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Game artist vs interactive designer

The differences between game 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 game 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 $86,932 average annual salary of a game artist.

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

Game artist vs interactive designer overview

Game ArtistInteractive Designer
Yearly salary$86,932$97,929
Hourly rate$41.79$47.08
Growth rate5%3%
Number of jobs5,04048,136
Job satisfaction--
Most common degreeBachelor's Degree, 79%Bachelor's Degree, 73%
Average age4038
Years of experience212

What does a game artist do?

This individual is tasked with just one thing, and that is to create 2D or 3D art for visual elements in video games. Their task is crucial in the process of creating games. They visualize how a game will look and ensure it comes out exactly that way. They design a few preliminary sketches and develop them according to the general style of the video game. They are required to work on components like characters, textures, vehicles, colors, lighting, objects, and environment.

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.

Game artist vs interactive designer salary

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

Game ArtistInteractive Designer
Average salary$86,932$97,929
Salary rangeBetween $56,000 And $133,000Between $67,000 And $141,000
Highest paying CityLas Vegas, NVSan Bruno, CA
Highest paying stateNevadaCalifornia
Best paying companyAmazonMeta
Best paying industryStart-upTechnology

Differences between game artist and interactive designer education

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

Game ArtistInteractive Designer
Most common degreeBachelor's Degree, 79%Bachelor's Degree, 73%
Most common majorGraphic DesignGraphic Design
Most common collegeUniversity of PennsylvaniaUniversity of Pennsylvania

Game artist vs interactive designer demographics

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

Game ArtistInteractive Designer
Average age4038
Gender ratioMale, 70.0% Female, 30.0%Male, 66.8% Female, 33.2%
Race ratioBlack or African American, 4.3% Unknown, 5.6% Hispanic or Latino, 14.2% Asian, 7.6% White, 67.7% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.6%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 game artist and interactive designer duties and responsibilities

Game artist example responsibilities.

  • Create many MEL scripts to help automate routine daily tasks and improve overall productivity.
  • Work include background art, character design, user-interface design and art, award art, buttons and flash FX.
  • Create 3d models, and texture paintings.
  • Conceptualize the look of different levels and stages for PC games.
  • Model, rig, and texture hero and enemy characters for an untitle project.
  • Ensure that all assets fit the art style of the game and are ready for animation hand off.
  • 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

Game artist vs interactive designer skills

Common game artist skills
  • Animation, 15%
  • Maya, 11%
  • Sketch, 8%
  • UI, 8%
  • Unity, 7%
  • Concept Art, 5%
Common interactive designer skills
  • Sketch, 13%
  • User Experience, 7%
  • UI, 6%
  • Interaction Design, 6%
  • Invision, 4%
  • Visual Design, 4%

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