Visual Designer
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The Visual Designers is responsible for the creation of visually innovative and engaging products for the business. The Visual Designer not only brings product concepts to life but cultivates bonds between the business’s products and the consumers. The Visual Designer intuits human response to product visuals of all kinds because he understands the power that imagery has and, hence, uses it appropriately.
Visual Designers are storytellers and makers who use design to bring product ideas to life. A good Visual Designer leads product projects into creative and uncharted territories, keeping the business a step ahead of its competition.
They are design-oriented but will often approach a project with an innovative and rational mindset. This is to say that besides creating a new and attractive product designs, Visual Designers remain mindful of how products function.
Objectives and Responsibilities of the Visual Designer
Collaboration: The very first task that a Visual Designer has is to collaborate with various disciplines within the business in order to create transformative product visuals that make the brand ‘top-tier’. This collaboration is mainly with product development departments such as the engineering department with whom the Visual Designer has to liaise with in deciding on designs for new products or design modifications for existent products.
At this capacity, the Visual Designer also collaborates to the Sales and Marketing departments in order to create engaging and compelling product visual stories. The Visual Designer is responsible for inspiring his seniors as well as the team in collaboration to produce visually creative products that push the boundaries and limits already set in the product market.
Creative Role: The Visual Designer is also responsible for management and execution of visual product assets. For example, the Visual Designer has to use all his creative juice in coming up with the most attractive and appealing logos, icons, and typography that will pull in the consumer to the business’s product. At this capacity, the Visual Designer also spearheads problem solving in the most innovative manner when it comes to visual aspects of that product.
Note also, apart from supporting and enhancing existent product concepts, the Visual Designer has to have a high level of creativity in coming up with totally new and original design concepts as well as formulating unexpected creative solutions.
Support: Also, it is the Visual Designer’s role to support the Senior Visual Designer in formulating, interpreting, visually articulating, and bring to life design improvements in old as well as new products. At this capacity, the Visual Designer is also responsible for interpreting qualitative concepts and quantitative data acquired through market research and present that interpretation to the Senior Visual designer for the purpose of formulation of suitable action regarding the product’s visual.
The Visual Designer additionally supports the Senior Visual Designer in his partnership with Managers and Principals of the business, Strategic Planners, as well as assisting in the navigation through multiple projects.
Research and Education: As a role that is dedicated to the creation of great product stories and appealing product designs for the consumers, it is necessary that the Visual Designer research and gather factual information and relay it to Senior Visual Designers and other collaborating departments. Visual Designers gather consumer feedback about the product’s visual mainly through surveys on a variation of prototypes of the product.
The information and findings are then creatively relayed upon Senior Visual Designers through the effective application of photographs, charts, graphs, 3D props, animations, builds, fonts, slide presentations, print material, videos, among other visual elements. This information is then applied in the making of the decision of what visual approach best resonates with the consumers.
At this capacity, the Visual Designer essentially serves to cultivate an understanding of market and consumer trends as well as consumer preferences by regularly conveying and sharing insights with the team.
Strategy: Being one who understands the product reception the most, the Visual Designer is tasked with the role of participating and contributing to strategy discussions alongside Senior Visual Designers and Senior Mangers from other Product Development departments.
Other Duties: The Visual Designer also performs other duties as required by the Senior Designers or the Employer.
Required Qualifications of the Visual Designer
Education: A suitable candidate will have a Bachelor’s degree in Graphic Design, Fine Art/Design, Advertising or any field related to this. However, if a candidate has a bachelor’s degree in an unrelated field they can pursue technical training in the field of graphic design in order to meet the educational qualifications. Work experience of an equivalent of these educational requirements is also acceptable.
Experience: The candidate must have had at least 5 years working experience in an Interaction Design or Visual Design capacity or any other related professional field. The candidate will need to have experience in design presentations; having previously clearly and simply articulated design proposals to a team of product developers.
Analytical skills: Suitable candidates will be able to have an outlook of their work from a consumer’s point of view. Interacting with consumers is good but the Visual Designers also has to embody the consumer and experience the product first hand. The Visual Designer will then be required to be perceptive enough to understand how the consumer receives the message being conveyed by the product’s design as well as how it appeals to him. This information coupled with research conducted through surveys will give the business clearer insight on what design approach to take.
Artistic Ability: Visual Designers must be capable of personally creating artistically interesting designs that are appealing to the consumers and not merely making suggestions to the Senior Designers and development departments. This can be in the simple form of hand sketching or basic product prototype creation. Because of this, some experience in a technical field would make the candidate more suitable for the role.
Communication Skills: A Visual Designer must possess impeccable communication skills, both in verbal and in written form. He must be able to convey complex design concepts in the simplest and clearest of ways to Senior Designers as well as other collaborating personnel during regular presentations. In addition to this, the Visual Designer interacts with customers in an effort to acquire feedback on the product visual’s reception. In order to acquire the most accurate information, communication between the Visual Designer and the consumer needs to be clear and unambiguous. The Visual Designer must then be able to clearly and precisely communicate the consumers’ needs to Senior Visual Designers and product development personnel.
Software: The role of the visual designer will demand the use of specialized graphic design computer softwares necessary for preparation of designs. For this reason, candidates must showcase mastery in Adobe Creative Suite, Flash, InDesign, Illustrator, and Photoshop.
Ms Office: The Visual Designer must be proficient in Ms Word and PowerPoint in order to create engaging content for presentations made to the Senior Designers and other product development department leaders.
Time-Management: A suitable Candidate will additionally possess an ability to handle multiple projects at any one instance. This is necessary especially in the performance of his duties as the support for Senior Designers. He must, therefore, demonstrate a unique ability to manage his time and maintain composure and deliver successful results under pressure.
