9 Types of Graphic Design for Beginners to Enhance Creativity

Summary: The field of graphic design is vast and comprises different design types including motion design, web and UI design, packaging design, advertising design, and so on. Get more insights on different types of graphic design in the article below.

Graphic designing is one of the best ways to represent content or information through visually appealing graphics. Graphic designers often make use of layout, font, images, etc., to create graphics that appeal to customers. However, the term graphic design is diverse and is not restricted to just designing images, posters, or logos.

Graphing designing is inclusive of various designing fields having their own skill sets, job profile, and scope. Some of the most common fields include advertising, environmental, publication, motion, corporate, web and UI design.

If you want to build your career in any of these fields, then continue reading to learn more about different types of graphic designs in the article below.

What is Graphic Designing?

Graphic designing is a way of creating captivating visual content that conveys messages or presents information to customers. The designing can be done for different types of content such as logos, banners, images, motion videos, and so on. Graphic designers are visual communicators who incorporate various elements for bringing the visual concept to life through aesthetically appealing graphics.

Nowadays, graphic design software helps them in creating interesting content in a short time with minimal effort. Graphic designing is a vast category and comprises multiple types as enumerated in the article below.

What are the 9 Types of Graphic Design?

• Web Design
• UI Design
• Packaging Design
• Advertising Design
• Motion Design
• Environmental Design
• Informational Design
• Publication Design
• Corporate Design

Graphic designing is a good way for visualizing different content types. There are multiple types of graphic design fields that you can consider for your career such UI designer, illustrator, motion designer, and so on.

Here is the list of top 9 types of graphic design along with their job expectations, expected salary, and job title.

• Web Design

Web designers focus on designing all the visual elements of a website. These include its page layout, images, typography, and so on to create a visually appealing website for its users.

Additionally, they also place the logos, images, and other elements in an appropriate setting for creating a responsive website. Designers closely work with the UI team for creating an optimal balance of appearance and usability.

Examples of Web Design

• Landing pages
• Home pages
• Hub pages on websites

Available Job Title: Web designers

Average Salary Globally: Starts from $53k/year according to Glassdoor

Future Career Demand: The career demand for web designers is expected to grow in the coming years. This is due to the fact that businesses create websites to expand their reach and customer base.

Best Software for Web Design: Adobe Dreamweaver, Figma, and Sketch

• UI Design

UI design is about designing websites or applications in such a manner that it is easy to use and deliver user friendly experience to users. It includes designing all the features of an application that users can interact with such as the screen, menus, buttons, etc., to improve the customer experience.

UI designers follow certain rules of design and usability to balance both the aesthetic appeal and functional side of a website or application. Graphic designers in this field are specialized in designing apps, websites, and software.

In addition to graphic design expertise, designers also need to have knowledge of various programming languages such as CSS, JavaScript, etc.

Example of UI Design

• Application design
• Dashboard design
• Web pages design
• Website theme design

Available Job Titles

• UI designer
• Visual designer
• Product designer

Average Salary Globally: Starts from $54,588/ year according to abdz website

Future Career Demand for UI Designers: The job opportunities for UI designers will grow in the future as they are responsible for creating user-friendly and responsive website designs.

Best Software for UI Design: InVision, Figma, and Adobe XD

• Packaging Design

The designs are created for improving the visual appearance and feel of any product’s exterior packaging. The designers focus on designing the logo, layout, and typography of a packing that resonates the brand identity to its customers.

The main role of these designers is to create unique packaging for products that set them apart from the competition. Retail, cosmetics, and food are some of the most popular industries where product packaging is a valuable marketing tool for roping in new customers.

Packaging Design Examples

• Makeup containers
• Cereal boxes
• Glass containers

Available Job Title

• Graphic designers
• Branding designers
• Brand identity design

Average Salary Globally and India: Starts from $69,978/year according to ZipRecruiter.

Future Career Demand: The job opportunities for branding designers will grow in the coming future as businesses focus on marketing and advertising to promote their products and services.

Best Software for Packaging Design: Adobe Illustrator, Canva, and CorelDRAW

• Advertising Design

Under advertising design, designers create print and digital materials for marketing and advertising campaigns. Ad designers must come up with catchy designs for billboards, brochures, social media graphics, signage, and banners to grab the attention of customers.

In this type of design, designers study the customer psyche and behavior to create different advertising materials. Additionally, they also create promotional content for digital media including digital brochures, social profiles, email marketing templates, etc.

Examples of Advertising Designing

• Social media graphics
• Email marketing templates
• Brochure designing
• Newspaper advertisements

Available Job Title: Illustrators

Average Salary Globally: Starts from $63,164/year according to ZipRecruiter

Future Career Demand for Advertising Design: In this digital marketing era, the demand for designers in marketing and advertising for creating promotional content is increasing.

Best Software for Advertising Designing: DesignWizard, Canva, and Blender

• Motion Design

Today, the use of motion designing has increased due to the growing popularity of video content. Motion designing includes adding motion effects to graphics. This type of design is used for creating animated videos, GIFs, promotional videos, and title sequences.

