Table of Content
Discover How Different Types of Graphic Design Can Help Your Business Thrive
When you hear the phrase graphic design, the first thing that comes to mind is the beautiful digital art we see all over the internet. But in essence, graphic design is much more. The various types of graphic design are modes of communication that span far more than digital art, including branding collaterals, marketing designs, and even user experience.
Now, you might think it odd to call various types of graphic design a mode of communication, but it is true nevertheless. As a visual medium, the different kinds of graphic design help by embodying and portraying your message to your consumers in a pleasing and attention-grabbing manner, making your message memorable.
Moreover, unlike many other communication methods, it is very versatile. Using a mix of images, abstract symbols, and even typography, it displays your brand’s message through a physical or digital medium and enhances your brand’s visibility.
But how can you leverage that versatility for all its worth? Join us as we dive in and discover the 13 types of graphic design styles used by professional graphic design services, and learn how they manage to maximize the impact of their messages.
What Are the 5 Key Elements Common to All Types of Graphic Design?
Although graphic design comes in various flavors, there are a few essential elements common to them, which help them portray their intent and message. All of the 13 types of graphic design serve a specific purpose, but to fulfill their true meaning, they need to be used correctly. No matter how well a design looks visually, it is considered a failure if viewers cannot understand its intended purpose.
According to Social Media Examiner, 4 out of 5 marketers use some sort of graphic design to enhance the visual impact of their social media marketing strategies. That is why you need to ensure that the graphic design professionals you hire understand the needs and the direction of your marketing strategy.
Balance
The element of balance in design refers to the distribution and arrangement of the various components of a graphic design. In both digital and physical printing, the design’s placement and overall cohesive nature are crucial.
Moreover, balance doesn’t only mean to have symmetry between the arrangement of elements onto the canvas. Asymmetrical designs have proven far more capable of grabbing attention by emphasizing specific visual aspects of your design.
However, asymmetry is only attractive when done correctly, which is a struggle in itself. Therefore, choose the kind of visual balance that is easy to produce consistently.
Hierarchy
Hierarchy in different types of graphic design refers to the arrangement of elements on canvas to make the order of priority apparent. This design element is necessary to give your graphics a sense of direction and order. That is especially necessary when you want to make sure the viewer follows the pre-ordained order of visual elements present on your design canvas.
Hierarchy helps your viewers understand the message you wanted to portray, the way you expected it to be shown. It allows the user’s eyes to flow from one visual element to the other in the intended order, helping the viewer understand the message clearly no matter the types of graphic design styles used.
Alignment
The alignment of the visual elements in the top 13 types of graphic design affects how people perceive the desired message and interpret it correctly. Optimizing the alignment aims to allow for better readability and scanning, ensuring better visual retention.
A way to do that is to understand how people view the page and find out what it is about a design element’s placement that makes it easy to retain details at a quick glance. That is why many designers often use grids to align the various visual components to produce a cohesive design on canvas.
Repetition
Certain design elements have a better impact when used repeatedly. Moreover, they can connect the disparate visual elements of a design to unify and enhance the intended message.
It is a well-known fact that repetition is a great way to ensure better memorability. Additionally, by repeating certain elements, we can boost the impact of the message. That is made possible by embodying a sense of consistency within your brand identity as people start to associate that element with your business brand. This results in specific types of graphic design being made synonymous with your brand.
Contrast
Contrast is a great design technique to bring some aspects into focus organically. By creating a play between visually distinct design elements, such as light pastels over bright colors or a combination of thick and thin lines, a designer can subtly draw a viewer’s attention to specific sections or elements of the overall design.
The line between tasteful contrast and overt design clashes is a fine one, and one that is important among all 13 types of graphic design. Therefore, designers have to be careful to limit their use of differentiation to prevent going overboard and ruining the impact of the finished graphic design.
The Evolution of Graphic Design Over the Centuries – A Brief Overview
The concept of creating various designs and graphics meant to convey a message – or graphic design, in essence, has been around for centuries. From the cave painting of prehistoric times depicting the stories of meaningful events to the intricate Egyptian hieroglyphs and tomb art, graphic design has been with us since man learned to communicate.
