There is so much more to graphic design that what meets the eye. Graphic design uses a blend of typography, imagery, color, and other design elements to make unique pictures. However, within these elements, you will find that there are designers who are better at some areas than others. Since the graphic design industry has gotten broader and is constantly changing, designers are choosing to focus on specializations to become more adaptable.
This brings about the question: which graphic design type is right for me and my project? Here’s the answer:
- Marketing & Advertising
The graphic designer that probably first comes to mind would be the marketing and advertising graphic designer, the one who helps companies generate marketing materials that increase brand awareness by offering engaging, arresting, and sometimes alarming visual content. Marketing designers handle both print and digital media, including creating things like menus, PowerPoint presentations, social media ads, banners, ads, websites, blogs, infographics, flyers, and vehicle wraps.
- User Interface
The dependency on technology means that graphic designers no longer work to create printed documents. Now, designers can choose to focus solely on the user interface (UI) to help users better interact with websites and apps. In fact, these are the people who create an excellent UX by working together with website developers. The UI is everything ranging from the website layout, screen, graphics, buttons, menus, and even tiny animations.
- Visual Identity
If your company is looking to develop its brand identity, then you should look for a unique graphic designer specialization that focuses solely on giving you a means to communicate the brand tone, personality, objective, essence, memories, and emotions. The visual identity designer will listen to the message and mission of your business to create items, shapes, colors, and images that depict you. They will also develop brand guidelines that provide ways for you to keep this brand identity well into the future.
- Packaging
Storage, distribution, marketing, sales—packaging design is a way to connect directly to the consumers and convince them to make a purchase. Therefore, packaging graphic design is a highly important piece of ensuring every bottle, bag, box, and label is going to tell the buyer what the brand is about. Package graphic designers develop mockups, print-ready files, and use a blend of photography, visual identity, and illustrations.
- Publication
Graphic designers are now breaking into the publication industry, because every good book has an ever better cover. Catalogs, books, newspapers, newsletters, and magazines all rely heavily on typography and graphics to look appealing to the reader. Need someone to create a mind-blowing anthology or textbook? Hire a publication graphic designer.
- Motion
Not all graphics and designs are stationary. Motion designers take bits of audio, typography, animation, imagery, video, and special effects to make amazing video content. Though motion is a new realm for graphic designers, this specialization is helping infuse moving graphics into all types of media platforms. Examples of motion graphic design include video ads, advertisements, animated logos, tutorials, promo videos, GIFs and websites.
While other graphic design specializations exist, these six on the ones most prominent right now. Knowing which specialization deals with what will help you when choosing the correct graphic designer for your job.