Graphic designers use the visual medium to create concepts which are meant to inform or entertain, either with the help of computer software or hand drawn graphics. After completing a course in graphic designing, media & entertainment industry becomes an obvious choice for most. However, a graphic designer’s skills are in-demand in a range of industries. Here are a few offbeat careers paths for graphic designers.
1. Medical Illustrator
Medical illustrators create graphic images for professionals in the medical industry who are involved in patient care, teaching, education and research. Your work may include anything from creating presentations & illustrations of treatment procedures for use in lectures or medical conferences to designing marketing materials for hospital trusts’.
2. Drafter
The structures that we live and work in are brought to fruition by drafters using CAD (computer-aided design). Engineers and architects come up with designs but it is the drafter who translates them into technical drawings on screen or paper. They weave their magic to generate digital models of physical entities, whether buildings or machines, a step which is critical to the process of building anything from a flyover bridge to the scary looking drill that the dentist wields.
3. Packaging Designer
From soft drinks to confectionary, every product needs attractive packaging. Brands are looking for new and creative ways to market their products. Graphic designers help produce amazing artworks for packaging products.
4. Designer for Weddings
Weddings are a big business. Graphic designers are often an integral part of this industry. From enticing wedding invitations to personalised thank you cards for the attendees are designed by graphic designers.
5. Industrial Designer
Right from the sports shoes that we wear to the stainless-steel plates that we eat into the superfast vehicles that we use, industrial designers influence every area of our lives. Marrying functional and aesthetic value within the framework of practicality, they conceptualise articles of everyday use. Look around you. Almost every manufactured article that you see in your surrounding has the imprint of an industrial designer.
6. Craft & Fine Artist
Doesn’t that glass vase compliment the upholstery you have chosen to go with that carpet? And of course, all this has been chosen keeping in mind the paint on the wall. Take a silent bow, graphic designer for that’s who is responsible for all these products. Craft artists craft objects of functional value such as pottery, glassware and textiles, whereas fine artists work in the realm of painting and sculpture, enriching our lives in so many ways.
So, if you think graphic designers only work at media or advertising agencies, think again. They are here, there and everywhere!
Which industry would you like to work as a graphic designer? Let us know in the comments.