Design Roles Are Changing. Education Should Too.
As design production becomes further democratized through software improvements and generative AI, designers are being asked to have deeper specialization across more categories. Job postings want designers to be identity experts, videographers, animators, and 3D modelers all in the same position. The 2022 LinkedIn Future of Skills Economic Graph showed that since 2015, terms like “Adobe Illustrator”, and “Art Direction” had fallen out of favor in job postings and been replaced by interactive, system oriented skills such as “Brand & Identity”, and “User Interface Design”. The lines at the boundaries are blurring. For marketing positions, the same report showed that skills such as “Graphic Design”, “Canva”, and “Content Strategy” were newly required skills, absorbing some of the technical and visual expertise traditionally assigned to designers.
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Out of a sample of 100,000 LinkedIn jobs, roughly 2,000 were likely to be design or content positions when filtering by job title for a subset of design specific terms like “graphic”, “illustrator”, “content”, and “UX”.
By using K-means clustering analysis on the title, description, and required skills of job postings, terms that frequently appear together were grouped. When these groups are viewed as a whole, three types of visual communication positions emerge—content marketing, traditional visual communication design, and product design or UX.
Less than one-third of these postings focus solely on visual design.
The patterns seen in the Future of Skills Economic Graph are reflected in position titles. Marketing positions take on roles such as “Content Specialist” or “Social Media Manager”, both of which require graphic production in the form of design, photography, or video.
Traditional graphic design positions continue to require new skills, like dynamic data visualization, motion graphic, and 3D modeling.
Despite tech layoffs post-COVID, the UX space continues to offer growth for design employment. Many titles now use “product design” rather than “UX” and expect designers to have responsibility over product financial metrics and lifecycle success.
An Opportunity to Rethink Design Education
As institutions question how best to position during social and technological change, this may be an opportune time to reinvent what it means to study design and be job-ready. Small liberal arts colleges, which thrive on being able to establish relationships and work across departments, but struggle to offer the depth and combined years of experience that large departments provide, may be particularly well-suited to make this change.
Design programs should ensure students have exposure to all three domains while providing them with the agency to choose what type of designers they want to be. This type of program structure acknowledges a dynamic and skill-based labor market that places less emphasis on specific degrees and uniform knowledge.
Out of a sample of 100,000 LinkedIn jobs, roughly 2,000 were likely to be design or content positions when filtering by job title for a subset of design specific terms like “graphic”, “illustrator”, “content”, and “UX”.
By using K-means clustering analysis on the title, description, and required skills of job postings, terms that frequently appear together were grouped. When these groups are viewed as a whole, three types of visual communication positions emerge—content marketing, traditional visual communication design, and product design or UX.
Less than one-third of these postings focus solely on visual design.
The patterns seen in the Future of Skills Economic Graph are reflected in position titles. Marketing positions take on roles such as “Content Specialist” or “Social Media Manager”, both of which require graphic production in the form of design, photography, or video.
Traditional graphic design positions continue to require new skills, like dynamic data visualization, motion graphic, and 3D modeling.
Despite tech layoffs post-COVID, the UX space continues to offer growth for design employment. Many titles now use “product design” rather than “UX” and expect designers to have responsibility over product financial metrics and lifecycle success.
Deep expertise in visual communication design is still valuable and needed, but graduates may find the job market they graduate into to be increasingly competitive if viewed through a narrow scope. Not only are design skills dispersing amongst vocations, but the disciplines they are moving to pay better and are growing faster. O*NET and BLS statistics show more favorable earnings and job growth in marketing and UX when compared with visual design.
Jobs Labeled UX or Marketing Earn Higher Pay On Average
Number of Positions
10 Year Projected Growth by Sector
An Opportunity to Rethink Design Education
As institutions question how best to position during social and technological change, this may be an opportune time to reinvent what it means to study design and be job-ready. Small liberal arts colleges, which thrive on being able to establish relationships and work across departments, but struggle to offer the depth and combined years of experience that large departments provide, may be particularly well-suited to make this change.
Design programs should ensure students have exposure to all three domains while providing them with the agency to choose what type of designers they want to be. This type of program structure acknowledges a dynamic and skill-based labor market that places less emphasis on specific degrees and uniform knowledge.