Profession Routes in Visual Communication: 12 Engaging Paths to Consider
Step forward and carve out a unique identity with a degree in Communication Design—explore these thrilling career paths that await you
Communication Design is an ever-evolving design discipline, designed to craft messages and deliver solutions using language, visuals, moving images, and digital experiences. This dynamic field demands creativity, time management, analytical, and research skills, nurturing an entrepreneurial spirit and the ability to work both independently and as part of a team.
It's a multidimensional and fascinating discipline, engaging various aspects such as sensitivity to the visual domain, cultural awareness, adaptability, logical reasoning, technical proficiency, and interpersonal skills. Since communication is fundamental to environmental, commercial, socio-cultural, and political practices, the opportunities within this sphere are plentiful.
At its core, communication design helps develop expertise in print and publishing, graphic design, product design, 3D modeling, animation, photography, videography, color grading, video editing, audio editing, and digital media. Specializing in any one of these areas can enhance credibility and create a valuable, marketable career.
To streamline the specialization process, it is essential to recognize and focus on one's niche. This could refer to a particular design sector like designing for Halloween and haunted attractions, specific client demographics like restaurants and bars or sports teams, or a precise geographic location, such as working exclusively with local influencers and organizations.
With this specialization, several career opportunities can be pursued to stand out:
UI/UX Design
UI or user interface design refers to the graphical layout of an application, emphasizing aesthetics to ensure an appealing, visually stimulating, and thematically appropriate user interface. UX or user experience encompasses the structure of the interface and functionality, focusing on the ease of interaction with the user interface elements. The Business Value of Good Design, a report by Mckinsey, recognizes UX design as a driver of a business's financial success. Although UI and UX design involve distinct skill sets, collaboration between the two is crucial for each other's success. UI/UX designers largely collaborate with other designers, product managers, engineers, customer support, operations, sales, and marketing teams.
Within this broader umbrella, multiple other opportunities exist, such as UX Researchers, who engage with people, identify their needs, and translate them into actionable feedback for the development team. UX Writers use storytelling to bring user value to reality, creating products and experiences that resonate with consumers on a deeper level.
Design without Interface
With the rise of voice assistants like Amazon's Alexa and Microsoft's Cortana, voice is becoming increasingly prevalent in our daily lives, driving the trend of design without interface. As technology evolves, touchscreens are replacing mice, and voice is eliminating the need for typing or manual interaction, focusing on "interfaceless" design is essential to create seamless interactions and user experiences. According to Gartner, by 2020, 30% of all web browsing sessions will be conducted without a screen.
Game Design
As indicated by reports, including The Evolving Landscape of Sports Gaming in India by the Indian Federation of Sports Gaming (IFSG) and KPMG, the gaming industry in India is expected to reach INR 118.8 billion by 2023. This growth creates a promising career path within the game design sector. Responsibilities in this field range from being a Concept Writer, responsible for game backstories, to Game Artists who create visual elements, Level Editors who define interactive architecture, Designers who devise core game elements, Sound Engineers who provide sound effects, and Game Developers who create basic game plans. Testing, or Game Testers, is another crucial role that helps analyze games and provide quality checks.
Virtual / Augmented / Mixed Reality
Reality technologies are gaining momentum, offering immersive communication experiences to facilitate efficient collaboration. Apart from gaming, reality-based learning content helps revolutionize education, making it more immersive and engaging. Its applications span the healthcare sector for surgical training, the travel industry for virtual tours, the manufacturing industry to reduce time, human error, and increase efficiency, and the retail space by allowing customers to virtually view and even try products sold online. According to Gartner, by 2020, 100 million consumers will shop in augmented reality.
Storytelling
Effective storytelling requires strong communication and presentation skills, enabling one to craft and present stories, understand audience responses, revise narratives, and reinterpret them to keep the audience engaged. Today, storytelling is widely used in corporate settings and training initiatives.
Wedding Invitation Designer / Decor Designer
With the Indian wedding industry projected to be worth over INR 1,00,000 crores, growing at a rapid rate of 25-30% per year, opportunities for creative roles like a wedding invitation designer or decor designer are plentiful. Many wedding couples seek a unique touch through one-of-a-kind stationery and breath-taking venues.
