Just Call Me ‘Designer’ — The Confusion and Complexity of Design Titles 🤔
What’s in a name? 🌹
Titles can be frustrating. I wonder sometimes if they even mean anything at all? [Spoiler alert, they don’t matter all that much.]
What company do you work at or aspire to work at? What is your skillset and what is the job description asking for? (Even that can be highly subjective.) It even comes down to your desired salary range.
I originally come from the physical product space (Children’s Apparel to be specific.) For me, the concept of Product Design used to mean physical goods and not digital products and services. When I made my transition from fashion design to the tech world, I studied UX and Product Design as it pertains to the digital realm.
On paper, my title is Visual Designer. I work at a small agency and a lot of what I do overlaps with the responsibilities of a UX Designer, UI Designer, and Interaction Designer too. A lot of my teammates are hybrids.
But there is another side to this title debacle that can get dicey. Depending on where you work, the title you take can impact the salary you can make over time. For instance, someone with the title UX Designer who is an IC (Individual Contributor) with 3–5 years of experience can generally expect a salary around $20,000 more than someone with the title Visual Designer with the same experience in the same city. The below example:
You can argue that between these roles the type of work is similar for some companies. For others, it can be drastically different. Sometimes the pay difference is justified, but there are times where it’s not and responsibilities between these roles get blurred. This can make pay equity for designers more challenging for candidates and employers alike.
Some companies even have levels established for designer roles (ex. Product Designer II.) As you move up in level, so do your pay and responsibilities. However, between these three companies, responsibilities may differ across comparable levels.
In short, it’s complicated.
Granted, there are a lot of factors that contribute to why anyone can expect to make more or less as they move up the ladder in their career. A lot of it has to do with societal privilege and underlying marginalization — there are plenty of articles that deep-dive into that subject, like this favorite of mine from the New York Times. I won’t be getting too deep on that here, but I suggest researching the disparities for yourself. To my fellow marginalized folks, I can’t stress enough the importance of knowing your worth.
I’ll define myself now, thanks. 👍🏽
These days I’ve been calling myself a Digital Designer and Creative Technologist. This has felt the most right given everything I do daily, despite my “official” title. Once I got the job, I came to understand that there was even some difficulty around defining the role before I joined, and this is a very common issue in the field broadly.
I don’t even think we in the design community have a handle on the role definitions and responsibilities. [I link to this article on the subject a lot, so here it is again. It’s such a good one.]
At my core, I’m a generalist designer who niches down when I need to. Right now it's Data Visualization. In a few years, it could be something different or adjacent, or I might stick with it for the long haul.
At times I worry about over-generalizing, often toeing the line between specializing or being a unicorn.
I try to remain adaptable.
As someone early in their career with design experience in another field, I feel a bit confused and overwhelmed by these distinctions. Am I, by choosing a specific title early on, pigeonholing myself?
My design interests have no bounds, but there is the looming risk of trying to do so much that you never master anything. This notion is at odds with my highly creative nature and desire to learn new things on the fly.
However, growth potential always wins over self-doubt.
In 2021, I learned how to leverage my knowledge of no-code tools like Webflow. I also learned data visualization fundamentals and how to use tools like RawGraphs and DataWrapper. Oh, and of course, I need to mention my favorite Figma plugin, Chart.
Daily, I’m combining design, storytelling, math, and my understanding of code to craft, solve problems, and meet client expectations.
I became a better designer. I’m still becoming one.
Designer, with a capital ‘D’ 🔥
All in all, I don’t know if I need to call myself anything particularly. Isn’t “Designer”, enough?
I feel empowered to face any challenges my work requires. I will continue to dabble in new disciplines. There will be things that I’m great at, have the potential to improve, or even need to abandon. It’s my choice where I decide to put my energy.
My design talents may have me crafting things in the digital space or in places where the physical and digital blur into one another. We still need physical devices to access digital spaces, right? With the advent of “smart” devices, wearables, interactive installations, and 3D Design, the sky is the limit. So much can be achieved with design, and a title is just a starting point, not a box.
Being able to dip and dive into different realms of design is a superpower. 🦸🏽♀️
I want to take a moment to mention this amazing episode of the Revision Path podcast featuring Chris Burnett that inspired me to finish writing this here post I had in my drafts for months. Check it out, you’ll be glad you did! I’m not the only one who shares these sentiments.
