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Visual designer vs interactive designer

The differences between visual designers 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 visual designer and an interactive designer. Additionally, an interactive designer has an average salary of $97,929, which is higher than the $86,495 average annual salary of a visual designer.

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

Visual designer vs interactive designer overview

Visual DesignerInteractive Designer
Yearly salary$86,495$97,929
Hourly rate$41.58$47.08
Growth rate3%3%
Number of jobs46,81548,136
Job satisfaction--
Most common degreeBachelor's Degree, 75%Bachelor's Degree, 73%
Average age3838
Years of experience1212

What does a visual designer do?

A visual designer is someone who creates designs for a variety of platforms such as Internet and intranet sites, games, and wearables. The duties of visual designers depend on the specific project or industry in which they are working. Duties include creating user-centered interaction models, working with information technology and business teams to resolve complex issues, and designing logos, icons, and infographics. The qualifications to become a visual designer include possessing strong problem-solving, communication, and negotiation skills and obtaining a bachelor's degree in design.

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.

Visual designer vs interactive designer salary

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

Visual DesignerInteractive Designer
Average salary$86,495$97,929
Salary rangeBetween $51,000 And $143,000Between $67,000 And $141,000
Highest paying CitySan Bruno, CASan Bruno, CA
Highest paying stateCaliforniaCalifornia
Best paying companyByteDanceMeta
Best paying industryStart-upTechnology

Differences between visual designer and interactive designer education

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

Visual DesignerInteractive Designer
Most common degreeBachelor's Degree, 75%Bachelor's Degree, 73%
Most common majorGraphic DesignGraphic Design
Most common collegeUniversity of PennsylvaniaUniversity of Pennsylvania

Visual designer vs interactive designer demographics

Here are the differences between visual designers' and interactive designers' demographics:

Visual DesignerInteractive Designer
Average age3838
Gender ratioMale, 53.1% Female, 46.9%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 visual designer and interactive designer duties and responsibilities

Visual designer example responsibilities.

  • Design, project manage, and build retail stores from sketch to completion.
  • Manage website redesign including copywriting and updating all website content.
  • Produce and deliver HTML5, CSS3 and graphical items.
  • Design team brand and logo for organization.
  • Provide approved design in HTML5 to web developer for publishing.
  • Utilize expertise in Photoshop CS6, HTML5/CSS, Squarespace, and JavaScript.
  • 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

Visual designer vs interactive designer skills

Common visual designer skills
  • Sketch, 19%
  • Visual Design, 8%
  • Graphic Design, 5%
  • UI, 5%
  • User Experience, 4%
  • Visualization, 4%
Common interactive designer skills
  • Sketch, 13%
  • User Experience, 7%
  • UI, 6%
  • Interaction Design, 6%
  • Invision, 4%
  • Visual Design, 4%

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