13 Types of Graphic Designs & Designers That You Need to Know About
Graphic design is the core of online business these days. Successful marketing is almost next to impossible without an effective and intelligent graphic designer. The more you aspire to do better in wowing your customers with flawless design, the stronger the visual representation of your organization. A knowledgeable graphics designer knows how to convey the message of the organization more clearly and conveniently.
There are various visual professionals in the market, but only those with a firm grip on their skills can excel.
Just outside your house, you see hundreds of examples of graphic design; your nearby coffee shop will have the billboard showing coffee spilling out of the cup and many other visuals. Who do you think has prepared it? Yes, you guessed it right; it results from the graphic designer’s creativity that the coffee shop hired. Similarly, the poster right across your street advertising the upcoming event at your local theatre is the work of a graphic designer. The things you interact with regularly are all created by the same type of visual expert. All such visual elements, creatively combined for maxim effect, communicate concepts and ideas, which is the real purpose of a graphic designer.
The real job of a graphic designer is to integrate working UX strategy and creativity and send over the right message of the brand. Another name of graphic design is communication design which is a skill that emphasizes explaining the message visually. The message can be digital and physical or could be anywhere in between. In simpler terms, graphic design is the art of achieving objectives by putting symbols, words, and even images in it. It allows visual communication and expresses ideas and concepts aesthetically using graphic tools and elements.
When people come across the term graphic design, each of them has a different association. Some people think about mobile applications, web design, brochures, and business cards. Others focus on brand identity and packaging design. There is no denying that graphic design has become an essential part of all businesses in this contemporary world. It plays an indispensable role by integrating aesthetics, technology, creative thinking, and voila! You can now broadcast your message, and it will remain etched in the mind of your audience. If you look around, you can come across various kinds of graphic design categories everywhere, from the morning cereal box to the process of booking a flight for your holiday.
However, one crucial thing to notice: each graphic design needs a particular set of design techniques and skills. Different designers specialize in a specific type of approach. Others focus on the set of similar and related styles. Even though they often overlap, the designers usually focus on the design area and then build those skills over the years. Therefore, you cannot expect your web designer to work on the other top jobs such as video editing as someone who has been doing this for years. It is an example only, but I am sure you have the gist of it.
Without any further ado, let us jump on several types of graphic design.
Visual Identity Graphic Designing
If you are a business owner, you can agree that all the businesses, no matter how big or small, have entirely different stories to tell. You may have an account, too. The report, however, could be anything from tragic to funny. Before describing the story to the audience, brands must have their own brand identity first. The visual identity graphic design is the pictorial elements of the brand that act as the brand face. They send over the message of intangible qualities with the help of shapes, colors, and images.
All graphic designers with a flair for visual identity design can draw typography, image libraries, and color palettes that show the company’s personality. Moreover, besides the standard business cards and memorandums, designers often prepare a set of visual brand guidelines that display clear practices. They also give examples of visual branding that is applied all over the media.
Visual identity graphic designers need to possess a general knowledge of all the kinds of graphic design that establishes design elements that are perfect for all the visual media. However, keeping design skills is not enough. To work as an all-rounder, you should have excellent communication skills, creative and conceptual skills, and a passion for researching industries, competitors, and trends. Visual graphic designers need to upgrade their skills in the marketing and graphic designing field. Because, while you are developing a visual identity, you must always consider how advertising and marketing will be.
Advertising and Marketing Design
People today are constantly bombarded with different marketing campaigns everywhere they go. We see them on TV, all the time. Even when you come across a YouTube video, you get to face a lot of advertisements. There is exposure to both good and bad - it only depends on the individual preferences of the end-user. When people see a great ad, their creators know the hit jackpot because they can measure its impact through the number of hits on the “shop” or “buy now” button and how soon after the ad plays. Such statistics are very suggestive of the effectiveness of marketing campaigns that harvest strong leads.
Pieces of advertisements fly by us every day. The marketing personnel of the business organizations bomb us on TV screens, paint every possible public space, and scream at the store shelves. Excessive advertising increases sales, which is the core purpose of all business organizations. But have you ever measured the duration of such a campaign’s design? One concrete campaign design takes hours, days even months to prepare. The marketing designers work with a whole creative team to develop the out of box idea for their campaign.
