VISUAL DESIGNER: Meaning, What They Do, Salary, Software & Difference

For a business’s digital platforms, visual designers design layouts and visual components. They use their understanding of typography, colors, graphic design tools, and other specialized approaches to create a brand’s distinct online appearance. Visual designers guarantee that brand style is consistent throughout digital channels, such as social media and mobile devices. Here’s what you should know about a visual designer, including their job description, salary, visual designer software, and visual designer vs. graphic designer.

Visual Designer

Visual designers are concept artists who create complete brand images, story visuals, and artistic visions for design projects. They communicate with their customers to ascertain their objectives and ideas for marketing strategies, media advertising, and the brand of a business or product. They come up with big-picture plans for the look and feel of the design across many different mediums and platforms.

Job Description Visual Designer

This job description template for a Visual Designer is optimized with the most important job duties and qualifications. It is very simple to post jobs on online job sites.

The Responsibilities of a Visual Designer Include:

Working with internal teams to define the needs of the user interface.
Combining different colors, shapes, and fonts can make the user experience better.
Original graphics can be made by hand- painting or using drawing apps.

Job Brief

In this job description template, we are searching for a skilled visual designer to lead and own the creation of our products’ user interfaces.

To ensure that our branding is appealing and consistent, you will collaborate with a cross-functional team of designers, engineers, and product managers for this position. We’d like to meet you if you can communicate ideas and information through pictures, graphics, and patterns.

Finally, you will design products that are appealing to the eye, embody our brand, and draw in customers.

Responsibilities

Collaborate with team members to define the user interface needs.
To improve user experience, combine different colors, shapes, and typographic fonts.
Create original images by hand painting and using drawing programs.
Improve illustrations using visual design software.
To improve digital photographs, use sketching techniques such as gradients and contrasts.
To obtain approval, present early drafts to product managers and/or important stakeholders.
Develop prototypes and models to be used in a variety of products in order to maximize aesthetic consistency.
Create new ideas, layouts, and visuals.
Stay up-to-date with changes in design applications and changes in the industry.

Requirements and Skills

Proven experience as a visual designer, UI designer, or in a similar field is needed.
Portfolio of similar works (e.g. logos, animations, and graphics)
Experience with photo editing and digital sketching applications such as Photoshop, InDesign, and Adobe Illustrator.
Knowledge of HTML/CSS is required; JavaScript is an asset.
Excellent aesthetic skills, including the capacity to mix different colors, typefaces, and layouts
Having the capacity to meet deadlines when working on team projects
Pay close attention to the visual details
BSc in Design, Visual Arts, or a related qualification

Visual Designer Salary

As of March 28, 2023, the average salary for a visual designer in the United States is $68,821, but the salary range is usually between $61,610 and $76,928. Salary levels can vary greatly based on a variety of significant aspects, including education, certifications, additional talents, and the length of time you have worked in your field.

What are Top 10 Highest Paying Cities for Visual Designer Jobs

We’ve found 10 cities where the average salary for a Visual Designer job is higher than the average salary across the country. The first place on the list is Sunnyvale, California. Livermore, California, and Santa Rosa, California, are close behind in second and third places, respectively. Santa Rosa, California, is $18,993 (20.8%) above the national average, and Sunnyvale, California, is another $22,573 (24.7%) above the average of $91,250.

Since the average salaries in these 10 cities are higher than the national average, it seems like a visual designer could make a lot of money by moving to a different city.

Lastly, another thing to think about is that between Sunnyvale, CA, and Costa Mesa, CA, the average salary of a visual designer in these top ten cities only varies by 10%, which shows that there isn’t much room for wage growth. The most important thing to take into account when choosing a location and salary for a position as a visual designer is the potential for a low cost of living.

Visual Designer Software

Those of us who have worked with good visual designers know how valuable they are. A group of designers recently told us about their favorite software applications, so we made a list. There’s something here for everyone, whether you’re a new or aspiring designer or a business owner who wants to do her own visual design. the following are software applications for a visual designer

#1. Grid of Inspiration

We all know what it’s like to be out of ideas. Everyone would do the visual design if it were easy, right? Some days, it’s easy to come up with one unique design after another. On other days, it can feel like pulling teeth. Ron Larracas, who is the Head of Design at Insureon, uses Inspiration Grid on those days to get out of a creative rut.

Inspiration Grid has a lot of different categories, such as art, graphic design, and interior design, so no matter what you do, you should be able to find something you like. When you look at other people’s beautiful work, it might spark your own ideas. For example, you might see a layout or typography that could be changed to fit your client’s branding guidelines.

#2. Adobe Creative Suite

We’re willing to bet that not a single visual designer would disagree with including the Adobe Creative Suite on a list of the best software for designers. The Creative Suite, which includes Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign, provides you with a vast arsenal of powerful tools to help you create anything you can think of.

One of our favorite aspects of the newer Creative Cloud (CC) setup is that updates are easier and more frequent. Adobe simply notifies you when a new version is available and asks if you want to download it. This also means that any new features added to the software by Adobe (such as filters, tools, or plug-ins) are automatically added to your toolbox at no extra charge. Trust the hype: Adobe CC provides the most powerful tools for designers on the market. Also, Proto.io and Photoshop work well together, much like peanut butter and jelly.