3D Illustrator / Isometric Illustration
3D illustrations significantly enhance the communication of ideas, project planning, and making designs more visually appealing. Isometric illustrations further remove perspective distortions, meaning that irrespective of whether an object is closer or farther from the viewer, it's represented in the same size. These can be used in magazines, design agencies, product launches, advertising campaigns, websites, billboards, flyers, animations, and interactive content.
Sign Painting
Although sign painting has transitioned to cheaper vinyl lettering or large-scale digital printing, the practice still remains a highly valued skill, particularly in the hospitality industry. Minimalism, DIY culture, and the inherent need for uniqueness have led to the revival of sign painting, with people and businesses actively exploring its old-world charm within a contemporary environment.
Surface Pattern Designer
Designers and artists often work across various mediums, using a range of materials to enrich visual appearances and functionality. Surface Design encompasses coloring, patterning, and structuring of fibers and fabrics. Its scope is broadened by creative processes like dyeing, painting, printing, stitching, embellishing, quilting, weaving, knitting, felting, and papermaking. It is commonly used to design patterns and create colors for bedsheets, blankets, towels, curtains, coats, sweaters, socks, shirts, sculptural baskets, and fibre installations.
Photo Restoration / Retouching
Photo-Restoration includes restoring old or damaged photographs using photo-editing software and image manipulation techniques. This can help retain historical and ancestral photo archives, as well as improve the quality of photo collections for museums, galleries, universities, advertising agencies, and design firms. Photo Retouching, or airbrushing, refers to the process of manipulating photographs slightly to change the appearance of subjects, such as removing blemishes or creating smoother skin tones, sharpening images, or morphing subjects.
Muralist
Muralists use various media to create artwork either directly onto walls and/or ceilings, and other large surfaces, or they paint on a canvas and affix it to walls. Creating murals on a large scale allows artists to share their work with the public while incorporating architectural elements into their designs. Muralists can design murals inside churches, businesses, libraries, museums, and various urban, suburban, and rural locations. Many corporate brands increasingly use muralists to associate their products with meaningful experiences.
Medical Illustration / Animation
Within the general field of biomedical communication, medical illustration is a unique applied art discipline. A professional medical illustrator requires specialized training and advanced education in medicine, science, art, design, visual technology, and media techniques. Working in collaboration with scientists, physicians, and other content specialists, they serve as visual translators of complex technical information to support education and research and promote health literacy for patients and the public. They disseminate information through publications, web, mobile health apps, health games, augmented and virtual reality simulators, etc. Attorneys use medical illustration to clarify complex medical information for judges and juries in personal injury and medical malpractice cases. Some also create sculptured anatomical teaching models and museum exhibits.
In essence, communication design offers the versatility to explore different aspects of oneself, personal interests, and skill sets to create a unique career.
- Communication Design is a multidimensional and fascinating field, engaging aspects like visual sensitivity, cultural awareness, adaptability, logical reasoning, technical proficiency, and interpersonal skills.
- With a focus on one's niche, careers in Communication Design can span areas like UI/UX design, UX Research, UX Writing, Design without Interface, Game Design, Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, Storytelling, Wedding Invitation Design, 3D Illustration, Isometric Illustration, Sign Painting, Surface Pattern Design, Photo Restoration, Photo Retouching, Mural Art, Medical Illustration, and Animation.
- The Business Value of Good Design recognizes UX design as a driver of a business's financial success, highlighting the importance of UI/UX designers collaborating with other designers, product managers, engineers, customer support, operations, sales, and marketing teams.
- UI or user interface design emphasizes aesthetics to create an appealing and thematically appropriate user interface, while UX or user experience focuses on the structure and functionality of the interface, with a focus on the ease of interaction with user interface elements.
- Opportunities within the game design sector include roles such as Concept Writers, Game Artists, Level Editors, Designers, Sound Engineers, Game Developers, and Game Testers.
- Reality technologies like Virtual, Augmented, and Mixed Reality are gaining momentum, being used in education, healthcare, the travel industry, manufacturing, and retail.
- Effective storytelling requires strong communication and presentation skills, enabling one to craft and present engaging narratives in corporate settings and training initiatives.
- In the wedding industry, creative roles like a wedding invitation designer or decor designer offer plentiful opportunities with the Indian wedding industry projected to be worth over INR 1,00,000 crores and growing at a rapid rate.
