What Does a Production Designer Do?

In this section, we take a look at the annual salaries of other professions. Take designer/art director for example. On average, the designer/art directors annual salary is $42,688 higher than what production designers make on average every year.

While the salaries between these two careers can be different, they do share some of the same responsibilities. Employees in both production designers and designer/art directors positions are skilled in sketch, graphic design, and adobe creative suite.

There are some key differences in responsibilities as well. For example, a production designer responsibilities require skills like "digital marketing," "adobe indesign," "project management," and "production design." Meanwhile a typical designer/art director has skills in areas such as "photography," "creative concepts," "product design," and "website design." This difference in skills reveals how truly different these two careers really are.

Designer/art directors receive the highest salaries in the media industry coming in with an average yearly salary of $100,319. But production designers are paid more in the internet industry with an average salary of $91,521.

The education levels that designer/art directors earn is a bit different than that of production designers. In particular, designer/art directors are 0.9% more likely to graduate with a Master's Degree than a production designer. Additionally, they're 0.2% more likely to earn a Doctoral Degree.

The next role we're going to look at is the graphic designer/production profession. Typically, this position earns a lower pay. In fact, they earn a $6,141 lower salary than production designers per year.

Not everything about these jobs is different. Take their skills, for example. Production designers and graphic designer/productions both include similar skills like "sketch," "graphic design," and "adobe creative suite" on their resumes.

While some skills are similar in these professions, other skills aren't so similar. For example, several resumes showed us that production designer responsibilities requires skills like "digital marketing," "project management," "production design," and "animation." But a graphic designer/production might use skills, such as, "signage," "brochures," "product photography," and "posters."

On average, graphic designer/productions earn a lower salary than production designers. There are industries that support higher salaries in each profession respectively. Interestingly enough, graphic designer/productions earn the most pay in the technology industry with an average salary of $59,531. Whereas, production designers have higher paychecks in the internet industry where they earn an average of $91,521.

On the topic of education, graphic designer/productions earn similar levels of education than production designers. In general, they're 2.4% less likely to graduate with a Master's Degree and 0.2% less likely to earn a Doctoral Degree.

Let's now take a look at the design director profession. On average, these workers make higher salaries than production designers with a $78,063 difference per year.

By looking over several production designers and design directors resumes, we found that both roles utilize similar skills, such as "sketch," "graphic design," and "digital marketing." But beyond that the careers look very different.

Some important key differences between the two careers are a few of the skills necessary to fulfill responsibilities. Some examples from production designer resumes include skills like "adobe creative suite," "adobe indesign," "adobe photoshop," and "production design," whereas a design director might be skilled in "human centered design," "product design," "user experience," and "architecture. "

Design directors make a very good living in the manufacturing industry with an average annual salary of $155,570. Whereas production designers are paid the highest salary in the internet industry with the average being $91,521.

When it comes to education, design directors tend to earn higher education levels than production designers. In fact, they're 5.3% more likely to earn a Master's Degree, and 1.0% more likely to graduate with a Doctoral Degree.

The fourth career we look at typically earns lower pay than production designers. On average, graphic designers, marketing earn a difference of $5,997 lower per year.

While both production designers and graphic designers, marketing complete day-to-day tasks using similar skills like sketch, graphic design, and adobe creative suite, the two careers also vary in other skills.

While some skills are shared by these professions, there are some differences to note. "project management," "production design," "layout design," and "animation" are skills that have shown up on production designers resumes. Additionally, graphic designer, marketing uses skills like brochures, blog posts, flyers, and in-house on their resumes.

Graphic designers, marketing earn a higher salary in the technology industry with an average of $52,640. Whereas, production designers earn the highest salary in the internet industry.

The average resume of graphic designers, marketing showed that they earn similar levels of education to production designers. So much so that the likelihood of them earning a Master's Degree is 1.3% less. Additionally, they're less likely to earn a Doctoral Degree by 0.1%.