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Design internship vs interactive designer

The differences between design interns and interactive designers can be seen in a few details. Each job has different responsibilities and duties. It typically takes 6-12 months to become both a design internship and an interactive designer. Additionally, an interactive designer has an average salary of $97,929, which is higher than the $45,791 average annual salary of a design internship.

The top three skills for a design internship include design intern, sketch and graphic design. The most important skills for an interactive designer are sketch, user experience, and UI.

Design internship vs interactive designer overview

Design InternshipInteractive Designer
Yearly salary$45,791$97,929
Hourly rate$22.01$47.08
Growth rate3%3%
Number of jobs97,01848,136
Job satisfaction--
Most common degreeBachelor's Degree, 74%Bachelor's Degree, 73%
Average age3838
Years of experience1212

What does a design internship do?

As the name entails, graphic design interns learn about the career in graphic design in a hands-on setting. They have varied tasks and duties, including taking part in every meeting of the design team, conducting client research, assisting with social media and design projects, and working closely with experienced designers. They are often paid little or nothing at all for their service, but the experience that they acquire from their field can be dispensable.

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.

Design internship vs interactive designer salary

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

Design InternshipInteractive Designer
Average salary$45,791$97,929
Salary rangeBetween $32,000 And $64,000Between $67,000 And $141,000
Highest paying CitySan Francisco, CASan Bruno, CA
Highest paying stateWashingtonCalifornia
Best paying companyMetaMeta
Best paying industryTechnologyTechnology

Differences between design internship and interactive designer education

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

Design InternshipInteractive Designer
Most common degreeBachelor's Degree, 74%Bachelor's Degree, 73%
Most common majorGraphic DesignGraphic Design
Most common collegeUniversity of PennsylvaniaUniversity of Pennsylvania

Design internship vs interactive designer demographics

Here are the differences between design interns' and interactive designers' demographics:

Design InternshipInteractive Designer
Average age3838
Gender ratioMale, 41.7% Female, 58.3%Male, 66.8% Female, 33.2%
Race ratioBlack 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%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 Percentage13%13%

Differences between design internship and interactive designer duties and responsibilities

Design internship example responsibilities.

  • Design promotional materials, annual reports, newsletters and HTML emails, manage the website presence and functions
  • Manage the website and twitter page, write the blog posts and attend numerous fashion shows and sample sale rooms.
  • Assemble front-end implementation using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.
  • Develop knowledge of designing websites and learned languages such as HTML and CSS.
  • Improve and simplify the user interface by using interaction design and data visualization.
  • Leverage project management principals to improve process and program effectiveness, drive down costs and improve efficiency.
  • 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

Design internship vs interactive designer skills

Common design internship skills
  • Design Intern, 12%
  • Sketch, 11%
  • Graphic Design, 5%
  • User Experience, 4%
  • Visualization, 3%
  • UI, 3%
Common interactive designer skills
  • Sketch, 13%
  • User Experience, 7%
  • UI, 6%
  • Interaction Design, 6%
  • Invision, 4%
  • Visual Design, 4%

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