Logos, website images, presentations, and other marketing materials are common graphic design examples. All of them are referred to as different types, which will be discussed in this guide below.
Whether you are a designer or working with a professional graphic designer, the first step is to know how to choose the right one for your projects.
How to Choose the Right Type of Graphic Design
Types of graphic design depend on the purpose of your design. Their selection also depends on your brand’s core values. Finally, you should primarily research your competitors’ design strategies to identify graphic design trends and opportunities to stand out. These steps will help you choose the best design approach for your project.
Defining the Purpose of Your Design
Your project’s goal must align with the design strategy that best fits this goal. The goal should include clear objectives, which ensure your design choices will be workable. Objectives such as building a brand identity, marketing a new product, or enhancing the user experience may differ. So, their design preferences must also vary.
Understanding Your Brand’s Core Values
Your brand’s core values must be represented in your marketing and design to showcase them, target your audience, and stand out in your market. So, you must first identify your core values and incorporate them into your brand’s design. Speak to your audience with responsible marketing. Increase trustworthiness with your ideal customers, which is essential for growth in sales and awareness.
Your target audience primarily defines the type of design to use. For example, you should speak to a more youthful audience with a different design. Also, your products or services may determine the choice. Type preferences will define what the design will look like. Colors and fonts play a big role in visual design.
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So, the process starts with understanding your brand’s core values.
Researching Competitor Design Strategies
The next critical step is to differentiate your products or services and stand out from your competitors. Good research requires specific skills and knowledge, such as market analysis and competitor analysis, so looking for a professional agency with a proven track record and career in design will be the best option. They will craft a personalized strategy and offer the options that would work effectively for your case.
Steps to Consider When Beginning a New Project:
- Defining the Purpose of Your Design:
- Determine the type of design needed for the project.
- Clarify the project goal to ensure appropriate design choices.
- Objectives may include creating a brand identity, marketing a new product, or enhancing user experience.
- Understanding Your Brand’s Core Values:
- Communicate brand core values through design choices.
- Identify the target market and desired communication style.
- Tailor visual design elements to market, e.g., colorful and casual for youthful brands and simple and clean for corporate brands.
- Researching Competitor Design Strategies:
- Gain insights into industry trends by researching competitors.
- Identify differentiation opportunities from competitors.
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8 Different Types of Graphic Design
After having defined your design’s goal, determined its core values, and learned available design strategies, it is time to choose the best design type. The list below will guide you through 8 possible design types, their main features, and examples.
Visual Identity Graphic Design
Visual identity design is what comes to mind for most people when you think about design. It includes such things as logos, typography, and color palette. This is created to represent a brand’s values. It creates a cohesive element to be used across all marketing, which builds trust with its audience.
✅Best for: Branding, corporate identity, brand guidelines
⭐Main goal: To establish a consistent and memorable brand image
🎨Examples: The Starbucks green logo in vectors format, with its distinct color palette and mermaid design, was crafted to use it on signage, coffee cups, and marketing materials. The image has become the symbol of the brand’s identity. While the brand built its trust and recognition with unique products and extremely high quality of services, its logo hints at the company’s biggest value, which is the satisfaction of its customers.
Another example is Google’s brand identity, characterized by its colorful logo and clean typography. This logo is applied across all its platforms, icons, and products, ensuring Google’s presence and familiarity with users. The choice of colors helped Google present its core value of defying any rules.
Marketing Graphic Design
Marketing types of graphic design aim to promote a product or service. It communicates a product or service through advertisements, brochures, flyers, posters, web design, email templates, and social media graphics. This is where graphic design and advertising work hand-in-hand for driving engagement and conversions.
✅Best for: Advertising campaigns, promotional materials, digital marketing, infographics
⭐Main goal: To reach the target audience with engaging campaigns that increase sales and awareness
🎨Examples: Coca-Cola’s holiday advertisements often feature nostalgic imagery and festive typography, effectively capturing the holiday spirit and promoting their product. Nike’s “Just Do It” campaign is another example. It uses bold imagery and motivational slogans in poster items, social media graphics, and advertisements to inspire and engage its audience while promoting its athletic products.
User Interface Graphic Design
User Interface (UI) is customer experience-focused. The visual aspects of a brand’s website, apps, and software are enhanced to be visually appealing and easy to use for its target market.
✅Best for: Websites, mobile apps, software interfaces
⭐Main goal: To enhance user experience through intuitive and aesthetically pleasing design
🎨Examples: Apple’s iOS interface is renowned for its sleek, user-friendly design, making it a benchmark for UI graphic design types. Airbnb’s website and mobile app are another example, which feature a clean, intuitive design that allows users to easily search for and book accommodations, enhancing the overall user experience through visually appealing and functional interface elements.
Publication Graphic Design
Publications are other areas of graphic design that involve creating a layout and visual designs for printed materials such as books, magazines, newspapers, and brochures.
✅Best for: Books, magazines, newspapers, catalogs
⭐Main goal: To create visually appealing and readable layouts that enhance the content
🎨Examples: The New Yorker magazine is known for its distinctive covers and well-designed page layouts, which contribute to its high-quality reading experience. Jamie Oliver’s beautifully designed cookbooks are another example. They feature stunning photography, engaging layouts, and easy-to-follow recipes, making the content visually appealing and user-friendly for readers. These captivating print ads examples masterfully command attention, making the product catchy at first glance.