According to the Interaction Design Foundation, the earliest example of proper graphic design comes from cave drawings dated nearly 36,000 years ago. Over the years, this art was improved by the addition of new techniques and trends, and it was in 1920 that the print industry coined the term “graphic design”.
As the years passed, designers have gotten access to modern and more sophisticated design tools, which have helped them create truly breathtaking graphics. The popular Adobe suite of graphic design tools has been in use since the late 20th century, and can be used to make all 13 types of graphic design we are going to discuss today.
Since that time, the designers who keep themselves up to date on new graphic design trends, techniques, and technologies have seen their business grow exponentially. And that is true regardless of the types of graphic design they pursue. In fact, with the advent of generative AI tools such as Midjourney, the world of graphic design has seen another great shift, one that is still being explored by many.
13 Types of Graphic Design – A Look at Popular Graphic Design Styles Today
All types of graphic design niches use the visual medium to produce content that communicates the intended ideas. A graphic designer can portray any message they desire through a mix of typography, images, colors, and the arrangement of the elements onto a single canvas.
Some aspects of the 13 types of graphic design we will be discussing are common to all styles. Others are specific to each specific graphic design subtype. Incidentally, that is why you see many designers specializing in creating a single type, or multiple if related design types.
While many other types of graphic design skills are found nowadays, the thirteen listed below are the most popular ones that have spawned the other specialized graphic design skills. Let’s take a look at them in detail.
Visual Identity Design
Whether a small individual proprietor or a large company, each brand has its own voice – a unique message they want its customers to know. Once they see the story they want to tell their consumers; they find visual ways to bring those stories to life.
A graphic designer gives those stories a voice of their own and helps them convert customers to boost their business. These graphics wizards work with the brand owners to develop a brand identity from scratch. They portray the brand story to relate to their consumers, making visual identity design a mainstay in brand development today.
Using a mixture of shapes, colors, typography, and imagery to create a visual identity for the brands, a designer can develop various brand identity assets. Suppose an athletics company hires a graphic designer to help them develop their visual identity. A designer might use some suitable sports fonts and design aesthetics to create various branding items.
Those articles include logos, business cards, letterheads, color palettes, and in some cases, even custom typography. Among the 13 types of graphic design we will be discussing today, this one requires a working knowledge of most other styles to create a cohesive brand identity across various media channels.
Marketing and Advertising Design
Marketing and advertising are graphic design styles that have been a part of our lives for generations. We see advertising and marketing in action worldwide, from billboards and magazine ads to ads on radio, television, and even the internet. In fact, cities like Tokyo and New York are famous for their vivid and breathtaking advertising avenues, such as New York’s Times Square with its digital billboards and screens.
But advertisement is just one part of a brand’s marketing strategy. As one of the more popular types of graphic design, the process behind how to target customers and get as many of them to patronize your business is the work of marketing.
Marketing designers work hard to create graphics that entice and attract people into buying a product or service. By mapping out and incorporating the design elements that relate to the product and the consumers, they create a visually persuasive advertisement to boost its visibility.
Generally, companies hire external marketing designers whenever they need a new advertisement. But as companies move towards a more dynamic marketing approach, the trend is changing in favor of in-house marketing design teams.
UI or User Interface Design
User Interface design is one of the high-demand types of graphic design nowadays. The UI is what allows users or consumers to interact with and use a device or an app. The purpose of hiring a UI designer is to create intuitive user interfaces, making the product easy to use for the users.
While UI is a mix of multiple elements, it refers to creating an excellent visual experience for the user in terms of design. Arranging the buttons, menus, interactions, and more in a way that is both aesthetically appealing and simple to use is the UI design job.
Or put simply, UI design is the art of balancing visual aesthetics and functionality to provide a cohesive and exciting user experience. These designers are experts in creating interfaces for desktop apps, mobile and web apps, even video games.
This job requires working together with UX developers who focus on the functionality aspect of the app and the UI developers who write the code bringing their designs to life. That makes this style of design one of the most technically challenging ones among the 13 types of graphic design.