The advertising and marketing design branches into two: 1) printed advertisements that we see on billboards, television, catalogs, and 2) other materials that pass through the printing machine. On the other hand, this digital marketing is the one you do on social media and websites. Digital marketing includes all promotional videos and illustrations that you might have noticed online. Print and digital media have one thing in common: graphic designers. They are primarily responsible for all these creativities.
Digital Design
As discussed above, these are the designs created and produced to hit the big screen. Digital design encompasses distinct kinds of layout, including UI (user interface on apps, websites, and games) to 3D modeling. A digital designer is responsible for the visual elements of the customer’s digital experience. Things like color, size, and button placements - everything related to product look falls under their responsibilities.
If you want your digital designers to produce a stunning brand logo, you entrust them with something that automatically becomes a core factor in your company’s image. Your designers must be intimately acquainted with your true intent and mission. Because of that, it is best if digital designers are also key players within your team nest. Moreover, they go hand in hand with the UI developers who create codes that run the whole program.
Since the world is digitalizing with each passing day, there is an agreeable fact that this field will only continue to grow as consumers become more dependent on-screen time.
Web Design
Since you are already aware of the UI and UX design, let us give you a brief about it. The UI design is about creating interfaces that provide a great user-friendly experience. Moreover, a UI includes all item users interact with using a keyboard, mouse, and screen. However, in the graphic design context, UI focuses on the user’s visual experience and the on-screen graphic elements design like menus, buttons, micro-interactions, and many other things.
It is the job of a UI designer to balance technical functionality and aesthetic appeal. The UI designers are experts in working with web apps, desktop apps, games, and mobile apps. The UI designers work intimately with the UX designers who determine how the application works, and UI developers write code to make it work.
There is vast growth in the mobile app industry. Because of that, organizations have started delivering their content and services with the help of applications. With the extensive mobile design app, you will make the product beautiful and build a relationship between user and application. Those who have a flair for graphic design are aware of the current trends. They know the techniques and can create an application with a gorgeous interface, excellent art, and perfect icons.
Motion Graphic Design
In the contemporary marketing world, the motion graphic design, there is a growing demand among organizations to represent their products and services with short animations. Animations are not used for marketing purposes only, but we can achieve a wide range of goals by using them. They are ideal for mobile applications, animated texts, video games, subtitles, and much more.
Today, the young generation is widely using “gif” which is eminently spread among young people. It comes as an undeniable fact that motion graphic design bangs across all digital platforms.
There is no denying that 3D graphic design is gaining a lot of importance these days. It has become the most popular effect applied in all other industries. The 3D artists have various other strong and technical skills. Apart from computer-aided software and photography, these people master different effects, animation techniques, and lightning.
Publication Graphic Design
In the good old days, we used a single medium for news and information - print. There were times when significant quantities of paper-based pieces such as catalogs, books, newspapers, magazines, and many others flooded our cities. They still do, but time changed, and enormous technological progress brought an intricate alternative: the digital copy.
Everybody can agree that an individual spends at least five hours a day on their mobile phones. Therefore, it is not surprising that there is a considerable difference in newspaper reading today as people prefer reading news on the web. E-books have replaced paper books, and we choose the convenience of online shopping and often prefer it to its physical alternative.
Graphic designers with expertise in publication work with editors and publishers. They establish layouts with carefully selected typography and artwork, including illustrations, graphics, and photography. The publication designers also work as creative agency members, freelancers, or in-house employees in a publishing company. However, the publication designers must have some layout, organization, and excellent communication skills. Moreover, graphic designers should have a firm grip on digital publishing, color management, and printing.
Environmental Graphic Design
Whether you are discussing public transportation navigation, branding, or just retail store interiors, the environmental graphic design visually integrates people to places to enhance their overall experience by making the spaces more engaging, memorable, and informative. People are not aware of how environmental graphic design affects them daily.
Environmental graphic design is a multi-disciplinary practice that combines graphic, architectural, landscape, interior, and industrial design. Professionals need to have extensive information and practical experience in industrial, architecture, and graphic design.
