Discover the exciting and rewarding opportunities available in the field of UI design, from crafting visual elements for digital applications as a User Interface Designer, to overseeing collaborative design projects as a Design Director. Enhance your career prospects and earning potential by mastering user experience and graphic design software and other key industry tools.
Key Insights
- User Interface Designers create the visual look and feel of a digital application, ensuring effective communication of a brand's messages.
- They often work in teams on larger projects and may be responsible for creating individual assets or aspects of a design.
- Visual Designers, working across many industries, create the individual elements of visual language used in layouts and designs across various mediums including advertising, webpages, games, and applications.
- The roles of Visual Designers and UI Designers may overlap in smaller firms, and both use similar tools and software.
- Design Directors manage large-scale design projects, needing not only the technical skills of a UI Designer but also the interpersonal skills of a Project Manager to ensure successful team collaboration.
- Design Directors may need to acquire additional skills such as web development, UX design or market research, to effectively oversee and assist in various elements of a project.
Since having a memorable and evocative digital presence is so important in the modern marketplace, many companies and firms are hiring professionals who can design digital applications that effectively communicate the messages a brand wants to communicate. Within the field of UI design, there are many possible career paths for skilled creatives to go down, such as:
User Interface Designer: UI Designers are tasked with building a digital application's visual look and appearance. They will be responsible for ensuring that the application communicates the messages that a client wants to be communicated memorably and effectively. They will often work alongside other designers to build parts of a larger project. Some UI Designers will be responsible for building individual assets or aspects of a bigger design. UI Designers will need to be trained in user experience and graphic design software.
Visual Designer: Visual Designers are tasked with creating the individual elements of visual language that allow other creatives to construct layouts and designs. They work across many industries, building assets for use in advertising, webpages, games, and applications. They will construct assets like banner ads, text overlays, fonts, and other individual elements of digital design. They will use many of the same tools as UI Designers, and their responsibilities and assignments may often overlap at smaller firms.
Design Director: As so many design projects involve large-scale collaboration between teams of designers and developers. Design Directors oversee this design process and help teams collaborate to deliver the best product possible. Design Directors will need both the technical skills of a UI Designer to oversee these teams' work and a Project Manager's interpersonal skills to ensure that the human element of a design project is managed effectively. Design Directors may also need to learn complementary skills to assist other elements of a project team, like web development, UX design, or market research.
How to Learn UI Design
Master UI design with hands-on training. User interface (UI) design, also called visual design, is a kind of digital design that prioritizes making app and website interfaces look good to users.
- UI Design Certificate at Noble Desktop: live, instructor-led course available in NYC or live online
- Find UI Design Classes Near You: Search & compare dozens of available courses in-person
- Attend a UI design class live online (remote/virtual training) from anywhere
- Find & compare the best online UI design classes (on-demand) from the top providers and platforms
- Train your staff with corporate and onsite UI design training