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Animator vs interactive designer

The differences between animators and interactive designers can be seen in a few details. Each job has different responsibilities and duties. While it typically takes 1-2 years to become an animator, becoming an interactive designer takes usually requires 6-12 months. Additionally, an interactive designer has an average salary of $97,929, which is higher than the $76,853 average annual salary of an animator.

The top three skills for an animator include animation, motion capture and storyboards. The most important skills for an interactive designer are sketch, user experience, and UI.

Animator vs interactive designer overview

AnimatorInteractive Designer
Yearly salary$76,853$97,929
Hourly rate$36.95$47.08
Growth rate5%3%
Number of jobs55148,136
Job satisfaction--
Most common degreeBachelor's Degree, 74%Bachelor's Degree, 73%
Average age4038
Years of experience212

What does an animator do?

The animators are specialized artists who conceptualized ideas from their creative minds with technology applications. Animators cater to different specialties depending on their expertise. They used multiple techniques and tools to create a digital masterpiece. An animator is required to have an excellent time and project management skills to meet deadlines. They should also be detail-oriented and technology savvy to keep up with the latest trend in the digital market. Animators are required to have regular communication with the respective department for the updates or adjustments as needed.

What does an interactive designer do?

An Interactive Designer takes the business product and transforms it into a product that the user interacts with perfectly. They support engineering efforts to develop designs and get the details right.

Animator vs interactive designer salary

Animators and interactive designers have different pay scales, as shown below.

AnimatorInteractive Designer
Average salary$76,853$97,929
Salary rangeBetween $52,000 And $112,000Between $67,000 And $141,000
Highest paying CityLas Vegas, NVSan Bruno, CA
Highest paying stateNevadaCalifornia
Best paying companyMetaMeta
Best paying industryMediaTechnology

Differences between animator and interactive designer education

There are a few differences between an animator and an interactive designer in terms of educational background:

AnimatorInteractive Designer
Most common degreeBachelor's Degree, 74%Bachelor's Degree, 73%
Most common majorAnimationGraphic Design
Most common collegeUniversity of PennsylvaniaUniversity of Pennsylvania

Animator vs interactive designer demographics

Here are the differences between animators' and interactive designers' demographics:

AnimatorInteractive Designer
Average age4038
Gender ratioMale, 71.9% Female, 28.1%Male, 66.8% Female, 33.2%
Race ratioBlack or African American, 4.3% Unknown, 5.8% Hispanic or Latino, 13.9% Asian, 7.5% White, 67.7% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.8%Black or African American, 3.4% Unknown, 5.0% Hispanic or Latino, 10.6% Asian, 10.4% White, 70.2% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.4%
LGBT Percentage11%13%

Differences between animator and interactive designer duties and responsibilities

Animator example responsibilities.

  • Lead a team of artists to create the art and animation for motion comics aspects of the show.
  • Train & supervise newly appoint employee in achieving realistic looking effects and help integrating the effects in compositing with cg elements.
  • Create many logos for a YouTube sketch.
  • Sketch every seen multiple times utilizing several camera angles and character blocking.
  • Assist in the animation development of learning videos and nursery rhymes for YouTube.
  • Implement uniform display geometry to support texture artist and UV mapping artist, demonstrating advance UV mapping skills.
  • Show more

Interactive designer example responsibilities.

  • Manage website properties including design, content and marketing using HTML5, CSS and JavaScript.
  • Create, implement, and manage web content projects (HTML emails, web sites, digitizing audio/video).
  • Use ASP.NET and XML to automate common workflow tasks due to extremely high volume of designs to be create.
  • Develop a custom object-orient prototyping model in the design of a highly dynamic user interface.
  • Work primarily with JQuery to design/develop full screen overlays and dynamic forms.
  • Develop clean, table-less web sites using valid XHTML and CSS according to standards.
  • Show more

Animator vs interactive designer skills

Common animator skills
  • Animation, 36%
  • Motion Capture, 7%
  • Storyboards, 5%
  • Motion Graphics, 5%
  • AAA, 3%
  • Graphic Design, 3%
Common interactive designer skills
  • Sketch, 13%
  • User Experience, 7%
  • UI, 6%
  • Interaction Design, 6%
  • Invision, 4%
  • Visual Design, 4%

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