“Good design is all about making other designers feel like idiots because that idea wasn’t theirs.”
— Frank Chimero (self-described as a multi-disciplinary designer, accidental writer, and lapsed illustrator)
Ask any designer and they will probably tell you that Graphic design is a beautiful career with many rewards, but on the other hand, it can also be quite frustrating and not to mention competitive. In recent years the amount of graphic designers in the UK has grown exponentially, yet it seems like there is still room for everyone — One of the great things about this career is the many branches it has!
Just here at Printsome, we’ve come up with 50 different jobs a graphic designer can do. Take a look — you might be surprised at just how much stuff there is out there!
Graphic Design Jobs in Marketing
Marketing Exec – you’ll create promotional materials, like coupons or ads that show shoppers what the latest sales are.
Branding designer – for a lot of really well-known companies, their branding is so strong that you can recognise one of their products instantly with a small piece of information (like a specific colour, say).
Logo design – though it’s a niche, there are plenty of people whose entire job consists of creating logos. This is perfect for designers who love to spend a good time on the drawing board.
Content strategist – these people love to help consumers have the right experience with a brand or client’s content, and graphic design goes a long way towards helping that.
Email marketing – yes, you can have a career designing emails to make sure they meet client’s communications needs and goals. You’ll need to work with HTML and CSS.
Advertising designer – you’ll work with the rest of the advertising team – including copywriters and the art directors – to come up with the perfect way to advertise a client’s product.
Director of advertising – if you’ve got a background in ads, then you can rise to become the director of advertising, who not only will need to know how to make the ads look good, but will have to deal with clients, too.
Graphic Design Jobs in Product Development
Package design – there are so many things you can do with a box, bottle, or bag, and there are plenty of people who specialise in coming up with new ideas to do just that.
Label design – a good label can really make a product, so if you’re good at labels, why not go down this route?
Physical container design – somebody has to figure out how all those shampoo bottles and cereal boxes look, don’t they?
Production designer – want to work in the glamorous world of theatre, film, or television? You’ll be in charge of the visual concept for an acting production as part of the art department.
Graphic Design Jobs in Editorial
Editorial design – this means you’ll come up for designs for things like newspapers and magazines to get the perfect balance between images and text.
Book editorial design – you can specialise even further and just focus on book cover design. These designers also work on supplementary materials to promote those titles.
Layout artist – this is another niche of editorial design, meaning you only focus on layouts of print publications.
Prepress technician – this job involves revising proofs and making sure they look good and are clear, as well as transforming what you get given of text and images into a final page.
Information graphics design – some people know how to organise information to make it instantly understandable. These people should definitely consider careers in information graphics design!
Graphic Design Jobs in Development
Front end web designer – in normal person speak, this means what the websites look like (the front end), while developers take care of all the code that makes the sites run (the back end). You’ll probably have to know a bit of coding.
Designer/developer – this goes one step further than the one above, making you the person who both designs what the website looks like and does the coding work to make the website run properly.
User interface (UI) designer – this specifically relates to the parts of a website or application that users will interact with. A UI designer does things like buttons to make the app work and typography to help with the interface.
User experience (UX) designer – this has a lot of overlap with other web design areas, and it means that you’ll be in control of how the user finds their way around a website or an app. Usability is really important here!
Flash designer/developer – this means you’ll work on anything online that requires the use of Flash or Actionscript.
Information architect – do you want to help a client design their website and come up with a strategy for how they want it to work? This is the job for you.
Mobile designer – there is so much stuff for mobile these days, which translates to so many jobs designing for mobile.
Motion design – this overlaps with graphic design, though it isn’t always the same. You’ll use digital tools to make things like apps, video games and animation come to life, as well as things like storyboards and illustrations.
Software quality assurance tester – this sounds really techy, but you can help people figure out how their programs or websites are working, then help them design a new one to make it better.
Visual design – combining images, colours, typography and shapes, visual designers help make the user experience of a website or app even better.
Interaction designer – this is another digital one, where you’ll combine technology and your design background to make a website make sense and be easy to use.
Graphic Design Jobs in Creativity
Creative services manager – you’ll need some experience to do this job, which involves liaising between a creative department and management to oversee projects.
Creative director – hello, Don Draper! You’ll need to know how to maximise your team’s potential, plus be good at having the final say on projects. Oh, and don’t forget about managing client relationships.
