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Different areas of Design

Hi all! This Design Talk I wanted to share with you just how diverse and unique design really is. There are different types of design: UX/UI, graphic design, branding, layout and editorial design, just to name a few. 


UX and UI are often grouped together, but they mean different things. UX stands for User Experience. UX designers create websites, apps, and other layouts meant for online use. Their job is to design how the platform will function, how it will present itself to users, and the “flow” of a website, meaning navigation from page to page or section. At Punchmark, Mike Burpoe is the one mainly responsible for UX decisions.


UI design, on the other hand, stands for User Interface design. For example the buttons you press on a website, the layouts on the page, and widget style choices. Setting up an asset library for your website, which will be reused on other pages of your website makes sure that every page feels like a part of a whole. This is typically done in Adobe Xd, and is led by Mike Burpoe and also Kyle Bebeau.


Graphic design has come to mean more within the last few years. When people think graphic design, they think of advertising, logos, and those trendy illustrations you see on Instagram. And that’s all true! However, in a broader sense, graphic design is about how images and typography interact with each other whether it’s for a post or for the web. It’s about designing for people, functional and just for aesthetics, and pushing how technology and design overlap and enhance each other. This can be done in any software in the Adobe Creative Suite.


Visual Design encompasses a broad range of graphic design, UX design, branding, and layout design. This segment of design focuses on how colors, images, and text fit together on the canvas, webpage, or for an advertisement. Issues like hierarchy, spacing, and clarity are solved with visual design, and is all about cohesion. Additionally, visual design is important for creating websites and apps, because now that we spend more time online and on our mobile devices, it’s more vital than ever for a page or an app to attract our attention. The visual design effort at Punchmark is led by Sarah Weekes.


Branding is about designing for a company to help enhance their identity to attract more consumers. This can mean redesigning logos, designing packaging, the color palette, and redesigning the overall look and personality of the company. A lot of discussions between the designer and the client happen within this category. This can be done in any software in the Adobe Creative Suite, though Illustrator is typically this most useful, and led by Sarah Weekes. If you want to learn more about this, watch this recent livestream https://youtu.be/seOHn5spGc0


Layout and editorial design refers to designing for brochures, magazines, newspapers, books, etc. Designers in this category help control the interaction and spacing between words and images for a better reading experience. Issues like readability and legibility, along with making sure colors, images, and text will work together for print vs web. Printing brings out colors darker than web and web makes things look brighter.  This is typically done in Adobe InDesign. 


There are many more granular versions of each of these, but for starters, this is the most basic and high level versions of each major branch.


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