Publishing Design
Also known as editorial design, this is one of the oldest types of graphic design that deals with the images used for books and magazines. These designers create layouts for the content and design the covers and the graphics for these publications, ensuring that the illustrations complement the author’s message.
With the rise of internet publishing, the job of these designers has become more challenging. Today, these designers need to create multiple layouts for the same publication, one for the physical print and the other for the digital version. And nowadays, it has included the sub-niche of book cover art design as well, making designers work hard to come up with unique and catchy book cover ideas for their book projects.
Publishing designers usually work together with editors, writers, and publishers, elevating the content with beautiful graphics. Working knowledge of the printing and publishing business is required and color theory to succeed in this business.
Packaging Design
Besides advertisements, product packaging design is one of the most visible articles of a brand. A well-designed package will set you apart even in the most competitive market and increase your product’s viability.
A part of a company’s branding strategy, product packaging can attract new customers to the brand. Often, companies find that changing the packaging works far better to increase your sales than initiating an entire rebranding of the business.
In 2017, the American frozen TV-dinner producer Lean Cuisine proved that packaging plays a huge role in a brand’s popularity. They achieved a $58 million increase in sales the first year after changing the packaging of their products. This feat earned them the 2017 grand prize at the Nielsen Design Impact Awards.
Packaging designers are generally of two types. They might be a jack-of-all-trades who designs various products like bottles and cans or packing boxes. Or they might be specific to an industry, such as sporting goods or cosmetics. A conceptual job requiring a working knowledge of print, industrial design, and branding, packaging design is one of the most important ones among the different types of graphic design.
Motion Graphics Design
Generally, graphics are static. But a relatively recent new design job has started rising in popularity, called motion graphics. As the name suggests, it brings the designed graphics to life. It is also the cause of one of the biggest debates in the design world, namely motion graphics vs. animation.
Converting static graphics into dynamic motion graphics requires that the designer add a mix of animations, audio tracks, fonts, and various other effects more commonly used in television and film media.
The improvement in network and device technology has raised the popularity of this medium, crowning videos the king of content. A motion graphics designer has skills popular in the film and television media. Still, the advancement of technology has helped make it cheap and available widely.
Today, we can see various examples of motion graphics in our daily lives found on most digital platforms. Many companies prefer using this type of graphic design to static pictures for their marketing-related posts, making it a popular one among the 13 types of graphic design.
Environmental Design
Environmental design works to make the places people visit more memorable through art. It is also used to make the space exciting and easier to navigate, thus improving its experience.
One of the most versatile types of graphic design, it ranges from informative to completely informal and artistically free. Murals, museum exhibits, store interiors, and many similar design elements are covered under this type of graphic design.
A specific environmental design style is called wayfinding, which combines strategic imagery, landmarks, and visual prompts to guide people in or around a venue easily.
This type of design requires a good knowledge of architecture and interior design and graphic design skills. It also requires someone who can conceptualize and understand architectural plans to design the necessary graphics.
Art and Illustration Design
Many people believe that graphic design and illustration are the same. However, they are vastly different. The task of a visual art creator is to conceptualize graphics that communicate a message to its viewers. On the other hand, illustrators are the one who creates original art.
This original art can take any form, from fine art to interior decoration pieces, even visual stories. While purists may believe that illustrations are not a type of graphic design, the amount of original artwork and illustrations prove them wrong.
They are popular with marketing and branding teams, from original graphic art for video game promotions or digital or print publishing illustrations. Nowadays, they are used to help a company’s products stand out via unique and propriety designs.
Vehicle Wraps and Decals Design
Vehicle wraps are a popular source of advertising using vehicles. Besides digital marketing, it is one of the most economical methods of advertising a business’s product or services, and among the most popular types of graphic design around the world.
These wraps are sheets of heat-sensitive vinyl stuck on top of a vehicle’s original paintwork. They allow the advertisement to be changed quickly and easily without having to repaint the car repeatedly.
Created as a way to bring your offerings to a broader audience, these bright and eye-catching wraps are designed to be attention-grabbing and memorable. Using the right mix of imagery, typography, and colors is very important when creating a vehicle wrap or a decal.
