Today we are going to discuss about difference between traditional design and all this new technology terms where designs that we have, like today we use UI/UX design, Visual design etc.
So today I will go briefly over what they are and also how the companies tends to be run and what you can expect from either of these 2 types of jobs.
Therefore let’s start with an easy one:
Graphic Design:
This is your traditional graphic design which you have probably studied in school or going to study or studying. It is an excellent foundation for any design creators that have everything to deal with graphics. So whether you decide to go into this technology or not, a graphic designer degree is going to help you immensely.
You will learn things like how to design logos, typography, colors, elements and principles of design, composition and using all of these things it typically leads to a job where you are doing advertising or package design or corporate logo design. You may also be doing campaigns that start from print ads to a Billboard or an online dinner ad or various marketing material that you pass out, for example. So all of these are more of the traditional graphic design applications.
The structure of traditional graphic design company is tends to be the owner, then creative director, then art director, then designers and then junior designers, lot of steps! Projects typically have a very definite scope and budget in mind. So you will be working in more of a what is called waterfall project management approach which means at the beginning of the project you get all the requirements, everything you need to know, all these aspects for print how big it needs to be, where this is going, how much budget it will require, how much you need to explore and then you need to work by staying within your budgeted hours and you hand it out.
So it’s a very high level overview of how a traditional graphic designer agency works.
Thus what are all these tech terms anyway?
First you have UI design – This is used in user interface design interface design. What that means is basically you are designing the top level layer of your website or web application or piece of software where you are deciding what the colors are, what the fonts are, and how much space goes between each level of management. Basically putting that visual furnish on top of the design beneath. Now what’s beneath?
That’s the UX design:
User experience designing is everything else that goes into the structure, so think about it as this is a blue print for the design layout. The way the user will go and use the application and accomplish the tasks that you are setting out to accomplish all these decisions and how you are given information and what content is underwent in a section of a website for example – all these things are considered in the user experience design.
Often user experience designing user interface design works pretty closely together and in some cases can even have the same job role. Sometimes you need to look at the tasks like planning, designing and organizing the things for that organization as well as actual visual interface on top of that.
There is also product design, visual design all kinds of other terms. You can design and for virtual reality, which are coming out. So basically the whole tech software kind of world is treated little bit differently. You don’t need to have a creative director, art director. You usually have a product manager or product owner. You kind of overseeing everything you are not necessarily working with clients either. So you are most likely to be working on the behalf of the company.
So if the company is for example: snapchat and if you are designing for snapchat you are not designing for a specific client. You are designing snapchat. The project management styles also really different. Whereas in traditional graphic design you have all the requirements of front end and you need to do work and send it back, that’s it!
In technology it’s more iterative and you may hear something called as agile development or agile methodology and what that means is that you take a little piece of the project, come up with ideas and solutions and rapidly prototype something out that is usable and workable tested piece of work, doesn’t need the goal we wanted to hit.
So if it’s not then move on. Keep testing; keep refining until you have something that works.
So instead of this big mountain of work, handed to you, you are working on some smaller pieces at a time, making changes on the go because technology moves so fast and requirements change all the time and your users will expect the things that you even don’t think about when you are going into conversation with them.
That allows you to continually make the product better. Whereas if you decided to just make the whole product in beginning its great, hand it off and then you can go and find out in real world it doesn’t really work or meet the needs that you wanted to, so you are just wasting your time and money.
That’s why in tech we use that agile iterative methodology instead. If you want to work in tech, you would need to have at least basic coding knowledge especially is going to be built by developers, so you don’t design something that’s not actually possible through the technologies that we have today and having a user experience, knowledge and insights is going to be key for these roles in tech.
You need to know how users are going to best complete the task in time and what’s going to be something that they expect. What’s going to meet them exactly, what they are requiring and how you are going to meet their needs before they realize they have that need?
So all of these things are going to be really important when it comes to designing for tech.
Now in traditional design you may have a more specific role than like graphic designer but in technology its little bit more different because we have often these overlap and they are all basically part of user experience. You may find that your job title isn’t quiet defined but that can also be a good thing because may be you don’t want to be doing only one thing, you want to have your hands in a bunch of part of the project.
Technology kind of allows you to use your skills where it is needed. The speed at which the traditional graphic design and design in tech go, now the technology is constantly changing, every year there are new development languages coming out. New tools are coming out. New design methodology, systems etc. it’s like you are always learning something new and if you are someone who likes setting needs to keep learning and knowing and trying new things and even trying new project types all other as a new things come out, technology is definitely for you.
But if you are more interested in getting deep into design and pushing how far you can go with design and once this tech medium that doesn’t change a whole lot, totally go with traditional graphic design.
I would say that the biggest difference between the traditional design an designing in tech is that the graphic design is more focused on the visual appeal, you know screaming from a mountain tops and you want everybody to see this to love what it looks like to be enticed by the design to buy that product or to go to the show or you know that the design itself is the movie star.
Whereas in technology design it’s really not so much about the visual appeal as it is used and being functional interestingly enough for developing a app. The best design for that app you don’t even know what’s there is almost like it is invisible.
When a design is so usable and so intuitive that, that average user does not even realize it is been designed to perfection. Now it’s good design according to tech and so you are really not going for the high visual appeal, you are going for the usefulness, this get the user to do what I want them to do without them having to think.
So if you love design and pushing the limits of design as far as visuals go and you are going into the aesthetics, graphic design is totally something you should do. If you are very curious like I am about how to make design seamless and like it’s almost not even there because it’s so perfectly done to where it just feels usable and natural then go more into the tech space.
I hope this blog clears your confusion about designing and if you have any questions or any additional comments, leave them down below. Thank you so much for checking this blog out and I will see you next time.
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