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Interactive art director vs interactive designer

The differences between interactive art directors and interactive designers can be seen in a few details. Each job has different responsibilities and duties. While it typically takes 4-6 years to become an interactive art director, 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 $90,392 average annual salary of an interactive art director.

The top three skills for an interactive art director include develop user, UI and visual design. The most important skills for an interactive designer are sketch, user experience, and UI.

Interactive art director vs interactive designer overview

Interactive Art DirectorInteractive Designer
Yearly salary$90,392$97,929
Hourly rate$43.46$47.08
Growth rate4%3%
Number of jobs11,59848,136
Job satisfaction--
Most common degreeBachelor's Degree, 82%Bachelor's Degree, 73%
Average age4038
Years of experience612

What does an interactive art director do?

An interactive art director oversees the design, development, and research of web-based products to promote a business' management and marketing. They are responsible for the project's overall look, which usually involves leading graphic designers and web developers to create and produce a variety of interactive products. An interactive art director manages a website, widgets on different social media platforms, or mobile applications. They collaborate with other professionals like digital marketers and product managers and outline a goal for the project.

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.

Interactive art director vs interactive designer salary

Interactive art directors and interactive designers have different pay scales, as shown below.

Interactive Art DirectorInteractive Designer
Average salary$90,392$97,929
Salary rangeBetween $58,000 And $140,000Between $67,000 And $141,000
Highest paying CitySan Francisco, CASan Bruno, CA
Highest paying stateCaliforniaCalifornia
Best paying companyAppleMeta
Best paying industryPharmaceuticalTechnology

Differences between interactive art director and interactive designer education

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

Interactive Art DirectorInteractive Designer
Most common degreeBachelor's Degree, 82%Bachelor's Degree, 73%
Most common majorGraphic DesignGraphic Design
Most common collegeHarvard UniversityUniversity of Pennsylvania

Interactive art director vs interactive designer demographics

Here are the differences between interactive art directors' and interactive designers' demographics:

Interactive Art DirectorInteractive Designer
Average age4038
Gender ratioMale, 75.6% Female, 24.4%Male, 66.8% Female, 33.2%
Race ratioBlack or African American, 4.3% Unknown, 5.6% Hispanic or Latino, 14.3% Asian, 7.7% White, 67.4% 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 interactive art director and interactive designer duties and responsibilities

Interactive art director example responsibilities.

  • Lead requirements definition with card sorting, user and stakeholder interviews, contextual inquiry, paper prototyping, and heuristics.
  • Develop front-end code including XHTML, PHP, JavaScript and CSS.
  • Involve in UX design and interaction as well basic HTML coding.
  • Facilitate sales teams by creating interactive presentations on CD-ROM and HTML email campaigns.
  • Champion innovation technologically including responsive UI
  • Champion innovation technologically including responsive UI

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

Interactive art director vs interactive designer skills

Common interactive art director skills
  • Develop User, 42%
  • UI, 7%
  • Visual Design, 5%
  • Art Direction, 4%
  • Creative Solutions, 3%
  • HTML, 3%
Common interactive designer skills
  • Sketch, 13%
  • User Experience, 7%
  • UI, 6%
  • Interaction Design, 6%
  • Invision, 4%
  • Visual Design, 4%

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