Course  ·  Part 1  ·  Assignment 15

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What Are Professional Design Skills?

KeyThree

The key points from this assignment.

  • There’s a range of design disciplines. This course covers the fundamentals of graphic design and digital product design
  • Graphic design and digital product design job descriptions have some overlap, but each requires its own special set of skills
  • You don’t need to be an amazing designer by the end of this course — you just need to take the first steps

Image credit: Cookie the Pom  

 

Introduction

In this assignment, we’ll first explain the different fields of design, focusing especially on the two that this course covers — graphic design, and digital product design. After that, we’ll run through the core skills that graphic designers and digital product designers need for their work.

The different fields of design

Graphic design is about visual communication. Graphic designers typically work on projects like posters, books, book covers, newspapers, magazines, adverts, branding, logos, packaging, and so on. There are a lot of different specialisms within graphic design, which we’ll cover in Parts 4 and 5.

Digital product design — also known simply as product design and as UX/UI design — is about creating usable and efficient designs for apps and websites. UX stands for “user experience”, and UI stands for “user interface”. We’ll cover these in detail in Parts 7 and 8. (Digital product design is not to be confused with industrial design, which is occasionally also referred to as “product design”.)

Industrial design is about creating objects and devices to fulfill particular functions. Industrial designers might work on razors, calculators, radios, kitchen utensils — you name it!

The definitions of fashion design, furniture design, interior design and architectural design are fairly self-explanatory.

This course focuses on graphic design and digital product design. Within those fields, you’re likely to come across the job titles listed below. We’ll cover these in more detail later in Parts 4 and 7.

Graphic design job titles

  • Graphic Designer
  • Brand Identity Designer
  • Editorial Designer
  • Marketing Designer

Common levels of seniority

  • Junior
  • Middleweight
  • Senior

Common leadership titles

  • Design Lead
  • Design Director
  • Creative Director
  • Art Director

Digital product design job titles

  • Digital Product Designer
  • Product Designer
  • UX/UI Designer
  • UX Researcher
  • UX Engineer
  • UX Manager

Common levels of seniority

  • Junior
  • Senior

Common leadership titles

  • Design Lead
  • Product Design Lead
  • Design Director
  • Director of Product

Graphic design skills

Entering a generalist graphic design role, you’ll be expected to have the following skills:

  • Full understanding of different steps in the graphic design process, including idea generation, work-up, iteration, and handoff
  • Competence in mainstream design software, including Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, and often Sketch and Figma
  • Ability to work to a deadline
  • Ability to make effective choices about colour and typography
  • Ability to apply basic graphic design layout principles
  • Ability to handle extensive or complex content in editorial designs
  • Ability to design a simple brand identity, including logo
  • Ability to present design ideas, both to colleagues and clients
  • Ability to give and receive design feedback well
  • Ability to communicate and collaborate effectively with teammates, stakeholders, and clients

Digital product design (product design, UX/UI design) skills

Entering a generalist digital product design role, you’ll be expected to have the following skills:

  • Full understanding of different steps in the digital product design process, including user research, wireframing, prototyping, and user testing
  • Competence in mainstream digital product design software, including Sketch and Figma
  • Ability to work to a deadline
  • Ability to make appropriate choices about colour and typography for usable, accessible, and standards-compliant interfaces
  • Ability to create low-detail, medium-detail, and high-detail screen designs and prototypes
  • Understanding of “design thinking” and other user-centred methodologies
  • Understanding of information architecture principles (how to organise content so that it is user-friendly)
  • Ability to present design ideas, both to colleagues and clients
  • Ability to give and receive design feedback well
  • Ability to communicate and collaborate effectively with teammates, stakeholders, and clients

In conclusion...

The lessons, projects, and briefs ahead of you in this course will cover all of these skills, and gives you opportunities to learn and apply them in short design briefs.

However, as we wrap up Part 1, remember that this course — like any course — will only scratch the surface. Your true learning begins when you get your first design job, and mastery is achieved over the course of a career.

Rather than being discouraged by this, instead allow it to take the pressure off you: you don’t need to be the world’s best designer by the end of this course. You just need to take the first steps in each of the areas listed above.

Assignment version 1.0
Last updated 7 June 2021