To say that designers come in all shapes and sizes actually isn’t far off the mark. Thanks to technology, there is a wide range of design-related roles and a number of different responsibilities encompassed by the umbrella — and rather broad and vague — term “designer”. These days, designers can focus on print (brochures, newsletters, magazines) and tech (websites, mobile apps), with many doing a combination of both.
Many creatives are feeling the pressure to diversify their skills so they can be the “jack-of-all-trades” designer many companies are looking for. This new hybrid of designer can create visually appealing materials for both print and tech, conduct user research and even do a bit of front-end development.
Here’s a breakdown of design titles and what each role would typically handle:
- UX Designer (User Experience Designer): UX Designers are concerned with how the product feels and ensure that a product logically flows from one step to the next. By identifying verbal and non-verbal stumbling blocks, they refine and iterate to create the “best” user experience.
- UI Designer (User Interface Designer): UI Designers focus on how the product is laid out. They are in charge of designing each screen or page with which a user interacts and ensuring that the user interface visually communicates the path that a UX Designer has laid out. They are responsible for creating a cohesive style guide and ensuring that a consistent design language is applied across the product. The boundary between UI and UX Designers is fairly blurred and it is not uncommon for companies to opt to combine these two roles.
- Visual Designer (Graphic Designer): These designers aren’t concerned with how pages link to one another or how the customer interacts with the product, they are focus on the aesthetic. Graphic Designers assemble images and typography — relying on color, form and space fundamentals — to create a designed piece. Visual Designers sweat the small details that others often overlook to inject beauty and life into the brand. With many companies, the duties between UI Designer and Visual Designer are often merged into one position.
- Visual Artist (Graphic Artist): As the term artist implies, they create the images or illustrations that are used in print and tech designs.
- Interaction Designer (Motion Designer): Whereas Visual Designers and Artists deal with static assets, Motion Designers create animation, like transition and menu effects.
- UX Researcher (User Researcher): Through researching and gathering market data, the UX Researcher focuses on who the user is and what the user wants. In some cases, UX Designers do double duty as UX Researchers.
- Front-end Developer (UI Developer): Working with a UI Designer who creates a static mock-up, it’s the job of the Front-end Developer to translate it into a functional product through code like CSS, HTML and JavaScript.
West Press’ talented staff is here to help you each step of the way – from graphic design to printing to mailing services to large format to website development. Contact West Press or your Account Executive at 520-624-4939 today.