Laura Helen Winn

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Recently, in our industry, I’ve noticed a disturbing increase of the term ‘Visual Design’. It’s often used to describe a job title, or a step in a UX design process; ‘we’ve done the strategy, the product definition, the prototyping… now, let’s make it pretty with some visual design. We need a Visual Designer to do that’. This confuses and bothers me. So, rather than have a weekly debate about it on Twitter, I thought I’d pen a few words here to make my point.

Mark Boulton, Visual Design is not a thing. I couldn’t agree more. This quote’s final sentence is exactly the conclusion I’ve come to recently, which is that every great designer I know would never simply call themselves a visual designer, or a UX designer. (via timoni)

…honestly, I don’t know a single good designer who would call themselves a visual designer, or what they do as ‘Visual Design’.

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Definitely an interesting take on the subject, I’m glad to see someone writing about industry semantics. I see Boulton’s point - the term “visual designer” does seem odd and vague. However, I have a hard time being satisfied with saying I’m a graphic designer. To me the term includes the traditions of graphic design, and that excludes the web. Which is not to say graphic design didn’t lay the foundation and principles for web design, simply that they are different. I know a lot of graphic designers who only focus on print and a bit of industrial design. They are fantastic at their craft, and turn their backs to the web with a thought of, “Let web designers do their thing, I’ll do mine.”

I also have a hard time calling myself a web designer, interaction designer, or interface designer. The truth is, I’m a little (or a lot) of all of those, and using one term to describe all of those tasks may not exist.

(Source: markboulton.co.uk, via timoni)