10 Types of Graphic Designs You May Need for Your Visual Branding

Graphic designs come in many varieties to make aesthetically pleasing forms to capture someone's attention visually.

When you think of graphic design, you probably conjure images of logos and visual branding that have made an impression on your mind as part of some kind of advertising campaign or a company you see everywhere.

The Golden Arches, the orange swish, polar bears drinking soda, and those six multicolored letters that spell out a search engine’s name are all instantly recognizable images because of someone's graphic design efforts.

Get to know the 10 types of graphic design, so you can decide which ones are best for your overall requirements on a project.

Business design types are specifically geared toward making companies stand out to their target audience.

Advertising billboard showing business graphic design type. (Source)

Advertising

The sole purpose of advertising is to drive sales. Advertisements must capture someone's attention quickly and effectively while creating an emotional connection with a target audience using visuals, colors, and even audio and video.

Advertising design includes:

• Brochures

• Billboards

• Infographics

• Social media ads

• Display ads on websites

• YouTube ads

Corporate

If you're a company with a specific brand, you use corporate design every day. The most visible part of your brand identity is your corporate logo. These visuals form the basis of your company's brand identity.

You will see corporate design on:

• Stationery

• Business cards

• Signage

• Letterheads

• Cups

Marketing

Marketing occurs when you promote your products or services. You must design cohesive marketing campaigns across many channels for maximum effectiveness.

Marketing design efforts will be seen on:

• Websites

• Social media

• TV/Videos

• Print media

These designs are used when people need information displayed in order to make a decision.

Environmental graphic design, such as this arrow, points the way to passersby. (Source)

Environmental

This kind of design connects people to places they physically visit to leave a memorable impression. The overall goal of environmental design is to enhance someone's experience within a particular setting. Someone might improve a space with signage, warnings, directions, or informational graphics.

For example, you're in a large, modern subway station and you need directions to catch a train to reach your destination. The walls, floors, or even the ceilings might incorporate environmental graphic design to point people in the right direction.

Information/Data

Information and data design helps people organize and disseminate data. Looking at columns and columns of numbers on a spreadsheet to determine exactly what information you need can be confusing and time consuming. Information design conveys complex things simply.

These items incorporate information design in our daily lives:

• Infographics

• Charts

• Graphs

• Maps

• Diagrams

Typography design combines letters, numbers, and visual representations for an aesthetically pleasing appearance.

Typography plays a huge role in graphic design. (Source)

Packaging

Great packaging can make products stand out from a crowd of others on store shelves. Packaging design incorporates branding, color schemes, photographs, fonts, and typography.

Examples of beautiful packaging graphic design include ones for cosmetics, food, and retail products for sale on shelves. The overall goal of packaging design is to connect consumers with brands.

Publishing

Traditionally, publishing design meant paper media like brochures, books, magazines, and newspapers. Now, it may refer to digital publications like e-books, digital newsletters, catalogs, and other digital assets.

All of these elements require the right images, color schemes, and typography to exude a brand's identity and make it aesthetically pleasing.

This type of design exists solely in the digital and online realm.

Digital design in the gaming industry. (Source)

UI/Games

UI stands for user interface. This type of design relies on how you interact with certain elements, such as using a mouse, smartphone, app, or computer system.

Colors, buttons, URLs, images, and icons all can add functionality to different digital tools. For example, a colorful button on a website can lead to calling a business to enquire about tickets, food, or a ride home.

UI design also includes the look and layout of games. How do the games interface with players? How do they move through the game? Is the graphic design sleek and fluid?

Motion

Think of motion design as little animations. Rather than animation like in a cartoon or video, motion design incorporates small motions like someone jumping up and down, swinging back and forth, or walking with a scene in the background. The idea is to draw attention to something.

Motion design is popular and everywhere:

• GIFs

• Apps

• Animated texts

• Banner ads

• Opening and closing credits

Web

One of the most popular forms of graphic design today, web design brings together all types of elements, concepts, colors, brands, and interactions to create websites and web pages. Every website you see on the internet needs a web designer to make it work properly. Web design is closely related to UI and UX design.

You'll see web design on landing pages, blogs, websites, and content hubs.