Branding is a highly rewarding industry that enables you to forge a satisfying career while expressing your imaginative freedom. However, creating a business is no easy feat, and if your goal is substantial growth, transforming it into a brand is essential. For graphic designers, transitioning into a branding specialist role offers a seamless entry into the brand-building process. This shift not only promises a fulfilling career but also provides ample financial opportunities.
If you aspire to pursue a career as a brand designer, it’s crucial to grasp the fundamentals. Indeed, being a brand designer comes with its own set of advantages and benefits. Brand designers are recognized as authentic individuals with a profound passion for innovative culture and design ethics. In this article, I’ve covered some tips as well as everything you need to cover before becoming a successful brand designer. So, why wait? Dive into the article and get started.
Who is a Brand Designer?
As we all know, the first impression of a brand is crucial from a customer’s perspective. It is this initial impression that influences the customer’s instinct to trust or distrust the brand. Studies indicate that it takes about 0.05 seconds for people to form an initial opinion about a website. Consequently, having a great website is now as important as providing excellent services or products.
A brand’s design serves as a visual communicator of its personality and the narrative it aims to convey to the outside world. An effective brand design facilitates audience recognition of a business, its services, and its identity for a product. Brand designing involves creating a distinctive visual image for a product or service, encompassing redesigning and refreshing the brand image, if necessary.
Brand designers play a pivotal role in crafting a business’s identity, encompassing the creation of a company’s logo, apps, website design, visual identities for social media, physical environments, and advertisements. Their responsibility extends to going the extra mile in constructing a middle-weight brand story that propels the brand into various spheres. A proficient brand designer ensures that every facet of the business’s image, from its social media channels to its websites, maintains coherence with a consistent and striking visual image. As we all know, consistency is paramount in branding; it aids in building trust and familiarity among customers and the audience.
Brand designers work to a brief to conceptualize ideas and design solutions that align with the details and the customer’s objectives and aspirations. Collaboration is a key aspect, involving coordination with clients, fellow designers, copywriters, artists, and more in making a branding project.
Day-to-day Tasks In Brand Design Include:
Designing websites and applications: While web and app developers handle the structural and functional aspects of sites and platforms, it’s the brand designer’s role to enhance the visual appeal, choosing styles and appearances.
Logo creation: Beyond establishing a company’s representation, a logo is the most recognizable element of its public image. Logo design is often the initial and crucial task for a brand designer.
Creating visual identity: The Logo isn’t the only thing that’s important to brand designing; brand designers are accountable for all other visuals a business may utilize. This encompasses maintaining a consistent approach to deciding on fonts, color palettes, packaging design, brochure design, social media aesthetics, and more.
Researching clients and target audience: Understanding how to align the brand’s image with the perceptions of both clients and target audiences is crucial.
Brand strategy: Brand designers play a vital role in developing innovative and insightful branding projects and strategies tailored to the brand’s audience along with the design team.
Why Choose a Brand Designer Career
If you have a unique passion and aspire to be part of the dynamic artistic industry as a designer, then becoming a brand designer is an ideal option for you. This profession is both innovative and outward-thinking, offering a rewarding, enjoyable, and lucrative career. Working in this field is consistently interesting, providing the space to upskill and flex your creative abilities continuously. Typically, like many other designers, you can engage in a variety of projects throughout your career, allowing you to expand your talents.
What Does a Brand Designer Earn?
Brand designing is a rapidly growing industry with a genuine demand for talented designers. The opportunities it presents include job security, excellent career prospects, and a competitive salary—making it an attractive choice. Currently, all roles in this industry are increasingly digital, so it gives an opportunity for brand designers to work from anywhere in the world. The importance of a brand’s personality has never been greater, as it has the potential to be a crucial juncture for a company. A career as a brand designer will translate your imaginative thinking and talent into tangible results in the real world.
A brand designer’s salary is dependent on the sector in which the person is working, their experience, and the location. Graduate brand designers earn from $2,670 to $3,570. Junior designers earn up to $5,280.
Freelancers can earn a day rate ranging from $200 to $500, depending on their experience.
*The above salaries serve as a guide only.
Advantages of Being a Brand Designer:
- You enter the brand designing industry with a demand for talented individuals.
- New briefs present fresh challenges, making each day creatively distinct.
- The field offers a dynamic pace, pushing you to deliver and learn about ever-changing trends in the industry.
- You encounter new techniques, tools, and people that contribute to building your design portfolio.
- You have the option to work as an in-house designer or freelance for agencies.
- Flexible hours enable you to maintain a sensible work-life balance that aligns with your interests.
How To Become a Brand Designer
So, to become a brand designer, check out the skills and qualifications you require to kickstart your brand design journey!
