Graphic Design vs User Experience Design: What’s the Difference?

Oct 21

Graphic design and UX design are two of the most in-demand creative fields these days. While they sound similar, they are two distinct terms that shouldn’t be used interchangeably.

In this graphic design vs user experience design comparison, we’ll dig deeper into what they are and how they differ to help you decide what type of design is right for you.

We’ll also take a look at some of the best tools that designers use for their projects, such as Canva, Design Cuts, and Adobe Creative Cloud.

What Is Graphic Design?

What comes to mind when you think of the term graphic design?

For most people, graphic design is all about captivating posters, book covers, logos, and artistic advertisements. In a nutshell, that is true.

Graphic design is defined as an applied art or academic discipline that combines words, images, and ideas to transmit specific messages.

To put it simply, it’s a way of communicating and projecting ideas to an audience.

Graphic design comes in many forms, but one thing they all have in common is that they are designed to communicate visually.

Modern-day graphic design began in the early 20th century. Over the years, it has permeated the business space and become an essential part of our daily life.

Yet, even though graphic design is predominantly used in the business space, it can also be used as a way to express art around us.

Where Is Graphic Design Used?

Graphic design is widely used in commercial settings.

You’ve probably bought a product many times based on its packaging alone. That’s the power of graphic design right there.

It is meant to influence people’s perception of a brand and encourage them to take action.

Brands and companies that want to draw people to their products use graphic design to create eye-grabbing and stunning websites, signs, product labels, and more.

Graphic designers collaborate with companies to create color palettes, business cards, typography, image libraries, logos, and other visual content that promote corporate identity and branding.

It also plays a vital role in marketing, particularly in making flyers, social media ads, posters, postcards, and many more.

What Are the Elements of Graphic Design?

Elements of art are the basic units of any visual design. They form the content’s structure and convey its visual message. Below are the elements of graphic design:

Line

This is the most basic element of graphic design. It comes in many forms, from straight to curved, thin, thick, 2D, 3D, and more.

Shape

Graphic designers use different types of shapes, including abstract, geometric, and organic shapes.

Color Theory

This element is immensely important in grabbing a viewer’s attention because it can evoke feelings or influence mood.

Texture

Texture in design speaks of how things look like if they were to be touched. It can be smooth, rough, glossy, soft, or hard.

This element is also used to draw attention and can be incorporated into other elements like colors, shapes, and static images.

Typography

This refers to the art of arranging type. It is very important because it affects the message the design wants to convey.

Using this element, a graphic designer combines different weights with varied sizing, colors, and spacing to add power to the message that the designer is trying to communicate.

Size

In graphic design, size indicates the importance of a visual element. An artist creates visual interest by using contrasting sizes.

Space

This refers to the areas of the visual content that are left blank, such as the distance around or between elements.

Designers place spaces in their designs to emphasize certain elements.

Related read: How To License Graphic Design

What Is User Experience Design?

User experience (UX) refers to how a user interacts with and experiences a product or service.

The UX design process involves acquiring and integrating the product, from the branding to its usability and function.

Designing an experience not only involves making the software easy to use but also designing other experiences related to the product.

These include marketing, product packaging, and after-sales support.

Unlike graphic design, which focuses on conveying a message and motivating an audience, UX design is more concerned with delivering innovative solutions.

It also involves addressing pain points to enhance the overall experience of a user or customer.

UX design is often used interchangeably with UI design and usability testing. However, while these two are important aspects of UX design, they are just subsets of it.

Where Is UX Design Used?

UX designers consider the why, what, and how of product use.

The “why” relates to a user’s motivation for adopting a product, while the “what” addresses the things the users can do with the product.

In other words, it talks about the functionality of the product.

Finally, the “how” refers to the functionality’s design in an accessible and aesthetically pleasing way.

It is important to note that graphic design skills are necessary to succeed in any UX design project.

Apart from technical skills, UX designers should also have a basic understanding of codes to easily communicate with developers.

Graphic Design vs User Experience Design: Key Differences

Both graphic designers and UX designers work with primary elements of design to bring to life a digital concept. However, they have different goals and approaches.

First of all, graphic design is used to create visual content for a specific audience to gain their interest or motivation toward a specific product.

Meanwhile, UX design is more concerned with creating and developing a system to enhance user experience.

The work of UX designers commonly manifests in digital products, like phone app designs or wearable technology.

Additionally, the UX design process focuses on the logical structure of the elements that users see and interact with.

If graphic designers design product labels, packaging and marketing materials, logos, and websites, UX designers work on interactive prototypes, site maps, flows, wireframes, and other user experience artifacts.

To ensure the best possible user experience, UX designers conduct research and validation to understand the intended users of a product.

These involve competitive analysis, buyer persona creation, customer journey flow, and user interviews.

After the product has been launched, they perform usability or pain point analysis to see if the product is producing the desired result and if it meets client requirements.

If not, revisions or refinements will be made to make the user experience a lot better.

Tools Used by Graphic Designers and UX Designers

Graphic designers and user experience designers use a variety of tools in their projects. Some of the most popular are Canva, Design Cuts, and Adobe Creative Cloud.

Adobe Creative Cloud

The Creative Cloud features industry-leading apps and tools for creating polished designs for websites, mobile apps, user interface, and more.

These include Adobe Photoshop, Adobe XD, Illustrator, InDesign, and Premiere Pro.

It also has design and drawing tools that can convert simple wireframes into stunning mockups in no time.

The Adobe Creative Cloud is packed with features that promote team collaboration. With this software, digital designers can work together in real-time.

They can also invite clients, product teams, and stakeholders to review the design and give feedback.

Canva

Canva is an online tool that is pre-loaded with thousands of templates to help you get started with your digital design projects.

Whether it’s for internal use or a client, Canva enables anyone to knock up beautiful designs and stunning visuals in no time.

Graphic designers and UX designers can use this tool to create wireframes and visual content with hundreds of elements, photos, and frames.

Above all, Canva is extremely easy to use.

Aside from the ready-made templates, stickers, and photos, it features a drag-and-drop functionality that makes creating beautiful content a breeze.

Design Cuts

Design Cuts is a community of over 600,000 creatives featuring a wide range of design tools and resources for graphic designers, digital artists, and UX designers.

This site sells fonts, illustrations, textures, patterns, templates, photo effects, overlays, mockups, and other visual elements that can be used for personal and commercial graphic design jobs.

Unlike other material distribution sites, Design Cuts offers materials that are easy to use and of extremely high quality.