Initial Design Specialism Research

After completing research with the whole class as a task, I have narrowed down my options to 3 specialisms I am the most interested into pursuing as a career; Advertising Design, Digital Design or Social Media Design and Publication Design. The technical skills for each design specialism are majority the same, with skills needed in Adobe software’s like Illustrator, Photoshop or equivalent softwares.

The main purpose of advertising design is to promote and sell products or services by the creation of compelling and effective promotional materials to convey a message and to persuade an audience.

Photo by Joe Yates on Unsplash

The core soft skills needed for advertising design are communication, adaptability and emotional intelligence. Communication skills are needed to understand the client needs and to be able to create effective design ideas and rationale. Being flexible and open to change is needed as designs are always changing and your work may not be best. Understanding and managing emotions is key to creating positive and the sensitive work.

The main aim of Digital Design or Social Media Design is to create visual engaging elements and experiences whilst prioritising user experience and brand identity to create a strong brand presence across social media platforms.

Photo by Karsten Winegeart on Unsplash

The soft skills needed to have a successful career in social media design are strong communication skills to understand client and user needs but also to create effective visuals that successfully display content. Creativity is also needed to be able to stand out from the crowd by creating new innovative idea’s from new perspectives. Finally, problem-solving is another important soft skill as social media is always changing with new trends, your job is to understand how to use these new trends to maximise audience engagement.

Publication design is using typography, imagery, colour and space to effectively communicate and engage the audience on print and digital media. These include but is not limited to books, magazines and online publications.

Photo by Vision Magazin on Unsplash

To create successful publication design you need to have strong communication skills, teamwork skills and presentation skills. Designers must listen to clients needs and wants whilst also being able to effective communicate to the audience via design. In publication design, you will be collaborating with other designers. This means that you must be able to work effectively as a team player and not create a hostile team environment. Finally, you must be able to present your design work and concepts to be able to gain approval by your team members.

I believe I will pursue a career in the Digital Design or Social Media Design industry as I believe my soft and hard skills match what are needed and they give me the best opportunity in this design specialism. I will complete further research to back this decision up.