Graphic Designer Related Career Paths

Graphic design is one of the many different career paths that fall under the broad category of design. This is a large collection of jobs that all deal with blending creative skills and technical skills to produce professional quality works of visual art and communication. This can range from advertising materials to branded merchandise, advocacy work, and websites. It also encompasses a large range of different specializations that can include advanced technical design skills such as digital animation and video editing.

What is a Graphic Designer?

A Graphic Designer is a creative professional who combines text and visually appealing imagery to communicate a message with an audience. This could be through advertising, social media, or product packaging, to name a few. They are well-versed in design principles like color and typography and stay up-to-date on the latest trends. Whether they work for an agency or as a freelancer, they collaborate with clients and other team members to create high-quality designs that appeal to new and existing customers.

In addition to proficiency in professional design programs like Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator, a successful Graphic Designer must also work well with others. Graphic Designers seldom work alone, and since their job is to create a product that matches a client's vision, they must be willing to accept feedback and suggestions from others. Time management skills are also crucial for a Graphic Designer; since most of them work freelance, they often work on multiple projects for many clients simultaneously.

Read more about what a Graphic Designer does.

Digital Design

Digital design positions such as Visual Designers and Web Designers work on creating the visual and interactive aspects of web applications. There are a number of specific job titles under this banner and each of them will work on different aspects of the design and development process of web applications.

Visual Designers work strictly with creating the digital visual assets that are uploaded onto a web application and design the user interfaces for those applications. They don't necessarily need to learn advanced software applications, since they primarily end up using tools like Photoshop and Illustrator to design these assets, but many will need to learn tools like Figma or Adobe XD, which are specialized layout design applications, essentially InDesign for web pages. This is a growing field and Graphic Designers interested in applying their talents to digital canvases may want to explore visual design training options.

Web Designers use many of the same skills as Visual Designers but they are also expected to have enough coding skills to build practical, functioning elements of a webpage (or even an entire webpage). They are expected to learn HTML, CSS, and JavaScript as part of their web development training so that they can build the front-facing elements of the web applications they are designing. The amount of programming work they are asked to do will vary depending on the job they find, but as a general rule, it will be less than the design work they are asked to do, since most firms employ dedicated Web Developers to do much of the heavy lifting in terms of programming.

Motion Graphics and Video Editing

Motion graphics is the art of taking a static image and creating the illusion of motion. While most commonly associated with traditional 2D animation, computer-assisted animation is becoming increasingly common in various industries and the field is rapidly expanding to meet this demand. Motion Graphics Artists will work on projects ranging from simple 2D animations for digital applications all the way up to complex computer graphics animated projects for television and film. They primarily use tools like Adobe After Effects and Premiere Pro to add digital animated elements to video files or other digital film assets.

A related field to motion graphics is video editing, which is more of a technical art than it is a creative design field, but the two use enough overlapping tools that they are both comparable job titles. Video Editors combine and manipulate disparate video files to create a coherent final product that is ready for distribution. They often work alongside Motion Graphics Artists to add effects to a video file in post-production and also make heavy use of software applications like Adobe After Effects and Adobe Premiere Pro.

The primary difference between the two roles is that a Video Editor handles more of the technical aspects of editing such as cutting scenes together, ensuring audio is aligned, and maintaining continuity between shots. Motion Graphics Artists focus more on visual effects and post-production animation added to a video production near the end. Both positions require Graphic Designers to learn a suite of new tools, but many of the theories of creative visual composition carry over, and these are both worthwhile career paths for Graphic Designers looking for new ways to apply their skills.

User Experience Design

An important subfield of User Interface Design is User Experience (UX) design. This field deals with how a digital interface feels in the hands of users and how they behave when interacting with the application. Try as they might, UI Designers can’t control how their interfaces are utilized once real-world consumers interact with them. UX Designers test and research user behavior to ensure that finished digital interfaces are accessible, user-friendly, and easy to navigate. Unlike other graphic design fields, UX design is less about visual creativity and more about the practicality of design. UX Designers are not concerned with how a user interface looks; they focus on how it feels for users, regardless of how users are interacting with it.

UX Designers won't need to use as many design tools as other design professionals, though they will need to use tools like Figma or Adobe XD. UX design is primarily concerned with testing, understanding, researching user behavior, and generating actionable feedback. This means users need to learn how to perform research, lead focus groups, generate and interpret surveys, and iterate designs based on feedback. UX Designers will also need to learn general UX design principles that can be applied to virtually any interface design to ensure early design prototypes avoid common mistakes.

How to Decide Which Career is Right for You

Since there are so many different career paths under the general banner of design, it may be difficult to choose the right path for you, especially since each different path will require training in different skill sets and design tools. Consider your own interests and desires before committing to a training regimen meant to lead you down any of these career paths. All of these career paths assume that you have a desire to work in a creative design environment and are interested in some form of visual communication.

One of the first questions you should ask yourself is whether or not you are interested in learning computer programming as part of your education. Web Designers, in particular, will need to learn HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, and may need to learn additional programming languages as they advance in their career. Noble Desktop offers a free Intro to Front-end Web Development seminar that covers the basic process of designing and developing a webpage. Students who are unsure whether coding is right for them may want to consider watching that seminar to learn more.

Next, consider whether you want to work in a field driven by personal creative decisions or one based on technical skills and knowledge. Jobs for User Experience Designers and Video Editors, for example, will rely more on technical knowledge and training than personal creative vision. A UX Designer can’t ignore the ways users interact with their designs, and Video Editors must ensure continuity, audio alignment, and proper cuts. This may not be a problem for you, but it is a key difference that separates these jobs from similar design-related career paths.

Finally, ask yourself what kinds of projects you want to work on and how much training you're willing to receive to work in certain industries. If you're comfortable spending most of your time on traditional media projects or don't want to learn many different creative design applications, you may prefer to work as a Graphic Designer. If you're interested in working on a complex digital canvas and are fine learning user interface design tools, becoming a Digital Designer might be worth the training.

Learn the Skills to Become a Graphic Designer at Noble Desktop

If you want to start a career in graphic design, the graphic design classes offered by Noble Desktop are an excellent place to start. Students can take all their classes remotely or in-person at their Manhattan campus. For students who want to start slow by just learning one popular design program, Noble offers an Adobe Photoshop Bootcamp, an Adobe InDesign Bootcamp, and an Adobe Illustrator Bootcamp. These beginner-friendly courses take just a few days to complete and provide students with foundational design skills.

For those ready to dive into a more comprehensive program, Noble Desktop’s Graphic Design Certificate might be a better fit. Students complete hands-on assignments using popular design programs, including Illustrator, Photoshop, and InDesign. This program is ideal for those hoping to start a career as a Graphic Designer. Certificate students at Noble Desktop receive individual career mentorship, where experts in the design industry help craft resumes, portfolios, and provide tips for finding lucrative employment.

If a class isn’t feasible for your current schedule, Noble Desktop has various resources on its website to help start your graphic design career. You can browse their collection of articles about Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign if you're curious about how each program works. You can also review information about other design tools to see if another field might interest you more.