Packaging Graphic Design
Packaging design includes the exterior packaging of a product. This is becoming increasingly important in branding your product with the surge of influencers creating videos online of “unboxing.” These videos highlight a brand’s packing elements, including wrapping, labeling, interior packaging (wrap and stickers), and products. Customers look forward to the experience of opening their package from start to finish, which is becoming as important as the product itself. For example, consider how important food package design is when making a choice about what to buy in the supermarket.
✅Best for: Consumer products, retail items, food packaging
⭐Main goal: To protect the product and entice consumers through attractive design
🎨Examples: Fabfitfun’s packaging design for its subscription box emphasizes fun and excitement, reinforcing the brand’s happy image. Apple’s minimalist and sleek packaging for its iPhones, which enhances the unboxing experience by creating a sense of anticipation and luxury, reflecting the brand’s commitment to high-quality design and innovation, is another example of graphic design.
Motion Graphic Design
Motion design is becoming a necessity in promoting your brand. Reaching your target audience is more successful when using animation and video, including animated logos, teaching videos, and branded promotional videos. This type of design is exploding across all social media platforms.
✅Best for: Videos, social media content, presentations, advertisements
⭐Main goal: To convey messages dynamically through motion and sound
🎨Examples: The animated logos seen at the beginning of many movies and TV shows, such as the Pixar lamp animation, are classic examples of motion design and 3D modeling. Another example is the engaging explainer videos used by tech companies like Dropbox, which utilize motion graphics to simplify complex concepts and demonstrate product features in an easy-to-understand and visually appealing manner.
Environmental Graphic Design
Environmental design connects people to places through visually integrated experiences. This type includes signage, murals, billboards, and exhibition design.
Environmental design is a more traditional type of design. It is still effective in connecting people to places through signs, murals, and exhibition design.
✅Best for: Signage, wayfinding systems, exhibitions, public installations
⭐Main goal: To enhance the user’s experience of a physical space through visually appealing and informative design
🎨Examples: The airport’s wayfinding system, with navigating images, clear signage and interactive maps, helps passengers find their routes to and from planes quickly. Another example is the vibrant murals and informational displays in children’s museums. They create an engaging and educational environment, also serving as guides to museum exhibits.
Art and Illustration for Graphic Design
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Art and illustration include anything from hand-drawn illustrations to digital art. This is becoming more accessible for individuals and designers alike with software such as Canva, where custom artwork can be created digitally to convey a specific message.
✅Best for: Books, magazines, advertising, merchandise
⭐Main goal: To enhance storytelling and visual interest through unique, custom artwork
🎨Examples: The hand-made pictures in children’s books, like those by Dr. Seuss, are prime examples of how art and illustration can bring a story to life. Another example is the vibrant and detailed images in marketing materials for brands like Ben & Jerry’s. They use custom artwork to create a playful and engaging visual identity that targets their audience.
Let’s Compare All Types of Graphic Design!
| Type of Design | Main Goal | Best for |
| Visual Identity Graphic Design | Establish a consistent and memorable brand image | Branding, corporate identity, brand guidelines |
| Marketing Graphic Design Types | Attract and engage the target audience, driving sales or awareness | Advertising campaigns, promotional materials, digital marketing |
| User Interface Graphic Design | Enhance user experience UX through intuitive and aesthetically pleasing design | Websites, mobile apps, software interfaces |
| Publication Graphic Design | Create visually appealing and readable layouts that enhance the content | Books, magazines, newspapers, catalogs |
| Packaging Graphic Design | Protect the product and entice consumers through attractive design | Consumer products, retail items, food packaging |
| Motion Graphic Design | Convey messages dynamically through motion and sound | Videos, social media content, presentations, advertisements |
| Environmental Graphic Design | Enhance the user’s experience of a physical space through visually appealing and informative design | Signage, wayfinding systems, exhibitions, public installations |
| Art and Illustration for Graphic Design | Enhance storytelling and visual interest through unique, custom artwork | Books, magazines, advertising, merchandise |
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Duck Design: An Original Vision of Graphic Design
Duck Design offers expertise in the eight types of graphic design that have been reviewed. Their team of professional designers is skilled at determining your unique needs and goals, as well as your potential clients. They can create an engaging marketing plan based on the eight types of design. They have the expertise to create a custom plan for you and execute it with a professional design that will perform effectively, making the results your brand desires.
Working with Duck Design:
- Incorporates all eight types of graphics.
- Team of professional designers.
- Tailored to meet the unique needs and goals of clients.
- Capable of creating:
- New brand identity
- Engaging marketing campaigns
- User-friendly website interfaces
- Expertise in delivering professional and effective design.
- Ensures designs that look great and perform effectively.
- Delivers results that align with brand objectives.
For dynamic and engaging visuals, check out our motion graphics services and top motion graphics companies.
Conclusion
Understanding the eight types of graphic design is critical in visual communication and design decisions. Taking the time to create or review your brand’s core values is essential to understanding the foundation of your brand’s story. Building a strong visual identity across marketing materials and digital design plays a significant role in building trust with your audience.
For more insights on the importance of graphic design and how to outsource graphic design for your business, visit Duck Design’s website. Understanding the eight types of design is critical in making decisions for your business. The result of applying the right types of graphic design to your project will be increased sales and engagement.
The difference in graphic design fields, goals of each type, and options for their best use will lead to more successful marketing campaigns, resulting in higher sales and customer engagement. Explore the full range of graphic design services and how Duck Design can help you create impactful visual communications.
