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Concept artist vs interactive designer

The differences between concept artists 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 a concept artist, 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 $85,713 average annual salary of a concept artist.

The top three skills for a concept artist include storyboards, maya and animation. The most important skills for an interactive designer are sketch, user experience, and UI.

Concept artist vs interactive designer overview

Concept ArtistInteractive Designer
Yearly salary$85,713$97,929
Hourly rate$41.21$47.08
Growth rate5%3%
Number of jobs3,59648,136
Job satisfaction--
Most common degreeBachelor's Degree, 75%Bachelor's Degree, 73%
Average age4038
Years of experience212

What does a concept artist do?

The job of a concept artist is to make visual representations of creatures, characters, environments, vehicles, and other artistic assets. You should know about the design and how to create one that needs to blend well with any creative project. Your typical job includes drawing or painting these creative assets and providing references for any ideas you need to illustrate. The general qualifications needed to become a successful concept artist include illustration skills, design understanding, and knowledge of Photoshop.

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.

Concept artist vs interactive designer salary

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

Concept ArtistInteractive Designer
Average salary$85,713$97,929
Salary rangeBetween $56,000 And $130,000Between $67,000 And $141,000
Highest paying CityNovato, CASan Bruno, CA
Highest paying stateNevadaCalifornia
Best paying companyMetaMeta
Best paying industryTechnologyTechnology

Differences between concept artist and interactive designer education

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

Concept ArtistInteractive Designer
Most common degreeBachelor's Degree, 75%Bachelor's Degree, 73%
Most common majorGraphic DesignGraphic Design
Most common collegeUniversity of PennsylvaniaUniversity of Pennsylvania

Concept artist vs interactive designer demographics

Here are the differences between concept artists' and interactive designers' demographics:

Concept ArtistInteractive Designer
Average age4038
Gender ratioMale, 74.3% Female, 25.7%Male, 66.8% Female, 33.2%
Race ratioBlack or African American, 4.3% Unknown, 5.6% Hispanic or Latino, 14.2% Asian, 7.7% White, 67.5% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.7%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 concept artist and interactive designer duties and responsibilities

Concept artist example responsibilities.

  • Create many MEL scripts to help automate routine daily tasks and improve overall productivity.
  • Rig character for animation in Maya.
  • Create pitches for new and old IP.
  • Sketch concept art for an online game
  • Design & animate VFX for mobile games!
  • Prepare 3D models for production using Maya 3d.
  • 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

Concept artist vs interactive designer skills

Common concept artist skills
  • Storyboards, 8%
  • Maya, 8%
  • Animation, 7%
  • Sketch, 6%
  • Art Direction, 6%
  • Graphic Design, 5%
Common interactive designer skills
  • Sketch, 13%
  • User Experience, 7%
  • UI, 6%
  • Interaction Design, 6%
  • Invision, 4%
  • Visual Design, 4%

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