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Graphic design careers include creative director, art director, art production manager, brand identity developer, illustrator and layout artist.
| | This article needs additional citations for verification .(June 2015) |
Graphic design careers include creative director, art director, art production manager, brand identity developer, illustrator and layout artist.
The following are positions or responsibilities and usually titles, held by experienced graphic designers in related management roles:[ citation needed ]
A creative director's range of experience can be broad and encompass a number of disciplines; visual design; copywriting, art direction, advertising account director, film/video director [ citation needed ]. A creative drector's job is to initiate the creative concept of a project and drive the direction of the project. The role of a creative director is to formulate creative concepts, whether it is an advertising campaign, brand identity, TV commercial, or marketing campaign. A creative director is often referred to as an 'ideas guy' and works with a team of 'creatives' — an art director, graphic designer, copywriter, or film director — to produce the concept and final production.
Art directors make sure that illustrators and production artists produce and complete their work on time and to the creative director or client's satisfaction[ citation needed ]. Art directors also play a major role in the development of a project by making decisions on the visual elements of the project, and by giving the final say on the selection of models, art, props, colors, and other elements[ citation needed ]. Art directors need advanced training in graphic design as they often create artwork and design themselves[ citation needed ]. However, an art director's time may be consumed doing supervisory and administrative work [ citation needed ].
Art production managers or traffic managers oversee the production aspect of art to improve efficiency and cost effectiveness[ citation needed ]. Art production managers supervise artists or advise the supervisors of artists. Creative directors and art directors often assume the role of art production managers, especially when production cost is not a critical enough concern to designate a manager for the specific role.[ citation needed ]
The following are positions or responsibilities, not necessarily titles, held by art directors and graphic designers:[ citation needed ]
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. Brand identity development is usually a collaborative effort between creative directors, art directors, copywriters, account managers and the client.[ citation needed ]
A broadcast designer is a person involved with creating graphic designs and electronic media incorporated in television productions that are used by character generator (CG) operators. A broadcast designer may have a degree in digital media (or a similar degree), or is self-taught in the software needed to create such content.
The job of a logo designer is to provide a new and innovative way to express the key points 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.
A marketing designer creates illustrations and digital images. They also develop presentations for companies and businesses to market and promote their goods and services to the public.
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.
Illustrators use many different media, from pencil and paint to digital formatting, to prepare and create their illustrations. An illustrator consults with clients in order to determine what illustrations will best meet the story they are trying to tell, or what message they are trying to communicate.
Illustrating may be a secondary skill requirement of graphic design or a specialty skill of a freelance artist, usually known for a unique style of illustrating. Illustration may be published separately as in fine art. However, illustrations are usually inserted into page layouts for communication design in the context of graphic design professions.[ citation needed ]
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.[ citation needed ]
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.[ citation needed ]
Content developers include illustrators, visual image developers, and multimedia developers in software and web development. Content development includes non-graphical content as well.
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. They are applied in all aspects of scientific visualization.
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. Page layouts are usually done by art directors, graphic designers, artworkers, production artists or a combination of those positions.[ citation needed ]
Entry level layout work is often known as paste up art. Entry level layout graphic designers are often known as production artists.[ citation needed ] In an in-house art department, layout artists are sometimes known as DTP artists or DTP associates.
Interface designers are graphical user interface (GUI) layout artists. They are employed by multimedia, software, and web development companies. Because graphical control 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.
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.[ citation needed ]
Depending on the scope of the project, web design may involve collaboration between software engineers and graphic designers. The graphic design of a website may be as simple as a page layout sketch or handling just the graphics in an HTML editor, while the advance coding is done separately by programmers. In other cases, graphic designers may be challenged to become both graphic designer and programmer in the process of web design in positions often known as web masters.[ citation needed ]
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 three-dimensional space 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
Graphic design is a profession, academic discipline and applied art whose activity consists in projecting visual communications intended to transmit specific messages to social groups, with specific objectives. Graphic design is an interdisciplinary branch of design and of the fine arts. Its practice involves creativity, innovation and lateral thinking using manual or digital tools, where it is usual to use text and graphics to communicate visually.
Web design encompasses many different skills and disciplines in the production and maintenance of websites. The different areas of web design include web graphic design; user interface design ; authoring, including standardised code and proprietary software; user experience design ; and search engine optimization. Often many individuals will work in teams covering different aspects of the design process, although some designers will cover them all. The term "web design" is normally used to describe the design process relating to the front-end design of a website including writing markup. Web design partially overlaps web engineering in the broader scope of web development. Web designers are expected to have an awareness of usability and be up to date with web accessibility guidelines.
Adobe Illustrator is a vector graphics editor and design software developed and marketed by Adobe. Originally designed for the Apple Macintosh, development of Adobe Illustrator began in 1985. Along with Creative Cloud, Illustrator CC was released. The latest version, Illustrator 2025, was released on October 14, 2024, and is the 29th generation in the product line. Adobe Illustrator was reviewed as the best vector graphics editing program in 2021 by hpMagazine.
