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| Visual designer | |
| Graphic designer --> related to visual | |
| Interior designer --> related to architect | |
| Motion designer | |
| 3D designer --> related to motion | |
| UX designer/interaction designer | |
| Close but not designer | |
| Illustrator --> close to visual designer | |
| Architect | |
| Animator | |
| Typographer |
I would classify product designer as someone who designs physical products e.g. you model Dyson vacuum cleaners ("productontwikkeling").
But there also digital product designers, this is more about software, what features should go in, what should be left out, how the features should work (now we're veering towards ux/interaction design again).
Designing a product doesn't have to be a small physical item like a vacuum cleaner. There are also car designers, rocket designers, bridge designers etc. - some jobs are between product design and architecture while others are engineering + product design.
Now then, what would you call people that do urban planning? In theory you could call anyone who defines where something should go a designer. This is why the word designer without defining it doesn't really mean anything.
Maybe packaging is where three dimentional functionalities meet graphic design.
@P45C4L Good point. There will always be an example of overlap between design fields I think.
I also believe I’ve missed another kind of designer: the animator, or Time Designer. So that would result in:
- Architect (Space Designer): manipulates space.
- Product Designer: manipulates 3D objects in space.
- Graphic Designer: manipulates 2D objects in space.
- Animator (Time Designer): manipulates time.
I wonder how you’d classify Product Designer. And why you classify Architect as not designer. If any profession with a rich history comes close to what I think—judging by your last blog post—your definition of a designer is, it must be an Architect. You could even, in a sense, say that interior designer is to architect what visual designer is to graphic designer.
That list is vaguely sorted from “high impact on space, very dimensional” to “low impact on space, mostly flat”.
All three professions, when doing their best work, design an objective and subjective engagement with something. Either with space, a 3D object or a 2D object. You could define subjective engagement as interaction. All three should be aware of interactions on some level. At least, if you are not trying to be a specialist designer.
I think you can then classify digital design as a field-of-work of Graphic Design. Much like landscape design is a field-of-work for Architecture. That allows any generalist (Architect, Product Designer, Graphic Designer) or specialist (Interior Designer, 3D Modeler, Illustrator) to trenscend or stick to a certain field-of-work.
E.g. specialising in field-of-work would result in:
Ah well, much theory. In practice every designer either hates or likes to explore other fields of design. And that might be the only real distinction you can make.