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Our daily life and every place we go is surrounded by graphic design, from a book cover to a restaurant decoration, on all of these projects there were involved a graphic designer, besides many people think that graphic design is already a single discipline, actually, it contains different field and specializations making it completely different one from another.
The graphic design consists on communicating ideas and solving problems using visual elements as imagery, color, forms, and typography, but the application of it can be really different from one field to another as every design specialization have their own particularity being completely different design a brand logo to create a signage system for an airport or city, that is why I made this post to show you the 9 different types of graphic design.
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Usually, when people outside of graphic design think about graphic designer it comes to their mind a person who design logos, but, logo design is only a single element inside the Brand Identity Design system, and branding or visual identity of a company is a group of visual elements used to transmit the story, values and voice of the company using visual language.
Brand and identity designers work to create a logo design, graphic elements, color palettes, typography, business cards, imagery, and more elements that the brand will require to transmit its values. Besides the creation of these elements, the graphic designers focused on brand identity design transmit the rules the company should follow regarding the visual elements and how to use them, this information is encapsulated inside the brand style and usage guidelines.
Brand Identity Design Examples
Big, bold logo designs seem to be re-conquering business and branding designs. According to the research of GS-JJ (a professional manufacturer who helps to integrate your logo design with your products), a few years ago, many customers liked badge logos. Badge logos have found a successful marketing strategy and are often used on pins and custom embroidered patches. As a stylish and personal way of conveying a brand’s identity, this trend continues to this day.
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Maybe advertising and marketing design is the most common field of graphic design and most people relate it directly with graphic design, and advertising consists on create graphic assets and imagery for marketing strategies in different media as online advertising, TV spots, or social media publications.
Advertising and marketing designers work to create ads that engage with their target audience to promote and communicate their products in the best ways, that is why they need to have knowledge on graphic design principles, color psychology and have marketing skills to understand the behavior of their target audience.
Advertising and Marketing Design Examples
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User Interface also known as UI design is growing every year with more designers specialized in this field, and companies understanding the importance of having a good UI design system. UI design refers to the process of design a friendly user interface to enhance the customer experience making it easy to use the website or the app they are working on.
As UI designer jobs are very related to web and app design user interface needs to understand the capabilities and limitations of their designs, but they don’t need to have coding knowledge, just some basic principles. UI design includes all the elements with which users can interact, being screens, buttons, menus, and more, and they are looking for the balance between aesthetic and functionality.
Examples of UI design applications
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Back in the days print design was the only are which graphic designers work, but with the digital environment and new technologies, they appeared in new design fields, but nowadays there are design jobs in print and editorial design.
Print and editorial design refer to create a layout for magazines, book covers, newspapers, poster design for a show and custom stickers that you can find in HVAC Sticker Design and Printing like and all kinds of printed media, , but nowadays it also can be applied for digital publications, ebooks, and online magazines. Editorial designers need to have knowledge of graphic design principles, visual hierarchy, color theory, and typography to be able to design a balanced layout.
Examples of print and editorial design applications
Think about any product from cereals to the newest phone, many physical products share one thing, and they need a package to store, distribute and sell them, but besides the functionality packaging design consists of talking directly to the customer and tell a story about the brand or product, being a really powerful marketing tool.
Every box, can or bottle can be perfect to tell a story of a brand, and using psychological tricks to attract the consumer attention and make him want to purchase that product, that is why a packaging designer job consist on design a concept, elaborate a mockup and made print-ready files, so to be a good packaging designer you should have knowledge on print processes, how industrial design works, color psychology, and typography.
Packaging Design Examples
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Lettering and typography design is a commonly overlooked field of graphic design, but thanks to social media it’s getting more popular, and lettering and typography design refers to the design of fonts, typefaces, and hand-lettered designs for a brand design system font, poster design and more type of applications.
Good typographer needs to have knowledge on the lettering science, visual hierarchy principles and font psychology as every font have a meaning hidden in their look and the choose of the right font can make a huge difference in the final appreciation of the design.
Typography and Lettering Design Examples
If you have read this post you already get the idea that the main focus of a graphic designer is to tell a story using visual elements, and that is the case of environmental design, that consist of connecting people with the place, give them a great experience and make the space a memorable time for the viewer.
They are many types of applications from an environmental design that consists of strategic signage, landmarks, informative banners, and more, depending on the function them they can be informative, interesting, or add a better experience for the user. The main attractiveness of environmental design is that it consists of a multidisciplinary field that merges architecture, interior, landscape, industrial and graphic design into one place.
Environmental Design Examples
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Besides the fact that illustration and graphic design are not similar, as graphic design is focused on solving problems and communicate ideas using visual elements, illustrators and digital artists create original artwork that can be used for fine art, decoration, storytelling, and more forms of application.
After this clarification, illustration is still used in the graphic design business and many companies are looking for graphic illustrators to create content for web design projects, social media, editorial design, and more commercial uses.
Graphic Illustration Examples
Motion graphic design type is really easy to understand as its name describe it perfectly, it consists of animate and creates motion to graphics, being this graphic design type really popular recently years as the technology is getting better making it easier for a graphic designer to animate their works and create video content.
Motion graphic design includes typography, imagery, audio, animation, and video used for online media, films, and television, also many companies and brand design projects include a motion design version of their brand logo including an animation of it. It is also important to talk about 3D design in motion graphics, as it’s gaining importance every year.
Examples of Motion Graphics Design
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Hope this post has been useful for you and discover the different types of graphic design specializations and their unique elements making it easier for you to decide what type of graphic designer you want to be and what type of design projects you want to do.
If you want to learn more about graphic design principles that all design fields share you can read these other articles and guides.
If you found this post useful you might like to read these post about Graphic Design Inspiration.
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