Skills Needed for a Brand Designer
Brand design as a profession involves combining the forces of art, creativity, and technology. Therefore, anyone looking to enter this industry or job market should master the technical skills required to excel in top-design software applications. Here are the skills you might need to become a brand designer.
- Photoshop is Adobe’s most popular software used to create striking and brilliant designs across a range of mediums. Aside from the basic functions, Photoshop has incorporated complex features like animation and 3D editing. A Graphic Designer should know how to use Photoshop to create web-ready imagery and paint digitally, and photographers can use it to edit their photos.
- Illustrator, another essential tool in a designer’s toolkit, is crucial for bringing imagination to life. Adobe Illustrator is necessary, especially for creating logos, icons, and crisp typography.
- In the world of publishing and page layout, Adobe InDesign is the go-to tool. Visual designers may need to work on designing brochures, magazines, and other important publications related to their products or services. InDesign is invaluable for formatting for print, web, and other devices, with reliable features such as text styles, columns, and margins.
- Figma, a browser-based UI, and UX design application, is an important tool for designers. It helps in creating ideas for websites, applications, logos, and more. Having a basic understanding of how to use Figma is a plus for anyone aspiring to become a brand’s visual designer.
- Adobe After Effects is a necessary industry tool for adding motion or animation to any design and content. It aids designers in creating visually stunning motion graphics and visual effects. Learning this tool allows designers to create unique and professional-quality assets for a brand’s web or prints.
Along with these technical skills, the brand’s innovative designers should also have strong imaginative skills with a strong understanding of design principles.
Other key skills for any upcoming brand designer include:
- Organizational skills
- Communication skills
- Team player
- Creative skills and a keen eye for detail
- Ability to think in words and images
- Ability to understand and apply client brand guidelines
- Good design-oriented problem-solving skills
Responsibilities
Typical responsibilities include:
– Contributing to the brand strategy developed for client projects, including ideas that show insight and innovation, providing solutions that engage potential clients and the audience.
– Implementing innovative execution during the design stages of client projects, working collaboratively under a senior creative director or design director.
– Briefing and overseeing production with excellent attention to detail, adherence to the client’s brand guidelines, and demanding deadlines.
– Understanding the business case or client brief through effective communication with the client, researching the client’s goals and objectives, and delivering up to their expectations.
– Contributing to new pitches and other successful business initiatives.
– Taking ownership of shaping, developing, and delivering various innovative projects at the organization.
Qualifications Required for a Brand Designer
Basically, a brand specialist should have a degree or a higher national diploma in any of the following subjects:
- Graphic design
- Graphic communication design
- Graphic branding and identity
- Visual communication
- Brand design
- Art and design
You’ll have to pursue a degree in any of the mentioned courses, as it’s a big financial and time commitment, so it’s worth having a serious think if it’s the right choice for you. Alternatively, you can take online courses that help you upskill your technical abilities and gain an understanding of what’s trending in the market. Regardless of the route taken, the most important tool in any designer’s kit is their portfolio. You should have an up-to-date portfolio showcasing your unique ideas and design skills, which will help you, even if you’re looking for a job or an apprenticeship.
Does Being a Brand Designer Need Graphic Design Work Experience?
Qualified brand designers’ work will start with gaining experience through internships at various agencies before securing a position, whether transitioning to a full-time designer or a freelance designer. Internships provide a strong foundation for acquiring experience across various formats, platforms, and environments, helping to build the perfect portfolio of work
It is considered important to have a portfolio of work, in both digital and printed forms, showcasing your capabilities, talent, and exposure to work in both internships and job interviews.
There are also apprenticeships available in graphic design. The higher the level of apprenticeship, the more suitable you are for higher-level graphic design roles.
Conclusion
If you’re a graphic designer seeking a career change, consider transitioning to the dynamic role of a brand strategist. The work-life balance of a visual designer working on a branding project is brimming with new creative challenges, valuable lessons, and the freedom to express your imagination. It’s undoubtedly one of the coolest gigs you can explore.
I hope this guide has provided you with a fundamental understanding of how to become a brand strategist. Don’t hesitate – if you believe you’re a perfect fit for this role, start exploring this role without delay. You won’t regret it, I promise.
FAQ
How long does it take to become a brand designer?
A brand designer must hold a bachelor’s degree in graphic design or marketing. This career demands strong technical skills and abilities. Additionally, you should possess a professional portfolio that showcases your best creative work. As a brand designer, you need strong visual skills, creative ideas, and proficiency in writing and marketing. With basic experience, you can become a brand designer within 2-3 years.
Is brand designing a good career?
Brand designing can be a rewarding career for those who love creative endeavors. Individuals with strong visual and creative skills, along with a foundation in graphic design, can easily build a successful profession as a brand designer. You can consistently upskill your creative abilities, experience various market trends firsthand, and learn and grow each day within the field of brand design.