Design jobs and careers

A role as a Designer could include working across a huge variety of media. Master the Adobe Creative Suite (Photoshop, Illustrator & InDesign) and you could choose a huge number of design orientated pathways. Designers are in huge demand both within agencies and in-house teams.

The focus of the designer is to develop concepts into polished designs, this could be digital (web, social media, email), print (advertising, direct mail, packaging, marketing collateral, branding, events, point of sale), or integrated (multi-channel). Depending on the environment the designer will have varying levels of conceptual responsibility.

Often the Designer will take concepts created by the Creative Director, Art Director or Senior Designer; using their sketches, scamps and ideas, the Designer’s job is to develop these in the design software of their choice (often the Adobe Suite; Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator) and flesh them out into high fidelity designs. Depending on team structure some Designers will artwork their designs too – this is more common in-house or as part of smaller creative teams, within agency, there is more likely to be Specialist Artworkers or Creative Artworkers.

Graphic Designer
Visual Designer
Junior Designer
Midweight Designer
Senior Designer
Conceptual Designer
Creative Designer
Brand Designer
Packaging Designer
Integrated Designer
Digital Designer

Design Lead
Art Director
Lead Designer
Graphic Design Lead
Design Manager
Head of Creative Design
Head of Creative
Creative Manager

We’ve outlined the latest salary benchmarks for Design roles in the guides below:

Design Salary Guide South West

You will need to be detail oriented and technical when it comes to design software and packages. You’ll need to have great communication skills and the ability to carry out in-depth research. Creativity and the ability to work to tight, strategic deadlines also play a big part in this sector.

You will usually need a foundation degree or diploma within a relevant subject. For example, these could include graphic design, graphic communication, illustration and fine art.