In this complete guide, we’ll explore the diverse landscape of digital design, from UI and UX design to how digital design is different from traditional graphic design.
Confused about the difference between graphic design and digital design? Want to know why digital design is geared as much towards usability as visual style? This guide to what digital design is will help you to select the right type of design for your project, as well as a useful resource for those wanting to know how to become a digital designer.
Read on to find out more about digital design, its history and its future trajectory, including:
What Is Digital Design?
Digital design describes any type of visual communication that has been created to be used on a digital device, such as a phone, tablet, computer, or electronic billboard.
The difference between traditional graphic design and digital design is that graphic design is for print, while digital design includes a greater degree of interactivity to adapt to a digital format.
However, a wide range of designs, both print and digital content, are often pulled together into the term “graphic design.”
Digital design describes any type of visual communication that has been created to be used on a digital device, such as a phone, tablet, computer, or electronic billboard.
While a PDF uploaded to a website is technically digital design, as it appears on a screen or online, it misses the one aspect of digital design which really sets it apart from a print design, which is usability.
A digital designer will, therefore, be expected to be able to design interactive and user-friendly layouts for websites, app designs, interactive video advertising, or social media.
In other words, while graphic design is intended to be viewed and read, digital design is intended to be used, and will include many more interactive elements as a result.
What Are the Origins of Digital Design?
Digital design can trace its origins back to the early 1980s, when computer screens first started to become more developed, including graphics, simple animations, fonts and, later in the mid-1990s, full-color plasma display.
With the development of digital design software, such as Adobe Photoshop (1987) and Adobe Illustrator (1986), graphic designers now had tools to produce digital designs, with early websites including photos, logos, and colorful illustrations.
By the early 2000s, web design was a fully-fledged occupation, although at this point it still commonly merged with web development (more on that later). CAD (Computer-Aided Design) software began to replace manual methods of designing across a wide range of design and construction industries, such as architecture, product design, and interior design.
In recent years, digital design has become increasingly advanced, propelled by the demand for websites and apps with an ever-greater sophistication of interactivity, as well as fresh social media content to keep consumers engaged.
Now, and into the near future, we’re likely to see digital design explode even further in diversity and evolution, with the impact of Artificial Intelligence and AI-aided design.
How Is Digital Design Different to Graphic Design?
What is digital design and how does it differ from traditional graphic design? Graphic design as a discipline was born in the era of print. As a result, it is geared towards print design and related fields, such as branding, editorial design, and signage design.
Digital design builds on the heritage of traditional graphic design, with digital designers expected to be knowledgeable and skillful in typography, photo editing, color, and illustration, in the same vein as a graphic designer.
Graphic design as a discipline was born in the era of print and, as a result, is geared towards print design and related fields, such as branding, editorial design, and signage design.
What makes digital design skills different is the media for which digital designers are creating, which may encompass websites, apps, email design, and social media design, all of which demand a greater level of consideration towards interactivity and usability.
Digital design might also extend to creating original visual content for online media, such as 3D design and CAD or AI-assisted imagery, animations, or video.
Digital Design: Key Concepts to Know
To really understand what digital design is today, we need to take a deep-dive into the digital design industry. First of all, it’s important to understand the difference between a graphic designer and a digital designer and, secondly, the centricity of the user experience in digital design.
Graphic Designer vs Digital Designer
If you search for a graphic design job today, it’s likely that most of the roles you encounter will encompass much more than traditional graphic design, which is (in theory) limited to print design.
Today, the term “graphic design” is used to describe a broad spectrum of design skills, including both print and digital design.
The majority of graphic designers working today are in fact both digital designers and print designers, often expected to produce static designs and digital designs that can work seamlessly across both print and online.
Keep in mind that a digital design career is very different to a career as a web developer or software engineer, which are roles that require different technical skills and often a different mindset as well.
However, digital designers will usually have some level of understanding of how websites or online applications are built, and may benefit from knowing some basic coding skills.
User Experience (UX) in Digital Design
User experience (UX) refers to how a user interacts with and experiences a website, application, or digital service. For digital designers, UX design is integral to their practice and is always at the forefront of the design process.
A positive user experience might be reinforced through intuitive navigation, responsive design, and clear communication throughout the user’s digital journey, all of which can be created and enhanced by the digital designer.
In addition, thoughtful use of color and contrast can promote accessibility on a website or app, while positive brand perception can be reinforced through building creative and immersive digital experiences.
User experience (UX) refers to how a user interacts with and experiences a website, application, or digital service.
User experience (UX) design can be distinguished from user-interface (UI) design (see below) in that it is more concerned with the overall experience and emotional effect of a digital design, while UI aims to promote and refine interactivity on digital platforms.
How to Create User-Friendly Digital Designs
When we think of what digital design is in terms of its impact, we always come back to the term “user-friendly.” As we touched upon earlier, while graphic design is concerned with the overall look of a design, digital design expands on this to include how a design is also interacted with by the individual.
User-friendly digital designs that are intuitive and inviting are the ultimate goal of the digital designer.
Below, you’ll find two sub-areas of digital design that are specifically geared towards optimizing the user-friendly qualities of a website, app, or email marketing design—user-interface (UI) design and visual hierarchy.
User-Interface (UI) Design
User-interface design, or UI design, aims to promote user engagement through improving the interactivity, look, and feel of a digital design. UI design helps to improve digital products through considered choices surrounding page layout, color scheme, font selection, and interactive elements.
A wireframe or prototype may also help the designer to gauge the effectiveness of the digital design, as well as communicate the UI concept to a client.
User-interface design, or UI design, aims to promote user engagement through improving the interactivity, look, and feel of a digital design.
While UX (User Experience) design is concerned with the overall experience of a digital design, UI design delves into the details of how that experience can be achieved through use of interactive and aesthetic elements.
The Importance of Visual Hierarchy
Alongside UI design, the user-friendly qualities of a digital design are optimized through careful use of visual elements, with visual hierarchy playing a particularly important role.
Visual hierarchy is a design technique used to create a sense of order and sequence, leading the viewer from prominent, large-scale content carrying a core message to smaller or less prominent content that follows a natural order.
For the digital designer, visual hierarchy can be achieved through consideration of color theory, typography, composition, and scale.
For example, carefully selected typography can be used to draw the eye to a call-to-action (CTA), while knowledge of human psychology can be employed to lead the eye naturally from headline to message to button.
The digital designer knows how to use visuals to convey messages effectively, and uses UI skills and techniques to bring interactivity and usability to visual elements.
Looking Ahead: The Future of Digital Design
Digital design occupies a unique position in that it sits between the mysterious codes and programs of digital development and the actual user of a digital product. As a result, digital design is becoming increasingly important, giving tech its user-friendly and aesthetically pleasing storefront.
With digital users becoming more aware of what they should be able to expect of a website, app, or email, and having ever-multiplying options for going elsewhere if needs are not met, digital design is vital for businesses looking to make a lasting impression online.
Alongside AI and responsive design, digital design is at the frontier of design today, and its potential for evolution seems, right now, unstoppable. Dip a toe into digital design and you’ll be sure to only keep discovering fascinating developments.
License this cover image via Master1305 and Roman Samborskyi. Banner images via Master1305, Roman Samborskyi, and RoseRodionova.
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