Graphic Designer vs. Graphic Artist: Who Should You Hire?

The term graphic designer and graphic artist might sound the same and more like interchangeable for someone comparatively new to the terminologies. When you are considering crafting the visual identity of your business, understanding the difference between these two is vital.

Around 90% of the information transmitted to the brain is via visuals, which is why 55% of the first brand impressions are visual. How else do you think kids to senior citizens can identify, recall, and retain global brands like McDonalds, Subway, Starbucks, and many more, without reading the brand name? Their logo is one visual element that holds a predominant spot in the viewers memory.

From the name it might sound that they have a very thin line of difference, but in reality it’s diverse when you set out to hire graphic designers vs artists. Each role has a unique skill set and expertise to offer that can have a sizable impact on your branding and marketing efforts.

In this blog, let’s identify the difference between both these roles to decide which professional you need to hire for a particular project.

Defining the Roles

First and foremost is the role definition to give you a clarity of what you can expect in terms of the roles and responsibilities of both these graphic professionals.

What is a Graphic Designer

A graphic designer is a professional who uses a mindful combination of art and technology to deliver visually appealing and functional designs. They work on several aspects of your project from branding, advertising, to digital media to ensure that the visual elements align with your brand messaging and identity.

The key responsibilities of graphic designers generally entails developing logos, brochures, websites, and other marketing collaterals. The goal is to work closely with the clients and deliver designs that effectively communicate the intended message and their needs. You can hire graphic designers for:

Website and app design
Branding projects
Creating marketing materials such as flyers, posters, and social media graphics.

What is a Graphic Artist

A graphic artist on the other hand is a professional who focuses more on the artistic side of visual content creation. They work on producing original artwork that is often used in various media such as books, magazines, and advertising campaigns. Their work is more on the creative mindset rather than abiding to any specific marketing goals.

They collaborate with creative directors and other artists to design visual content that narrates a story or evokes a brand emotion. Their typical project types include:

Illustrations
Comic strips
Advertising artwork
Custom illustrations for various media platforms

Skill Sets and Tools

Once you are aware about how graphic designer vs artist roles differ, it’s time to understand their skill sets and tools used distinctions.

Skills of a Graphic Designer

Graphic designers need a judicious blend of technical proficiency and creative skills. A list of the essential skills include:

Proficiency in design softwares such as Sketch and Figma for UI/UX design, Adobe Creative Suite, and CorelDRAW for vector illustrations.
Understanding of typography such as aspects like font pairing and readability, custom typeface creation, typography hierarchy knowledge, etc.
Familiarity with color theory with respect to selection of appropriate color palettes, understanding color psychology, and creating brand-specific color themes.
Creating responsive designs with an understanding of web and mobile design and print design.

The softwares that are commonly preferred by graphic designers include Sketch, Figma, Adobe Creative Suite (Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign), and other UI/UX design tools.

Skills of a Graphic Artist

As the term suggests the skills of this group of graphic professionals should be more inclined towards creativity. They should possess strong artistic skills and creativity to produce artworks with originality and expressiveness. They often use a mix of traditional and digital tools to transform their creative ideas to life.

The essential skills of a graphic artist hire include:

Excellent drawing and illustration skills to create detailed illustrations with knowledge of various drawing techniques.
Developing unique and original concepts with ability to convey emotions and stories visually.
Selecting and blending colors artistically to understand color harmony and contrast.
Proficiency in commonly used digital tablets such as Wacom, Huion along with use of common softwares like Adobe Photoshop, Corel Painter, and Procreate.

Educational Background and Experience

Education:

Besides skill set, an analysis of the qualifications, accreditations, and experience level also have a vital role to play in the hiring funnel. Whether you are hiring graphic artist or graphic designer they need to have formal education, but their paths differ as under:

The graphic designer education typically involves a bachelor’s degree in graphic design, visual arts, and related fields. The core focus here is on design principles, typography, branding, and digital media.
On the other hand, graphic artist education includes a bachelor’s degree in fine arts, illustration, or related field, emphasizing on drawing, painting, and mixed media.

Relevant Work Experience:

Graphic designers generally have experience working in marketing agencies, corporate design departments, or as freelancers with a portfolio of a diverse range of design projects.
Graphic artists on the other hand typically work in publishing, advertising, or as freelance artists with portfolios having original artwork and illustrations.

Project Needs and Goals

Now that you have an overview of the distinction between the roles, skills, and qualifications of graphic designer vs artist, it’s time to understand when to hire who. You must know when your project can reap benefits of hiring a graphic designer vs an artist and the vice-versa. This is only possible when you understand the project needs and goals for both these roles.

When to Hire a Graphic Designer

Graphic designers will be a valuable investment if your project requires structured and consistent visual communication. This includes branding, marketing, digital design, and other such niche. They are a suitable pick for the following project types:

Branding and identity projects that involve developing logos, brand guidelines, and visual identities.
Marketing campaigns for the creation of digital ads, social media graphics, and promotional assets.
Developing responsive app designs for mobile and website.
Designing internal documents, reports, and presentations for corporate communications.

