«New Stage 01 Magazine» by Matias Cano Design is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
Are you passionate about digital art? Do you want to be a graphic designer? This creative profession currently has multitude of job opportunities due to the increasing development of technology. Let’s get to know them!
First of all, it is convenient to know that to carry out many of these specialties, a complementary training of the designer is necessary, since it is impossible to cover them all in depth.
Table of Contents
Textile design
Textile design is undoubtedly one of the most creative branches of graphic design. You can create patterns to apply to a large multitude of products within the textile world: clothing, bedding, sofa covers, cushions and a long etcetera. If you are interested in knowing more about how to make a pattern, I encourage you to visit this previous post. If you also like to sew, success is guaranteed, being able to create unique and exclusive products.
Editorial design
Thanks to the editorial design, a text gains strength and makes the interest of those who read it grow much more. This branch of design is based on the layout and composition of publications (books, magazines, newspapers, album covers, etc.), focusing on their aesthetics, being able to add illustrations, photographs and digital images.
Having knowledge of editorial design, you will be able to work in publishers, media, agencies, etc.
Multimedia design
This branch of design is immensely broad. It is based on the use of photographs, sound, videos, text, etc, programmed on a digital medium. In this way you can create web applications, animations, graphics, advertising banners, trailers, video games, etc.
Being a multimedia designer you will not lack work today. Your knowledge will be necessary in advertising companies, video game creation, in the cinema and a long etcetera.
Illustration
Although it is normally thought that illustration is independent of graphic design, in reality today it depends a lot on it, since in the vast majority of occasions it will require a digitization, which has many more possibilities than analog drawing.
We will create illustrations by hand or digitally. Illustrations will be necessary in publishers (picture books, textbooks, magazines), in companies that design products (stationery, textile design, wallpaper, etc.) and in everything you can imagine that can be illustrated.
Within the illustration we can specialize in various branches, such as children’s illustration (focused on creating products for children, we talked about it in this previous post), scientific (fundamental to understand many scientific concepts, as we explained in another post), editorial (focused on magazines and books), the illustration of comics (manga, classic comics, etc.), the humorous (for example the typical humorous cartoons of the newspapers) and a long etcetera.
Advertising design
«Adidas Vader» by LuisMaram is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
Advertising graphic designers focus on creating images that sell a product (posters, brochures, etc). So the more sales psychology they know, the better.
Packaging or packaging design
It is closely related to advertising design, as it is the creation of packaging for products that are persuasive.
Design of corporate identity or branding
They help to create the distinctive brand of a company, something that makes it unique and different from the others, as well as its association with certain values.
Typographic design
They are designers specialized in the creation of lettering, that is, typography. Many brands today have products with lettering, as it is very fashionable.
Web design
It is one of the great departures of the graphic designer in the XXI century. We spend much of our lives browsing web pages. The more attractive and interesting they are (which depends a lot on aesthetics), the more clicks we will make and the more money will be generated. Therefore, the web designer is essential in these aspects.
Signage design
Wherever there is a sign (be it in theme parks, natural parks, city routes, shopping malls, roads …) there is a graphic designer behind it.
Photography
You can also dedicate yourself to photo retouching, by using different programs such as Photoshop.
And to you, what specialty do you find the most interesting?