#3. Canva

Canva is another great software suitable for a visual designer. We’ve mentioned it before, and we’ll mention it again because it’s that good. Signing up and using it are both free. They have a design school for people interested in learning more about visual design, but they also have templates if you need a quick social media image, poster, or banner.

#4. Sketch

The sketch is a visual designer software that only works on Macs and is mostly used for digital design. Websites, apps, and interfaces are made with the help of these digital designs. The sketch isn’t made for photo editing or print work like Photoshop is. With Sketch, you can work together with other designers right on the platform to make a prototype. The software has a feature called “smart layout,” which changes the size of each component based on what it contains. There are hundreds of plug-ins for the software that allows the visual designer to edit vectors and do other design work with pixel-perfect accuracy. One more thing that can be made with this visual designer

Software is a digital icon. On the other hand, Sketch is not very good for print design or making illustrations.

Visual Designer vs Graphic Designer

The main difference between visual designers and graphic designers is that visual designers create an artistic message or the vision for various components and projects across a vast array of platforms and mediums, which is the responsibility of the art director, while graphic designers create specific visuals within that vision. Here are some ways that these two jobs are different:

#1. Goals

Visual designers listen to what clients say and use that information to come up with a plan for how all the graphics and visuals for a brand, product line, or company identity will look and fit together. Graphic designers also make content and images for a brand. Instead, their goal is to promote existing brand content by designing individual images or visuals.

#2. Roles and Job Titles

Depending on the company, graphic designers and visual designers may have different job titles and do different kinds of work. Visual designers may have titles like “art director,” “brand designer,” or “creative director.”

Graphic designers are also known as web designers, digital designers, branding designers, and professionals in visual communication.. When looking for jobs in visual or graphic design, it’s important to find out what the duties and tasks are. Sometimes, a job candidate may be asked to do tasks that belong to both categories.

#3. Duties

Digital images are created by graphic designers for use on websites, e-readers, applications, and other electronic spaces. As part of their jobs, they often have to figure out what a project is about, figure out what the project goals are, come up with creative drafts, edit, and finish the artwork.

Visual designers create promotional artwork for businesses, including logos, advertisements, and product packaging. Their jobs include talking to customers, delegating tasks, overseeing graphic design submissions, and making design plans that work well together.

#4. Platforms and Tools

Designers depend on their ability to translate their artistic skills in photography, sculpture, different paint mediums, and pencil work to the digital realm. Graphic designers and visual designers both use the same kinds of tools and digital platforms to do this. They probably both know how to use Photoshop, Illustrator, Adobe InDesign, Adobe XD, Dreamweaver, and other digital creation tools.

Most of the time, visual designers have to talk to clients and give presentations. Because of this, they often use Microsoft Office tools, PowerPoint, and other animation tools that work with multimedia.

#5. Qualifications

Employers have different educational requirements for positions in graphic design. People seeking employment in this profession typically need a certificate, an associate’s degree, or a bachelor’s degree in graphic design, fine arts, or a related field.

Many careers in visual design require at least a bachelor’s degree, and oftentimes a master’s, in digital media, visual design, or visual communications. Earning a professional diploma in visual effects, digital editing, current media, or marketing may also be beneficial for those seeking visual design positions.

#6. Salaries

An entry-level graphic design job pays an average of $47,462 a year. Those who advance to a job as a senior graphic designer earn an average of $63,531 a year. Senior executives earn around $10,000 more per year than the average American worker.

A profession in visual design is often more lucrative than a career in graphic design. A junior visual designer receives a median salary of $111,389 per year, while senior designers earn an average of $87,667 per year. High-level visual designers who work as associate creative directors also make an average salary of $121,857 annually.

What Is Visual Designer vs UX UI Designer?

Visual design is largely concerned with aesthetics and brand identification, taking into account how the product and associated materials seem. UI design takes into account both the way a product looks and how it works when the user interacts with it.

What Is a UI Visual Designer?

A highly trained digital expert who develops a website’s design is known as a “user interface” (UI) visual designer. The user interface is what a person sees when they visit a website, use software, or open an app. UI design is similar to graphic design and web design, mostly because they all involve coding.

What Is the Difference Between a Web Designer and a Visual Designer?

Graphic designers should be consulted when creating anything for print, including commercials, marketing materials, logos, social media photographs, and newsletters. But, if you want to make changes to your site to make it load faster, you should speak with a web designer. Websites are built from the ground up and optimized for mobile use.

What Can a Visual Designer Do?

For digital projects, a visual designer develops ideas, visuals, and layouts based on creative briefs and client meetings. The responsibilities of a visual designer are usually project or industry-specific, hence, job descriptions frequently require expertise in a certain field.

Where Do Graphic Designers Work?

Graphic designers are mostly hired by advertising firms, branding specialists, design consultancies and studios, media and communication companies, packaging companies, PR agencies, and publishing companies.