Potential Career Pathways Within Digital Design

Digital design is a wide-ranging field that provides opportunities for creatives with a variety of skills. This is a brief overview of just a few of the potential career pathways for professionals in the design industry.

Graphic Designer

Graphic designers develop visual media to promote events, businesses, and more. They play a part in creating logos, product packaging, and the page design of websites and printed materials.

For instance, if you work as a graphic designer for a technology magazine, you would be tasked with creating page layouts, choosing a visual direction for the issue, ensuring that the advertisements fit the magazine's overall aesthetic, and building custom fonts. Like many visual artists, graphic designers often include examples of their previous work in their portfolios when applying for new positions.

User Experience Designer

A user experience (UX) designer's role involves creating services, products, and processes that are intuitive for end-users. A critical aspect of their work is creating products that are enjoyable to use. UX designers commonly work in web design, where ease of use and aesthetics are equally important.

Production Artist

A production artist is in charge of the hands-on work in the production of art, graphics, or film. If you work as a production artist, you might upload and confirm that design files are accurate in the final stages of development. This role requires you to have skills in both computer applications and visual design.

Besides suggesting improvements before work is published, production artists often oversee the finishing touches like repositioning, retouching, scaling, or cropping. You would commonly be the final creative to work on a piece before it is released.

Creative Director

In this role, you would be working with clients and other stakeholders to determine the creative vision of projects. You would ensure that all of the aesthetics are sharp and coherent. You would also lead a team through each step of the creation process of a project, such as a magazine cover, film, video game, or advertising campaign. Creative directors also oversee more abstract concepts, like building a brand's identity.

Becoming a creative director is typically achieved after gaining years of experience across several different disciplines within digital design. Creative directors are expected to have skills that include leadership, creativity, and time management.

If you're interested in visual media and art, you can find a role that meets your creative interests in digital design. The Tulane School of Professional Advancement has a digital design program that offers students three different degree tracks that provide them with the skills they need to pursue a variety of roles within the industry. To learn more about our program or to speak to an academic advisor, request more information today.