When to Hire a Graphic Artist

Graphic artists on the other hand are a suitable choice for projects that need expressive and creative visual content. You must hire graphic artists for the following type of graphic tasks:

Designing detailed and imaginative books and magazine illustrations.
Creating unique and expressive artwork for advertising campaigns.
Producing engaging and visually appealing comic strips and graphic novels.
Developing custom illustrations for various media such as digital and print.

Cost Considerations

Now comes the major hiring factor that is budgeting the hiring costs for both these professionals. The cost breakdown can vary on a range of factors such as location, experience level, skill sets, hiring approach, project complexity, and many more. Let’s look at a detailed breakdown for graphic designers as well as graphic artists.

Average Cost of Hiring a Graphic Designer

Freelancers

Hourly rates – The hourly rates for freelance graphic designers can range anywhere between $20-$150 per hour. This varies based on the experience level.
Project-based pricing – It can range anywhere from $50 to $5000 varying on the project scope and designers experience.
Full-time employees
Salaries – This will also vary based on the location and experience level. For instance, in the USA the average annual salary range will be $67172 to $719364 ,but in India it will be $10200 to $21480.
Overhead costs – The benefits, cost of having an office space, and equipment cost add to the overall hiring budget.

Average Cost of Hiring a Graphic Artist

Freelancers
Hourly rates – The hourly rates for freelance graphic artists can range anywhere between $15-$150 per hour. This varies based on the experience level.
Project-based pricing – It can range anywhere from $100 to $3000 varying on the project scope and artist’s experience.

Full-time employees
Salaries – This will also vary based on the location and experience level. For instance, in the USA the average annual salary range will be $35000 to $84000,but in India it will be $4060 to $15640.
Overhead costs – The benefits, cost of having an office space, and equipment cost add to the overall hiring budget.

Making the Right Choice

Therefore, when you are deciding to choose between a graphic designer vs artist several key factors must be considered. The top-rated must-consider ones include:

Project requirements which must include:
a. Determining the project nature
b. Evaluating the project scope and complexity
Budget considerations in terms of assessing your financial resources. Determine the project budget and then decide which is a feasible option.
a. Freelancers can be cost-effective for short term projects.
b. Full-time employees can be on a higher end budget suitable for long-term and ongoing projects.
Evaluate and match the skills and experience of the candidate with your project needs.

All this can sound a little strenuous as a hiring manager competing for the right talent in the competitive recruitment market with a widening demand-supply gap. In such a scenario would a hiring partner be valuable to streamline the hiring process with zero hassle, top-tier talent, and cost-effective rates?

Uplers could be the right fit for you offering you full-time AI-vetted tech and digital talent. Why settle for freelancers or contractors when you can have dedicated graphic designers or artists for the same or even lesser price?

Why Uplers is the Most Sought-After Choice to Hire?

At Uplers we take pride in connecting our 7,000+ global clients with top-tier Indian tech and digital talent for over a decade. Our 4-step rigorous AI-vetting process is what makes us carve the distinction from our competitors.

We are not like any other staffing agency that typically sends you candidate profiles and ends the partnership there. We stay with you from the start to the post-hiring phase with our 4-step vetting process. Want to know how you can wrap up your hiring hassle in 4 easy steps?

Draft a detailed job description and pass it to us to set the foundation for finding the right talent. Don’t have a JD but know your requirements? Don’t worry, our free Jd Pro tool will help you create a compelling job description in no time.
We start the heavy lifting from this stage and scrutinize the top 3.5% of candidate profiles that are a suitable match from our 1M+ talent network. This is done with our AI-vetting tactic where we screen candidates based on their aptitude evaluation, language proficiency, skills assessment, and cultural competency.
Only the best matches based on the AI screening score and our human touch are sent in your inbox after 48-72 hours of your hiring request.
It’s time for you to interview the final shortlisted applicants. State your convenient time and we will schedule a slot to help you finalize your hire.
Lastly, we take over the onboarding formalities to streamline it with zero hassle for you as well as the talent.

This is why global hiring managers including those of Fortune 500 companies vouch to partner with us. We not only eliminate the majority of the remote hiring hassle, but also help you save up to 40% on hiring costs. Additionally, we offer talents from across 5+ time zones for 100+ tech and digital skills.

You can avail a 2 weeks risk-free trial to ensure the designer or artist suitability and there is also a 30-days talent cancellation policy. Post-hiring we are still with you with our lifetime free talent replacement policy.

Apart from hiring, if you need help in formulating a competitive compensation strategy you can use the Uplers salary analysis tool.

Wrapping Up

Making an informed hiring decision requires you to be familiar with the distinctions between a graphic designer vs artist. Every role adds special abilities and viewpoints that can make a big difference to your visual initiatives.

Knowing the advantages of working with a graphic designer or artist will help you effortlessly make your pick, regardless of whether you require their disciplined, technical approach or their creative, expressive work. You can quickly identify and supplement the skills and expertise of the best personnel to suit your project needs and complete your project on time.