Motion designers start by creating a story board and adding different videos, animated texts, etc., to turn their concepts into reality. Designers in this field need to have a fair knowledge of coding, 3D modeling, animation, etc.

Examples of Motion Designing

• Video games
• GIFs
• Advertisements
• Animated texts
• End credit scenes

Available Job Title: Motion graphic designers

Average Salary Globally: Starts from $35,500 according to ZipRecruiter

Future Career Demand: The demand for motion designers is expected to increase in the future owing to the increasing use of motion effects in video gaming, television, and film industries.

Best Software for Motion Designing: Adobe Photoshop, Maya, and Blender

• Environmental Design

Environmental design is the process of making plans, policies, buildings, products, etc., after taking into account all the environmental parameters. It is meant to create spaces that will help to enhance the social, cultural, physical environment of a specific location. This type of design is multi-disciplinary and includes the elements of graphic, interior, architectural, landscape, etc., to for developing architecture.

Further, this type of design can also be used to make a place more memorable, attractive and easy to navigate for people through designing signages, murals, etc.

Wayfinding is also an element of environmental design as it helps people with the place they are visiting and the next route they need to follow. This can be done through signages and virtual cues. A designer working in this field needs to have knowledge of both graphic design and architectural design.

Environmental Design Examples

• Signage
• Murals
• Exhibitions
• Stadium Branding
• Event Spaces

Available Job Title

• Associate designer
• Draftsmen

Average Salary Globally: Starts from $49739/year according to ZipRecruiter

Future Career Demand for Environmental Design: Job opportunities for environmental designers will increase in the future because the government is focusing more on creating resilient and sustainable urban places for people.

Best Software for Environmental Design: SketchUp, Autodesk Revit, and MicroStation

• Informational Design

Information designing is done to present data in a visual format. Often, the information design is done in the form of infographics to represent the relevant information in an easy format for the audience.

Information designers focus more on representing the information in a concise manner than making it visually appealing. These designers need to have expertise in several disciplines such as infographic designing, data representation, technical writing, editing, etc.

Example of Information Design

• Brochures
• Websites
• Wayfinding visuals
• Manuals
• Infographics
• Restaurant menus

Available Job Titles

• Illustrator
• Infographic Designer

Average Salary Globally: Starts from $77,183/year according to ZipRecruiter

Future Career Demand: More and more businesses are creating digital infographics for representing data. Hence, the job opportunities for designers who can create infographics would increase in future.

Best Software for Information Designing: Canva Infographic Tool, Piktochart, and Venngage

• Publication Design

In publication design, graphics are created for digital publications such as newspapers, blogs, online newsletters, etc. It includes framing and aligning different aspects of a digital publication such as illustrations, layout, graphics, font style, and so on.

The main purpose of publication designing is to create visually appealing graphics that represent information in a readable format through proper para sizing and text font. This might also include adjusting and formatting the titles, footers, and headers as per the digital publication requirements.

Examples of Publication Design

• Books
• E-books
• Catalogs
• Magazines
• Newspapers
• Newsletters

Available Job Titles

• Production artists
• Layout artists
• DTP artists

Average Salary Globally: Starts from $36974/year according to Glassdoor

Future Career Demand: Nowadays, companies are likely to hire designers having other designing skills like web designing along with desktop publishing. Therefore, the demand for dedicated publication designers is likely to decrease.

Best Software for Publication Design: Adobe InDesign, Xara Designer and Flipsnack’s design studio

• Corporate Design

Corporate designing is popular in corporations to build and maintain the relationship with its customers through an impressive visual brand identity. Graphics created by corporate designers represent the face of a brand to the respective audience. To create a visual identity, designers have to work on font style, colors, typography, etc.

Many corporate designers work with the marketing and sales teams to create different visual assets such as logos, slogans, images, color palettes, etc. Such design assets are used in designing products to maintain a consistent brand identity that the audience can relate to.

Examples of Corporate Design

• Logos
• Colors
• Business cards
• Newsletter
• Stationery

Available Job Title

• Brand identity designer
• Logo designer

Average Salary Globally: Starts from $61088/year according to Glassdoor

Future Career Demand: The demand for corporate graphic designers will be high in the future as more organizations are eager to improve their brand image for better customer engagement.

Best Software for Corporate Design: Canva, Figma, and Adobe Illustrator

How Graphic Designing Software Can Help?

Graphic designing software can help in accelerating the designing procedure by helping designers to easily create and manipulate designs. Some other benefits of using the software for designers include-

• Generating designs and images with industry-specific templates
• Creating website prototypes and mockups quickly
• It is easier for teams to work and collaborate on projects in real time
• Creating different logos, posters, and layout to match the brand image
• Generating motion designs with 3D effects and transitions
• Customizing a website assets like colors and layout easily
• Exporting and sharing the designs in multiple formats

Conclusion

If you want to build a career in graphic designing, there are ample options available to choose from such as UI, web, and motion designer. You can choose any of them based on your interest level.

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