One of the modern types of graphic design, an essential skill in this field is the art of knowing where to place each element to maximize its impact on the viewer. And without overshadowing the overall design too.
Apparel Design
Customized t-shirts are pretty popular nowadays. The demand for these printed apparel has gone skyrocketing since the popularity of memes. Many people desire to own an item of clothes with their favorite meme or quote printed on it.
Even without the popularity of memes, the printed apparel business has been going strong for decades. People like to order commemorative or promotional items of clothing for their families or places of business or even as gifts to someone.
Many local sports leagues and teams also desire custom-designed and printed articles of clothing to build a sense of camaraderie and create a brand identity. That is why apparel designers are usually freelancers hired on a project-by-project basis, making it one of the most popular types of graphic design in the gig economy. The rest of them work for big design or apparel production houses.
These types of graphic design projects require a thorough understanding of various fabrics and working knowledge of color theory.
Typographic Design
Typeface designers or font designers create fonts for public or private use. Each style of lettering can have several variations through weight, height, etc. For example, a font can have multiple types, including bold, italic, condensed, light, and even more.
To the layperson, typographic characters may seem simple or among the low-priority types of graphic design. But good types of fonts are essential to a great design. Well-designed typography can help bring the characteristics of a project together into a cohesive whole.
The art of designing and using the proper typography and font for each specific use can be technical. The help of an experienced typography designer comes in handy here.
Label Design
Just like product packaging, labels are also crucial in helping a product stand out. A well-designed product label requires a high level of expertise to fit the necessary knowledge within a small canvas easily.
A good label is punchy and eye-catching, with just the necessary information present. Any additional information or designs will clutter and dilute the essence of the brand, making it useless. That means that designers that pursue label design as their niche of choice out of the 13 types of graphic design, are highly attuned to the design adage of “less is more”.
Essentially, a label has the same task as your product’s packaging material. The only difference is the canvas size, making it very important to create a simple yet attractive design that promotes your offering correctly.
3D Graphic Design
We have talked about static and dynamic graphic design. But a complimentary design type is that of 3-dimensional design or 3D design. With better rendering hardware and software now available to normal people, 3D graphic design is becoming more and more popular in various situations, from branding to product design, and more.
A highly technical one among the different types of graphic design discussed, 3D design requires a lot of conceptual expertise. 3D graphics are a magnitude of complexity higher than 2D design, from modeling to lighting textures and effects.
3D graphic design requires you to know about fundamental physics in addition to design skills. Techniques like ray tracing to model a 3D character requires long hours of painstaking work, and the higher your skill in the method, the easier it will be to create.
Frequently Asked Questions
| What are the major types of graphics used in marketing? The two main types are vector and raster graphics. Vectors are made up of points on a Cartesian plane, making them suitable for resizing. Raster graphics are made up of pixels, ideal for average quality images for everyday use. |
| What are the three basic types of graphic design? Design can be divided into three main types and one combination type. The main types are product design, interface design, and visual design. |
| Is graphic design hard? Becoming a graphic designer is not hard. You can start by acquiring the essential knowledge and skills you would need as a designer. You can do so by going through dependable and quality resources and can succeed by developing a consistent drive for perfection. |
| Are graphic designers paid well? Different types of graphic design careers pay differently, but well. The amount you can earn depends on a few factors. It includes your level of expertise, your specific design niche, your past portfolio, and how well you market your services. |
Summing it up!
Different types of graphic design style require the skills of a different design professional. The graphic design styles mentioned above are the primary design specialties essential for various marketing and branding purposes.
Graphic design is an ever-growing field, with new specialties popping up every few days. With such an array of sub-domains, it is impossible to expect a single designer to create various design types, let alone be an expert in them.
To get the best results, always opt for an expert designer specific to the type of graphics you require. The right person on the job, with the right skills, will get your company the best designs possible.
If you want to hire a designer to create any of the graphics types mentioned above, Logo Poppin is the one for you. Our graphic design services will design and deliver attractive and innovative designs meant to awe and inspire.
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Logopoppin is a graphic design agency that specializes in logo designing, web development, video production and advanced branding services. We love to innovate businesses with new age technologies, allowing them to improve their visual reputation.
