Glossary of Graphic Design Careers
Below is a list of some of the most popular graphic design careers:
Creative / Art Director: Creative directors are in charge of a creative team that produces artwork to be displayed in advertising campaigns, or on products. A creative team can consist of artists (e.g. art directors, graphic designers, illustrators, photographers, copywriters, production artists) and a production staff.
Brand Identity Design: Brand identity design is concerned with the visual aspects of a company or organization’s brand or identity. A brand identity design is the visual element that represents how a company wants to be seen; it is the company’s visual identity, and is how a company illustrates its ‘image.’ A company’s brand identity can be represented in terms of design through a unique logo, or signage, and is then often integrated throughout all the elements of a company’s materials such as business cards, stationery, packaging, media advertising, promotions, and more. Brand identity may include logo design.
Logo Designer: The job of a logo designer is to provide a new and innovative way to express the key message of a company through an image. Logo designers take the information given to them by the client and work, using their own creativity along with marketing strategy to find an appropriate image that their client can use to represent what they are trying to encourage, sell, or what they are. It is not likely that a company will specialize in logo design or have a position for a designated logo designer. Art directors and graphic designers usually perform logo designs.
Illustrator: Illustrators conceptualize and create illustrations that represent an idea or a story through two-dimensional or three-dimensional images. Illustrators may do drawings for printed materials such as books, magazines, and other publications, or for commercial products such as textiles, packaging, wrapping paper, greeting cards, calendars, stationery, and more.
Visual Image Developer: Similar to illustration are other methods of developing images such as photography, 3D modeling, and image editing. Creative professionals in these positions are not usually called illustrators, but are utilized the same way. Photographers are likely to freelance. 3D modelers are likely to be employed for long-term projects. Image editing is usually a secondary skill to either of the above, but may also be a specialty to aid web development, software development, or multimedia development in a job title known as multimedia specialist. Although these skills may require technical knowledge, graphic design skills may be applied as well.
Multimedia Developer: Multimedia developers may come from a graphic design or illustration background and apply those talents to motion, sound, or interactivity. Motion designers are graphic designers for motion. Animators are illustrators for motion. Videographers are photographers for motion. Multimedia developers may also image edit, sound edit, program, or compose multimedia just as multimedia specialists.
Content Developer: Content developer is a generic term used for describing illustrators, visual image developers, and multimedia developers in software and web development. The term has a broader scope that includes non-graphical content as well. A generic name for content that is used in a digital composition are digital assets.
Visual Journalist: Visual Journalists, also known as Infographic Artists create information graphics or Infographics; visual representations of information, data or knowledge. These graphics are used anywhere where information needs to be explained quickly or simply, such as in signs, maps, journalism, technical writing, and education. They are also used extensively as tools by computer scientists, mathematicians, and statisticians to ease the process of developing and communicating conceptual information.
Layout artist: A layout artist deals with the structure and layout of images and text in a pleasing format. This can include magazine work, brochures, flyers, books, CD booklets, posters, and similar formats. For magazines and similar productions, color, typeface, text formatting, graphic layout and more must be considered.
Interface Designer: Interface designers are graphical user interface (GUI) layout artists. They are employed by multimedia, software, and web development companies. Because GUI elements are interactive, interface design often overlaps interaction design. Because interfaces are not usually composed as single computer files, interface design may require technical understanding, including graphical integration with code. Because interfaces may require hundreds of assets, knowledge of how to automate graphic production may be required. An interface designer may hold the job title of web designer in a web development company.
Web Designer: A web designer's work could be viewed by thousands of people every day. Web designers create the pages, layout, and graphics for web pages, and play a key role in the development of a website. Web designers have the task of creating the look and feel of a website by choosing the style, and by designing attractive graphics, images, and other visual elements, and adapting them for the website’s pages. Web designers also design and develop the navigation tools of a site. Web designers may make decisions regarding what content is included on a web page, where things are placed, and how the aesthetic and continuity is maintained from one screen to the next. All of this involves skill and training in computer graphics, graphic design, and in the latest in computer and web technology.
Package Designer: A package designer or packaging technician may utilize technical skills aside from graphic design. Knowledge of cuts, crease, folding, nature and behavior of the packaging material such as paper, corrugated sheet, synthetic or other type of materials may also be required. A customer may see the top/outside of a package at first, but may also be drawn to other package design features. A packaging design may require 3D layout skills in addition to visual communication to consider how well a design works at multiple angles. CAD software applications specifically for packaging design may be utilized.