What does a principal designer do?
The principal designer is the chief person or coordinator of a team of designers working on a designing project. The principal designer must have relevant skills and experience in designing and organizing a team of designers to work cohesively on a particular project. The chief designer has decisions and control on the pre-production phase of a project and will effectively plan a project according to the client or customer's parameters and objectives.
Principal designer responsibilities
Here are examples of responsibilities from real principal designer resumes:
- Lead creative brainstorming with internal designers and consultants.
- Manage purchase orders, estimates, invoices, and all financial bookkeeping in QuickBooks software, including quarterly sales tax.
- Design and partially code (CSS and HTML) entire site using Wordpress.
- Work one on one with clients to create corporate identities through logo creation, brochures, business cards, letterhead, education
- Utilize HTML to build/upload pages throughout sites.
- Lead teams in UI, branding and UX of digital products.
- Design visualization lead for the creation of multiple 3D animate shorts.
- Create wireframes, interactions flows through to high fidelity visual designs and CSS.
- Collaborate with front-end developers on UI and UX for redesign concepts of entire site.
- Sketch detail plans, drawings and construction documents by hand and utilizing ArchiCAD and Photoshop.
- Design skills include Solidworks, digital sketching, mechanism design, prototype building, and product research.
- Create 2D drawings from 3D parametric models, validate/verify integrity of 3D model Java, JavaScript, and HTML training.
- Redesign and create quarterly newsletters and publications, including catalogs and brochures.
- Coordinate with photography vendor to design and make exceptional quality wedding portfolios.
- Facilitate conversations between businesses and individuals seeking professional photography services, submitting bids and securing reservations.
Principal designer skills and personality traits
We calculated that 18% of Principal Designers are proficient in Sketch, UI, and Digital Marketing. They’re also known for soft skills such as Communication skills, Time-management skills, and Analytical skills.
We break down the percentage of Principal Designers that have these skills listed on their resume here:
- Sketch, 18%
Provide a schematic or P&ID sketch of the complete proposal including generic Control Systems philosophy.
- UI, 6%
Create low and hi-fidelity wireframes, UI component libraries, iconography, and final design specifications.
- Digital Marketing, 6%
Drive Legacy's digital marketing by designing and executing strategic marketing plans.
- User Experience, 6%
Provided user experience design services supporting interactive and advertising agencies as well as business clients directly.
- Prototyping, 5%
Developed customized user interaction models using object-oriented prototyping.
- CAD, 5%
Supplied CAD information to manufacturing engineering to create work instructions.
Common skills that a principal designer uses to do their job include "sketch," "ui," and "digital marketing." You can find details on the most important principal designer responsibilities below.
Communication skills. One of the key soft skills for a principal designer to have is communication skills. You can see how this relates to what principal designers do because "graphic designers must communicate with clients, customers, and other designers to ensure that their designs accurately and effectively convey information." Additionally, a principal designer resume shows how principal designers use communication skills: "collaborate cross-functionally with product management, engineering, user research and communication design to ensure a smooth product development process"
Time-management skills. Many principal designer duties rely on time-management skills. "graphic designers often work simultaneously on multiple projects, each with a different deadline.," so a principal designer will need this skill often in their role. This resume example is just one of many ways principal designer responsibilities rely on time-management skills: "project management: scheduled contractors, installers, and delivery of products and materials, focusing on established deadlines. "
Analytical skills. principal designers are also known for analytical skills, which are critical to their duties. You can see how this skill relates to principal designer responsibilities, because "graphic designers must be able to perceive their work from their consumers’ point of view to ensure that the designs convey the client’s message." A principal designer resume example shows how analytical skills is used in the workplace: "led team to implement the use of modelcheck automated cad data analyzer, and to develop and maintain checking requirements. "
Artistic ability. A big part of what principal designers do relies on "artistic ability." You can see how essential it is to principal designer responsibilities because "graphic designers must be able to create designs that are artistically interesting and appealing to clients and consumers." Here's an example of how this skill is used from a resume that represents typical principal designer tasks: "utilize a host of artistic media including paint, airbrush paint, drawing, sewing, embroidery, and computer graphics. "
Computer skills. Another common skill required for principal designer responsibilities is "computer skills." This skill comes up in the duties of principal designers all the time, as "most graphic designers use specialized graphic design software to prepare their designs." An excerpt from a real principal designer resume shows how this skill is central to what a principal designer does: "use computer-aided drafting (cad) and related software to produce construction documents. "
Creativity. Another skill commonly found on principal designer job descriptions is "creativity." It can come up quite often in principal designer duties, since "graphic designers must be able to think of new approaches to communicating ideas to consumers." Here's an example from a resume of how this skill fits into day-to-day principal designer responsibilities: "lead designer for play-doh brand set the creative vision and product development plans for the play-doh brand. "
The three companies that hire the most principal designers are:
- Verint184 principal designers jobs
- Salesforce54 principal designers jobs
- Microsoft47 principal designers jobs
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Compare different principal designers
Principal designer vs. Interactive designer
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.
While similarities exist, there are also some differences between principal designers and interactive designer. For instance, principal designer responsibilities require skills such as "digital marketing," "cad," "product design," and "product development." Whereas a interactive designer is skilled in "interaction design," "invision," "visual design," and "adobe creative suite." This is part of what separates the two careers.
Interactive designers tend to reach similar levels of education than principal designers. In fact, interactive designers are 1.8% more likely to graduate with a Master's Degree and 1.5% less likely to have a Doctoral Degree.Principal designer vs. Senior graphic designer
A senior graphic designer oversees all of the designing operations in a company, from conceptualization to production. One of their primary responsibilities is to ensure that all designs produced are according to a client's preference and brand. They also encourage fresh ideas from the team, communicate with clients or representatives, and manage the schedules to meet all deadlines. Furthermore, as a senior graphic designer, they are responsible for leading and mentoring a team of graphic designers, all in the joint effort to reach project goals.
While some skills are similar in these professions, other skills aren't so similar. For example, resumes show us that principal designer responsibilities requires skills like "human centered design," "ui," "prototyping," and "cad." But a senior graphic designer might use other skills in their typical duties, such as, "adobe creative suite," "creative concepts," "brochures," and "adobe photoshop."
Senior graphic designers earn lower levels of education than principal designers in general. They're 7.7% less likely to graduate with a Master's Degree and 1.5% less likely to earn a Doctoral Degree.What technology do you think will become more important and prevalent for principal designers in the next 3-5 years?
Michelle Lockwood
Associate Professor, Graphic Design Art, Mansfield University of Pennsylvania
Principal designer vs. Web designer
A web designer is a creative professional responsible for creating and redesigning the content and layout of websites. Web designers are required to meet clients and users to discuss the needs and goals of their clients. To create graphics, colors, and fonts, web designers usually use HTML coding to alter the website's layout. Web designers must build their portfolio by taking on unique projects for themselves and the people they know.
There are many key differences between these two careers, including some of the skills required to perform responsibilities within each role. For example, a principal designer is likely to be skilled in "human centered design," "digital marketing," "prototyping," and "cad," while a typical web designer is skilled in "wordpress," "javascript," "html5," and "adobe photoshop."
Most web designers achieve a similar degree level compared to principal designers. For example, they're 4.9% less likely to graduate with a Master's Degree, and 1.5% less likely to earn a Doctoral Degree.Principal designer vs. Senior piping designer
A Senior Piping Designer is responsible for the scoping and technical execution of the piping design. They manage and supervise all aspects and details of the piping design.
Types of principal designer
Updated January 8, 2025
