Ask Us Anything About The Digital Designer Role
We Answer Your 7 Burning Questions About A Digital Design Job
There’s no doubt that Sussex is home to a very talented bunch of people who have helped the local digital, media and tech sector to thrive. But what about those who are just starting out and brimming with untapped potential? Or those who haven't quite found their feet in a digital career yet? When it comes to a new job, we’ve all experienced that reluctance to ask questions due to fear of embarrassment. Sometimes it’s simply a matter of not knowing where to seek advice too. Well, that’s exactly what we’re here for. At Wired Sussex, we’ve supported job seekers and employees alike for 14 years now - and we don’t intend to stop anytime soon. In this blog post, we provide answers to 7 of YOUR burning questions about the digital designer role. So, read on if you want to feel nothing less than self-assured and confident in a digital design job.
Q1) First, What Does A Digital Designer Do Exactly?
Digital designers combine creative and technical skills to bring graphics, animations and other visual effects to life. From concept to execution, they work with the likes of project managers, design teams, IT specialists and content experts to interpret a concept and flesh it out through design. They can be found across a range of sectors including gaming, animation, web design, TV and video production. In terms of the daily duties associated with a digital designer, it’s not, as one might expect, all brainstorming or coming up with creative ideas. Client management, for instance, forms a large part of the digital designer role, especially when working within an agency. At the beginning of a design project, you will need to gather information from a client and understand what their goals are, what they like, what they dislike and so on. Indeed, keeping that constant line of communication and revising designs is a large part of any digital designers day.
Q2) Can You Explain The Different Digital Design Job Titles?
Here’s the thing, similar to a creative designer, a digital designer is somewhat of a broad, umbrella term and encompasses several roles. The most common job titles, which are ultimately all about taking ownership of the design that people see on an app or website, are web designer, UX designer and UI designer. Find out more about these roles by clicking the relevant links.
Q3) Is A Digital Design Job The Same As A Digital Marketing Or Graphic Artist Role?
It can be easy to see why these three roles get confused but they are not interchangeable. In general, a digital marketer’s mission is to get as many people as possible to interact with a website, social post or advert and they do this by using digital marketing tactics. A digital designer, meanwhile, focuses on creating the best possible experience and design for a specific person. Similarly, most of your work as a digital designer, as the name suggests, is delivered in a digital format. As a graphic artist, your remit can be printed materials too although some projects might wind up in a digital format. This has caused some blurred lines to develop between the three roles and sees them increasingly referred to as one and the same.
Q4) What’s Required When It Comes To Digital Designer Qualifications?
Typically, most digital designers are educated to degree level. Relevant degrees include any that demonstrate an artistic flair such as graphic design, art or photography. That said, candidates with a limited academic background but who possess strong digital design portfolios or creative accomplishments will still be considered - it might just make your initial attempt to get noticed that little bit trickier. If you want to get a sense of whether digital design is for you, or you seriously want to kick start your career in this field, a range of beginner to more advanced and formal digital design courses are available online:
- Digital Design For Non-Designers (Udemy)
- Ultimate Photoshop CC: Absolute Beginners Course (Udemy)
- Digital Design BSc (Brunel University London)
- Digital Design MSc (Solent University Southampton)
- Digital Design short courses (University of the Arts London)
Q5) What Skills Do You Need To Be A Digital Designer?
Digital Designer Skills & Qualities
Compared to everyday life, the online world seems to move at an incredibly fast pace. That’s why, amongst other highly valued skills and qualities, it’s pivotal that digital designers remain up to date with digital, design and marketing trends. A thirst for learning, being open to constructive criticism, creativity and strong communication skills are also vital. In terms of technical skills, most digital designers are generally able to use tools such as Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Illustrator, Muse, Premiere Pro, After Effects and InDesign. Front-end developer skills, which enable digital designers to convert data into graphical interfaces, through HTML, CSS and Javascript, are also common.
Q6) What Is A Typical Digital Designer Salary?
As is the case with many sectors, multiple factors can influence your salary in a digital designer role. The location of the company you work for, your level of formal education and how many years of experience you have in the field can all impact your earnings. As a rough guideline though, the average digital designer salary in the UK is typically in the region of £33k. As a junior digital designer, you’re more likely to start with a salary around the £21k mark. Once you start edging towards the top of that career ladder, your senior digital designer salary in the UK is likely to be around £42k.
Q7) Is Digital Design A Good Career?
Ultimately, the answer to this depends entirely on what you define as ‘good’. Is work-life balance personally important to you? Are you motivated by how much you earn? Perhaps, working autonomously and having creative freedom is what you value most within a job. Either way, a digital design job certainly has many benefits. In particular, it requires you to flex your creative muscles each day and encourages you to be curious, which makes for an interesting and engaging way to work. Also, due to your broad skill set as a digital designer, you’re not limited to one type of work. Indeed, a digital designers career path is not linear. There’s scope to branch out into various roles be it an illustrator, photo editor, special effects artist or graphic designer.
Next Steps....
Are you seeking a digital design job? At Wired Sussex, we connect talented job seekers with incredible companies across this glorious county. Why not check out the current opportunities available on our jobs board? If working from home is more your style, we frequently post remote digital designer jobs too.