Packaging Graphic Design
You may not have gauged it yet, but the packaging has dual roles: 1) to protect the product while storing and 2) to send out a message to consumers. It turns out packaging makes for an excellent marketing tool. The package designers are responsible for creating concepts, developing mockups, and creating print-ready files for a product. You need to have expert knowledge of the printing process and accurate comprehension of industrial manufacturing and design.
If your product is like the competitor’s product in packaging, few will notice, and it will make no difference for most. As a packaging designer, you must create an innovative product that stands out and follows up with a vital action feature.
Illustration for Graphic Design
There is a vast difference between graphic artists and graphic designers. The former creates original artwork while the latter develops compositions to send the message and solve visual problems.
Graphic designers use a broad range of techniques and media to develop their work by collaborating with writers, managers, editors, marketers. They also communicate their finished pieces with art directors across all graphic design types. These designers further have a foundation in animation, architecture, and fine arts.
The overlapping skills and applications make it possible to find graphic designers who work as illustrators and visual artists.
Set Prop Design
Costume designers are the heroes of television and film, while the set prop designers do not get any recognition. All these designers oversee all the elements of graphic design, which are essential for creating the film set. A designer goes through a regressive process to make one plan to blend in the scene quickly.
However, even if one of the props in the full set does not go with the theme, the viewer will notice it in an instant, and their whole concentration shifts to one wrong aspect of the whole group, and all their challenging work might go in vain.
Product Design
The product designers go through an entire design process for their products; there are six types of product designers.
- Interaction or UX Designers
Know how the application interacts with the needs of a consumer - Graphic or visual designers
Responsible for creating images that are the user interface - User Researchers
They have a grip on the minds of the customers - Data Analyst
For testing the products and assigning this data an analytical value - Prototypers
Can implement and test the ideas as cheap and fast as one can do - Business Strategists
Responsible for analyzing the strategy behind every design decision
This extensive list is enough to make the reader realize how extensive the entire process of product designing is. Although these all are separate roles, it is expected of the product designer to be an expert on each avenue. With the help of these designers, you deliver the message of your brand and the products to the customers. If your branding team promises a professional and compassionate experience, then your product designer ensures your clients receive it through flawless delivery and excellent communication skills.
Having a suitable product is one thing, but if you fail to fulfil your promise to your customers, you are only disappointing them.
Lettering/Typeface
Those who write journals and like to plan their day are aware of the art of creative lettering. If you are a stationery addict, then you must already know what lettering is. They have their grip on the distinct kinds of graphic design and all the other tools and software necessary to create aesthetic pieces using written words. The essential skill that you must have to be a typeface designer is the knowledge of typography, which in literal terms is the science of lettering.
The right typography can send over your message promptly. A lousy type of choice, however, can be pretty distracting, incomprehensible, and congested as well. Just mentioning the Nike logo makes you visualize it. This phenomenon is the result of effective branding and complex solutions to challenges like UX solutions for personal branding.
Human-Centered Design
Human-centered designs do not come in the design category. However, we can infer they are part of design thinking. It is more of a philosophy that says that informs all kinds of graphic design. You become a person of attention during the design process. It seeks to aptly identify a problem and then create solutions that focus on the needs and wants of a human user. It is what makes human-centered design different from other kinds of designs.
Every area of the human design process is dedicated to solving a problem. However, this methodology focuses on an individual who experiences a specific problem and how effectively the design will solve the problem.
Before the start of the creative process by the designer, they must know their audiences. To get a grip on the audience, the graphic designers immerse themselves in the community and continually observe everything around them. In this process, the designers use the information to create the designs and integrate the people.
Conclusion
The comprehensive article shows how critical graphic designers are in the current business world. You cannot imagine running your business without having a professional logo design. Without marketing your products or services? It means your business needs a creative designer to put your mind on the city’s billboard and show what your business is all about.
The extensive types of graphic designers show how they make our lives so much easier by providing their services. A good graphic designer is the backbone of the business. Distinct types of visual design overlap, and they can be further broken down into subgenres. It is all about what design style fits your project.