Typographer – many would argue that this is a profession that is not related to graphic design, but they’re deeply intertwined. The way I see it is that a Typographer is a graphic designer specialised in letters.
Imagineer – described often as one of the best jobs in the world, an Imagineer basically designs attractions and experiences for the Walt Disney Parks around the world.
Graphic Design Jobs in PR
Presentation specialist – you’ll need to know how effectively summarise and organise information if you want a job that’s about creating presentations for clients.
Exhibition designer – this is another one where it’s not strictly graphic design, but you’ll get to use a lot of your skills to come up with aesthetically pleasing designs for things like trade show stands or art gallery exhibitions.
Environmental graphics designer – you’ll combine lots of different design disciplines, one of which is graphic, to shape the experience people have in a place.
Graphic Design Jobs in Printing
Print designer – a technical field, you’ll almost always need to have gone to graphic design school to land this job. Print may not be as popular as it used to be, but there’s still plenty around.
Textile Designer – ever wondered how those beautiful prints got on your shirt? There’s a person who designs them.
T-shirts designer – everyone loves a good T-shirt, don’t they? This is a great career to stretch your creative potential.
Poster Designer – affichiste is the French word for designers that specialise in poster design.
Printmaker – if you love prints, then you can dedicate your entire career to creating beautiful prints or all types. Successful printmakers use traditional techniques and digital printing.
Graphic Design Jobs in Other Industries
VJ – which stands for video jockey, is a special kind of designer that creates a live video performance during a live concert or DJ Session. Our coworker Hayley leads a double life as Printsome’s graphic designer by day and VJ by night.
Graphics Coordinator – is the person who’s in charge of managing the graphics that are projected during a live television show.
Multimedia designer – if you’re a mac of all trades, you can do all kinds of stuff in multimedia, from television to set design to production design.
Film title designer – who do you think comes up with those title and credit sequences in films? That’s a graphic designer specialised in film titles.
Designer for a public relations firm – these companies always need to communicate information quickly and effectively about their clients, and a graphic designer who knows how to do this can definitely come in handy.
Instructor – do you love showing other people how to blossom and become graphic designers themselves? Then why not try your hand at becoming an instructor or professor of graphic design?
Photography – while not strictly graphic design, if you already have an understanding of what sorts of images look good on certain materials, you have a good groundwork for making a good photographer.
Broadcast designer – this person is in charge of graphics for television programs, and you’ll be required to be up-to-date on the latest software to create these graphics.
Visual image developer – similar to an illustrator, these people use techniques like image edition, photography and 3D modelling to show a concept.
Emojis designer – while it is still early to tell if this is going to become a viable career path in the future or not, it is certain that there are people nowadays who spend their entire workday designing emojis (and are making good money of it, too).
Now, next time somebody asks you what you’re planning on doing with your design degree, you can just show them this list! There are so many different fields and niches that a graphic designer can get into. Whether it’s designing T-shirts or creating an easy to navigate website, we’re sure you can find the graphic design job that’s the right fit for you.
Print on Demand
Here at Printsome, we’ve always supported creative endeavours. Through our print on demand services, we are helping agents, artists, entrepreneurs, designers and content creators who have their own T-shirt line.
We deal with all the inventory and logistics headaches so you have more time to do what you love.
No matter if you want to sell merch all over the UK, Europe or the rest of the world. We deliver anywhere. T-shirt drop shipping has never been this easy!
If you want to sell quality garments, Printsome’s Print on demand service is exactly what you are looking for. Our garments are handpicked and thanks to our +6 years of experience in the T-shirt printing industry we ensure the highest print quality. You can take a look at our items here in our catalogue.
We make life easier for you. We don’t have minimum orders and can print any design with no colour limitations. From the moment you connect your online shop with our Shopify T-shirt fulfillment platform, anyone can buy one of your designs.
If you have any doubt, you can contact us here. Our friendly team of printing advisors will help you.
2 Comments
This is by far the most informative site regarding careers in graphic design I have found. As a designer of 20 plus years (ha hum) I was wondering what information there was today for the young designers and so did a little google search (as you do). So many sites are frustratingly lightweight. Yours, on the other hand, is definitely the ‘go-to’ place. Great business idea too.
Well done
Hi Ann. Thank you so much for the feedback. We’re glad you like our content 🙂