Graphic design is a multifaceted profession. It has so many fields and specializations, such as Web Design or Editorial Design. That’s why a graphic designer can work almost everywhere. There are many companies that use graphic designers. They go from Internet and Software Development to Television Studios and Video Production Companies.
If you’re reading this, maybe you want to study graphic design. Before talking about the companies that use graphic designers, it’s a good idea to first talk about graphic design itself.
Graphic design is a profession that wants to send a visual message to specific social groups with a determined purpose.
The purposes are very diverse. They go from promoting a product, motivating the clients to buy it, or it can be to simply entertaining an audience to improve the interactivity or functionality of a system.
In the communication between a company and its clients, the designers’ job is to encode or transmit the message. They have to interpret, organize, and present the information harmonically and attractively.
Due to the vast and fast growth of dynamic data exchange, there is an increase in the demand for graphic designers. That growth allows the rise of new technologies and human factors that engineers can’t solve.
The most common graphic design areas are editorial, web, brand identity, advertising and marketing, packaging, and multimedia design. We already talked about them in a different article.
A designer hardly ever works alone. Most of the time, they need the help of other professionals. Some relate to visual messages like photographers or painters, and others not so much, like programmers or psychologists.
There isn’t an accord of the origins of graphic design about history. The concept and the objectives of a graphic designer are pretty new. The first one to use this term was William Addison Dwiggins in 1922.
Graphic design is related to every visual thing, such as road signs, menus, and memorandums. It’s also related to the brand elements like logo, colors, and typography. Here, the main goal is to transmit the values and philosophy of the company.
Graphic designers are responsible for creating logos, websites, magazines, and anything that is printed. Designing isn’t an innate ability. It comes after years of education, practice, and reflection. Creativity, intuition, and innovative ideas are the key to be a good designer.
Skills That Every Graphic Designer Needs
A graphic designer needs some applied skills to do their job, but they aren’t everything they need. Communication is essential too, and designers need to know how to preserve their position and clients’ ideas.
The applied skills aren’t as tricky as they may seem. But they have to be used appropriately. If they aren’t, the final work will not result as you want. These necessary and straightforward techniques are:
- Typography: it’s the set of techniques that allows designers to create types to make written language legible, appealing, and readable. The term is also applied to the modification and correct application of the existent types.
- Page layout: basically is the part of graphic design in charge of the arrangement of visual elements on a page. Designers need to know about composition to achieve the communicational objectives.
- Printmaking: it is the ability to create printed artworks, almost always on paper. This involves the creation of original prints, not only the reproduction of photographs.
These aren’t all the techniques, just the most common ones. There are other skills like the use of color pallets and visual communication. A lot of the time, they need to know about programming and even psychology and sociology.
As we said before, not everything is about their abilities. They need to know the correct use of some tools, most of them relating to computers and software. Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe InDesign, and Pixie are the most common ones.
Those are programs to organize the page’s composition, create new images, or modify the existing ones.
Companies That Use Graphic Designers
Sometimes it can be challenging to find a job as a graphic designer. Nowadays, only 64.3% of graphic designers find a job in their first year after graduation. Meanwhile, only 72.7% do it in their second year.
Those numbers could be scary for many people. We can’t forget graphic design is one of those saturated careers. Besides that, there are many opportunities every day for designers. Graphic design has many fields and specializations, which means many work opportunities.
Many companies are growing up pretty fast. Those ones offer many opportunities to the newbies and, at the same time, they need the experience of the older ones.
Before you start looking for them, you need to know which ones are the most common companies that use graphic designers and how they use them.
Advertising Firms
This is one of the best choices for new designers to prove their knowledge. Advertising firms usually need printed and digital material. Designers need to use images and typography to convince the clients to buy a product.
Here, designers need to organize marketing campaigns for a product and even create the packaging for it. Creating a package isn’t an easy task; it needs to be usable and attractive simultaneously. It’s work that an industrial designer can’t do alone.
Internet and Software Development Companies
Nowadays, creating a website involves more than typing a code. Websites need to enhance their usability by producing graphic and visual representations. Programmers aren’t as talented as designers for those things.
Not only that, but a website has to also be focused on improving the user experience. This means users need to enjoy being on the website. This is possible by designing a better interface, which is a job for the designer.
Communication Companies in General
There are two types of communication firms: those that use not-printed information and those that use printed information. Television studios and video production companies usually need multimedia designers to create ads. Not everyone can find a way to use moving images, logos, and slogans simultaneously. The final ads must be understandable, harmonic, attractive, and transmit the correct message.
The enterprises that use printed information, like newspapers, magazines, or books, need the abilities of an editorial designer to organize all the information and make it work.
Branding
Creating a brand involves more than just making a logo. Designers need to establish and transmit the values of the firm. They also need to build every visual component, like uniforms, mascots, color palettes, and, of course, a logo. Every day there are new companies that need these services.
Designers need a lot of creativity and persuasion to do this job. They don’t have to design just a pretty logo or something; they need to catch the clients’ attention and make them come back for more.
Designers can also work as freelance designers or in a design studio. All this depends on your skills and where you feel comfortable. Remember, these aren’t all the companies that use graphic designers, and they’re just the most common ones. This is just to give you an idea of what a designer can do and where they can work.