way is best for you. I personally like brighter colors, and light grunge sigs.

2 -- The difference between being different

Now, this is probably going to sound really contradictory, but it's also good to be diverse when it comes to designing. It's good to have your own niche, but you still want to keep all your skills sharp so you're never rusty. But there's a difference between being different and being good. It's nice to have a unique style, but don't take it too far. If you become too abstract, you could be walking yourself off the plank, so to speak. People don't like art that is too far-fetched. It may look good to you, but most have a general sense of what looks good and what doesn't. Be unique, but don't go past what other people will like. Unless of course the only opinion that matters is your own...if that's the case, do what you want.

3 -- E is for EFFORT

There is nothing more ugly than a sig that didn't recieve the proper effort put into it. People don't always put effort into their sigs, and it shows. If you're not willing to put enough time into designing, then don't. It's like a song you hear on the radio that you know only took half an hour to produce, or the difference between a homemade dinner and a frozen one. I personally put an hour or more into almost all of my sigs. I only started that not too long ago, but you can see a big difference. I'm not saying you have to quit your day job or anything, but if you're going to design something, don't rush it. A good idea is to not release every single sig you do...if you're not satisfied with a certain sig, save it as a temporary and come back another day to work on it. This brings amazing results, trust me. I have about 40 unfinished sigs to work on, but every time I do, something good comes out.

4 -- Organization

Messy sigs get messy ratings. I've seen it so many times before, and been driven mad by it. Some like to throw a bunch of brushes on a sig, throw a render in, maybe some color, and a border, and assume they're done. Well, that might be the case, but you have to make sure each element looks good with each other. The ultimate goal of designing is the end result, right? So frankly, the individual pieces of the sig don't mean diddly squat compared to the finished product. Stop assuming "oh, this render is cool, I'm going to have a cool sig", or "these brushes rock, this sig will be awesome", and focus on "how does this all tie in to one good sig?" and "how can I make this piece fit with this piece to look good?". Just remember that every part of a sig is crucial. Even the border.

5 -- Sense of design

To be a good designer, you have to have a good sense of design. You can't be a chef if you don't know how good foods taste, and you can't design sigs if you don't know what a good sig looks like. Take some time to look around...look at product packaging, advertisements, company logos...of course sigs aren't the same thing, but it helps you get a grasp of what a good design looks like. This is one of the hardest things to do as a beginner to graphics design, but all I can say is that it gets better with time, practice, and effort. The more sigs you do, the more you'll start to notice what people like to see in sigs.

6 -- Consistency

Keep practicing, keep practicing, keep practicing. It's great to take a break from sigging every now and then (I just took a big one), but it's important to keep your skills up. The only way to ensure steady growth and learning is to keep on trying. Most of my sig designer buddies and myself will tell you that the way they got good was just by practicing. Every now and then you learn a nice little tidbit that can improve your sigs, and before you know it, you're full of these tidbits and you can make some really sweet sigs. Just keep practicing.

7 -- It's ALIVE

Experiment. Try and experiment with different styles and themes and such to find new designs. Having basically the same sig every time does no good whatsoever. I've seen it before...a designer starts to think he's good so he sticks with the same sig every time and it gets BORING. You can't get any better if you keep doing the same thing over and over again, and if your fans notice that you haven't changed at all, they'll get bored with you too. Doing "the usual" isn't good enough. You have to strive to be better with every sig you make. I myself just learned a new technique to create energy-ball looking things using feathering and two filters. I'm probably going to release a brushset of them soon. Experimentation is the only thing that can create new styles and methods, so experiment as much as possible.

8 -- Resources and Materials

An artist is only as good as his tools, right? Right. Believe it or not, it's extremely hard to get things done with just the defaults of photoshop (especially the old versions), so it's important to have good materials. The most important of which would be fonts, renders, and brushes. There's only so much you can do with Courier new and no renders, right? But by far, the most important resource is tutorials. Everyone can benefit from tutorials. I've bought full rights to about 20 good ones to try and make myself better. Tutorials are a great way to get new ideas and methods, because there are a lot of things another person can think of that you normally would not, and vice versa. Two heads are better than one. So make sure you have good material to work with.

9 -- Checklisting

One of my personal things I've picked up recently is what I like to call checklisting (Hm...I should probably copyright that or something). Make a mental (or written) checklist of all the things you want in a sig, and as you design a sig go through and check off the things on your list. It helps to ensure you have everything you want, because the better you get, the more goodies you like to pack into your sigs. Some examples of checklist items would be:
Background,
Text,
Render,
Border,
Color,
Blending,
Lighting,
Special effects,
Patterns,
Flow,
etc.

Of course you don't need all of these, and you can certainly add more, but that's just a general idea of what you could look for. Checklisting is probably very beneficial to beginners, because as you're just starting you tend to forget things like blending or borders.

10 -- Have fun

The huge underlying goal of sig designing is to have fun. If you don't have fun designing sigs, why are you designing sigs? My personal fun from designing is to see how people respond to the designs I make and if they like the same things I do. To me there's nothing more fun than getting great comments on sigs, so that's what I strive for. Everyone has their own reasons for sigging, but in the end it's all about having fun.

That's about it. As well it should be, my wrist is starting to hurt. Let me know what you think.

this looks verry usefull, expecially the Checklist one... im still a noob at this stuff but i think this entire tutorial will help me out a little bit in my graphiics making..Thanxx!

I will look over this and I will take into consideration!... Thanks for the tips!

i totally agree johnny every has their own tastes they work to, personally i prefer game renders in my sigs but occasionaly i do cars and other stuff, so i think im going to try to improve my game sigs create my own lil style even tho im not tht good im not bd really am i, i seen alot worse

great work johnny you have put it all togather so even the guy with no experience in disgning sigs at all will also be able to master it if he follows your guidelines ,but the problem is we may read something but we tend to look up certain things sooner or later i'm sure it's gonna be helpful to those people who know how to use help

*Praise to Johnny* I agree 100%! It's so freaking true I could almost kiss you! (ok ok maybe not that far). I especially think the ones many people forget (5 and 7) are a rather important step from being a noob to being somewhat decent.

I've tried to tell so many people - you have to learn to have an eye for it - you explained it well Johnny. Experimentation also.. yes!! I'm not an exceptionally good designer but I know that for me to be satisfied with a sig it usually has a LOT of trial and error in terms of brushing, then undo, brush again, etc etc. Friends have asked how I make sigs - and there's not much I can tell them because there's no real set rules, rather a lot of just trying things out.

Thanks for the positive feedback all. I'm gonna try and post this on GR and see what people think there.

I was also thinking of doing more tutorials...I don't think I ever finished on my last run...I just get really bored doing them.

Anyway, regardless of that, I will be looking for more ways to better the "sig society". Keep an eye out, I guess.

(I was also thinking of adding a "manners" section to this...should I?)

Very useful and good to be reminded from time to time. Even a good designer tends to do things the same way if they are successfull and neglects the fact that he might loose some skills by not being different. Hope i was coherent with this post...