If you are not a design expert and familiarized with the typical terms, you probably can have some confusion when it comes to visual designers and graphic designers. Although they have some similarities, there are differences between them and the goals and objectives they work for.
In this post we are going to see the main differences between a visual designer and a graphic designer, the similarities, and if there are any differences in their salaries of them.
What is a visual designer?
Visual designers work over the comprehensive brand imagery of their clients to assess their objectives and goals according to their marketing plan and product development. A visual designer will be focused on the aesthetics of a website, working on the look and feel that the final product will have.
What is a graphic designer?
A graphic designer is someone who works within the digital arts industry, mainly creating visual graphics for organizations and companies. A graphic designer is mostly related to advertising, publishing, and marketing industries because their job aims to attract people's attention with their creations.
Visual designer vs graphic designer
Although they can seem similar (and in some points, they are similar), there are some differences that we can spot between a visual designer and a graphic designer.
To understand it shortly, a visual designer works over a broad range of materials than a graphic designer. While the first one creates an artistic message for different elements and projects on a big range of platforms, the graphics designers will work to create individual visual materials within that vision.
The main difference between a visual designer and a graphic designer is evident when we compare what their main duties and responsibilities are. A graphic designer is responsible for the production of digital imagery for websites, apps, platforms, and other electronic sites. Their main tasks can be related to developing creative drafts, editing, and finalizing the artwork.
On the other hand, the visual designers duties are in the line of creating logos, company branding, and the website itself. In a way, we can say that visual designers are those who create end evolves the workspace for graphic designers.
On the similarities side between visual design and graphic design, the reason why many people tend to overlap and confuse them is that both of them tend to use very similar tools for their work development. Illustrator, Adobe XD, Photoshop, and Dreamweaver are some of the typically used tools by these two types of designers. Visual designers, as they need to present their ideas and advances to their customers, will also use presentation tools for showing their creations in a nice and tidy way.
Is important to remember that despite the differences in their day-to-day tasks, both of them are very important to the adequate development of a brand and that they need each other to generate a great, useful and successful product.
Is there any difference in salaries?
Yes, they can be a significant difference between the salary of a visual designer and a graphic designer.
Before jumping into the numbers, some clarifications: salary will depend on where you work, how many hours you work, for whom you work, your experience, and many other factors. For getting a general idea we will compare, according to Glassdoor, the average salary of a visual designer and a graphic designer in the US.
An average graphic designer will make approximately $44,000 per year. If you are just starting your career, your salary will be nearer to $35,000, while if you are top notch you can scale up to $75,000.
Visual designers can have a better salary. The average salary accordion to Glassdoor for a visual designer is over $74,000 per year. If you are a junior you can earn something about $44,000 while if you are an experimented visual designer your salary can be over $90,000 a year.
Bottom line
Although there are some similarities between the work of a graphic designer and a visual designer, there are some essential differences that are very important to understanding the goals and objectives of these works. Both graphic and visual designers are important to the correct development of a brand and need to work together to succeed of them.