A designer is a person who plans the form or structure of something before it is made, by preparing drawings or plans. In practice, anyone who creates tangible or intangible objects, products, processes, laws, games, graphics, services, or experiences can be called a designer.
The Designers Republic is a British graphic design studio based in Sheffield, England, founded in 1986 by Ian Anderson and Nick Phillips. They are best known for electronic music logos, album artwork, and anti-establishment aesthetics, embracing "brash consumerism and the uniform style of corporate brands". Work by tDR is held in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art and the Victoria and Albert Museum.
An illustrator is an artist who specializes in enhancing writing or elucidating concepts by providing a visual representation that corresponds to the content of the associated text or idea. The illustration may be intended to clarify complicated concepts or objects that are difficult to describe textually, which is the reason illustrations are often found in children's books.
Yoshitaka Amano is a Japanese visual artist, character designer, illustrator, a scenic designer for theatre and film, and a costume designer. He first came into prominence in the late 1960s working on the anime adaptation of Speed Racer. Amano later became the creator of iconic and influential characters such as Gatchaman, Tekkaman, Honeybee Hutch, and Casshern. In 1982 he went independent and became a freelance artist, finding success as an illustrator for numerous authors, and worked on best-selling novel series, such as The Guin Saga and Vampire Hunter D. He is also known for his commissioned illustrations for the popular video game franchise Final Fantasy.
Graphics are visual images or designs on some surface, such as a wall, canvas, screen, paper, or stone, to inform, illustrate, or entertain. In contemporary usage, it includes a pictorial representation of data, as in design and manufacture, in typesetting and the graphic arts, and in educational and recreational software. Images that are generated by a computer are called computer graphics.
The daffodils family kakamega A category of fine art, graphic art covers a broad range of visual artistic expression, typically two-dimensional graphics, i.e. produced on a flat surface, today normally paper or a screen on various electronic devices. The term usually refers to the arts that rely more on line, color or tone, especially drawing and the various forms of engraving; it is sometimes understood to refer specifically to drawing and the various printmaking processes, such as line engraving, aquatint, drypoint, etching, mezzotint, monotype, lithography, and screen printing. Graphic art mostly includes calligraphy, photography, painting, typography, computer graphics, and bindery. It also encompasses drawn plans and layouts for interior and architectural designs.
Communication design is a mixed discipline between design and information-development concerned with how media communicate with people. A communication design approach is concerned with developing the message and aesthetics in media. It also creates new media channels to ensure the message reaches the target audience. Due to overlapping skills, some designers use graphic design and communication design interchangeably.
A creative director is a person who makes high-level creative decisions; oversees the creation of creative assets such as advertisements, products, events, or logos; and directs and translates the creative people who produce the end results. Creative director positions are often found within the music, film, video game, fashion, marketing, or entertainment industries, but may be found in other creative organizations such as web development and software development firms as well.
Motion graphic design, also known as motion design, is a subset of graphic design which combines design with animation and/or filmmaking, video production, and filmic techniques. Examples include kinetic typography and graphics used in film and television opening sequences, and station identification logos of some television channels.
In graphic design, page layout is the arrangement of visual elements on a page. It generally involves organizational principles of composition to achieve specific communication objectives.
Graphic art software is a subclass of application software used for graphic design, multimedia development, stylized image development, technical illustration, general image editing, or simply to access graphic files. Art software uses either raster or vector graphic reading and editing methods to create, edit, and view art.
A broadcast designer is a person involved with creating graphic designs and electronic media incorporated in television productions that are used by character generator (CG) operators. A broadcast designer may have a degree in digital media, or is self-taught in the software needed to create such content. CG stands for computer graphics, most broadcast designers studied either graphic design or visual communication – this term is used for those designing motion graphics also for film, industrials, commercials, and the web.
A production artist is a graphic design professional specialized in the technical aspects of design, playing a role in the final stage of the design process. They are responsible of turning a concept into a finished product, fine-tuning the work of graphic designers and preparing artworks for print production or digital media. Production artists work closely with designers, art directors, and other creative team members to ensure the final output meets quality standards and is ready for publication or production.
Graphic communication as the name suggests is communication using graphic elements. These elements include symbols such as glyphs and icons, images such as drawings and photographs, and can include the passive contributions of substrate, colour and surroundings. It is the process of creating, producing, and distributing material incorporating words and images to convey data, concepts, and emotions.
William Robert Davis, aka Bill Davis, is an American illustrator, animation director and designer, graphic designer and painter. He was the creative director at Sierra On-Line and Rocket Science Games during the 1990s. Davis is the founder and creative director of Mother Productions, a graphic design firm which creates animation, motion graphics, logos and other graphic designs for on-air and online purposes.
Angus Hyland is a British graphic designer and visual artist.
George Tscherny was a Hungarian-born American graphic designer and educator. Tscherny received the highest honors among graphic designers. He was awarded the AIGA Medal in 1988, celebrated in the annual Masters Series in 1992 at the School of Visual Arts, and inducted into the Art Directors Club Hall of Fame in 1997. He worked in a number of areas ranging from U.S. postage to identity programs for large corporations and institutions.