Designer
Designers are creative and functional professionals who conceptualize and illustrate plans for the creation of various objects and systems across diverse industries. Their work spans several specialized fields, including web design, graphic design, product design, interior design, industrial design, and fashion design. Designers typically fall into two categories: functional designers focus on user-friendly and technically efficient products, while creative designers emphasize aesthetics and style. The environment in which designers work can vary from professional office settings to more experimental studio spaces, depending on their specialty.
Collaboration and effective communication with clients are crucial, as designers often tailor their ideas based on client feedback. Education in the design field is diverse, with high school courses in art and sciences serving as a foundation, followed by specialized postsecondary programs. The profession also attracts individuals with a strong interest in art, science, and engineering, making it a vibrant and integral part of industries worldwide. With a median yearly earning of approximately $51,660 and an expected job growth rate that is as fast as average, design remains a dynamic and essential career path.
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Subject Terms
Designer
Snapshot
Career Cluster(s): Arts, A/V Technology & Communications, Marketing, Sales & Service
Interests: Art, science, engineering, communicating with others
Earnings (Yearly Median): $51,660
Employment & Outlook: As Fast as Average Growth Expected
Overview
Sphere of Work. Designers conceptualize and illustrate plans for the creation of objects and systems. Professional designers are employed across a wide variety of industries. Specialized fields of design include web design, graphic design, product design, interior design, industrial design, and fashion design.
The majority of professional designers are trained in one of two major specialized facets of the field. Functional designers work in the commercial, industrial, and engineering industries, concentrating on developing technically efficient and user-friendly products and systems. Creative designers work in fields such as web development, entertainment, fashion, and the arts, and they focus primarily on achieving a desired form, style, or aesthetic. Functional and creative designers often work in concert with one another. Many designers are self-employed.
Work Environment. Functional designers often work in professional settings, particularly during conceptual phases of projects. Creative designers may also work in professional environments, but they also work in studio settings where they are free to experiment with a variety of materials and ideas. A designer’s work environment is largely determined by their area of design expertise.
Occupation Interest. The design field attracts graduates and professionals who have a strong foundation in the arts, the sciences, and engineering. Institutions nationwide offer a wide range of certificate, associate, undergraduate, and postgraduate programs of study in the field of design. The creation of new systems and products is crucial across all realms of industry and entertainment, which makes design one of the largest professional fields in the world.
A Day in the Life—Duties and Responsibilities. The everyday duties and responsibilities of a designer are dependent on two factors: the designer’s area of specialty and the nature of the particular project. Functional designers are often called upon to address specific problems, make improvements to existing systems, or meet the precise functional specifications of each. They spend their days solving problems and continually tailoring designs until they reach specific goals or safety standards or attain a specific functionality. Such designers include industrial design specialists working in the automotive, appliance engineering, and information technology sectors.
Designers specializing in creative and artistic arenas focus on problems concerning the artistic and stylistic potential of particular spaces or sets of materials. Graphic, floral, and set designers create works with the specifications of their clients in mind. This can often involve extensive one-on-one interactions with clients, and designers frequently make adjustments based on client feedback.
Proactive communication and teamwork skills are necessary for designers working in both creative and functional capacities. The ability to determine what customers and clients want or need from a particular design can separate successful designers from less successful ones. Similarly, successful designers must accept criticism and embrace the concept of reworking their ideas to suit the needs of their clientele. Humility and the ability to shift focus are beneficial traits for all designers.
Fashion Designers (142.061-018). Fashion Designers help create dresses, suits, and other clothing purchased every year by consumers.
Floral Designers (142.081-010). Floral Designers cut live, dried, or silk flowers and other greenery and arrange them into displays of various sizes and shapes.
Graphic Designers (141.061-018). Graphic Designers plan, analyze, and create visual solutions to communication problems.
Interior Designers (142.051-014). Interior Designers plan interior spaces for almost every type of building, including offices, airport terminals, theaters, shopping malls, restaurants, hotels, schools, hospitals, and homes.
Work Environment
Immediate Physical Environment. Office and studio settings are the most common, particularly for designers in functional specialties. Fieldwork and site visits are often necessary for creative designers charged with reinterpreting specific spaces or places.
Human Environment. The field of design requires extensive interaction and collaboration with both clients and other professionals. Patience, sound interpersonal communication skills, and networking and collaborative skills are highly beneficial for individuals seeking careers in design.
Technological Environment. As many designers use computers to communicate with clients and complete aspects of their projects, basic computer skills and a fundamental knowledge of contemporary design software are pertinent across all realms of design.
Education, Training, and Advancement
High School/Secondary. High school students can prepare to enter the field of design by taking courses in art, geometry, physics, and industrial arts. Many high schools in the United States now offer basic courses in graphic design. Drafting, chemistry, and biology courses can also provide important fundamental knowledge for future designers. Immersion in both scholastic and extracurricular creative activities, primarily arts-focused endeavors such as theater and visual arts, is also beneficial.
Postsecondary. Students interested in exploring design at the postsecondary level should be prepared to decide on a specific discipline to pursue. Undergraduate creative design students focus on developing problem-solving strategies and investigating the basics of the language of design as well as typography, semiotics, and communication theory. Undergraduates in fields related to functional design survey how major product and service designs have historically benefited society, as well as methods to devise potential areas for new products and services.
Graduate programs in design are traditionally advanced independent immersions into specific aspects of design, culminating in an exhibit and thesis work. Graduate design students go on to work in a variety of fields, including civic engineering, architecture, computer science, and transportation. Many design scholars also opt to remain in the field as postsecondary educational instructors, critics, and researchers.
Related Occupations
− Florist
− Multimedia Artist & Animator
Bibliography
“Arts and Design Occupations.” Occupational Outlook Handbook. Bureau of Labor Statistics, US Department of Labor, 17 Apr. 2024, www.bls.gov/ooh/arts-and-design/home.htm. Accessed 27 Aug. 2024.
“Occupational Employment and Wages, May 2023: 27-1029 Designers, All Others.” Occupational Employment Statistics. Bureau of Labor Statistics, US Department of Labor, 3 Apr. 2024, www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes271029.htm. Accessed 27 Aug. 2024.