Research suggests we made up 90% of today’s design job titles within the past five years. As they say: Every time Mark Zuckerberg sneezes, a new design title is announced somewhere in Silicon Valley.
With this article we’d like to shine a light at some of the most common design titles and explain what they actually mean.
Senior Designer - A 23-year-old designer who's ready to retire early.
Art Director - Someone who has never opened Photoshop or a single design tool in their career but gets away with it. Tends to hover around people saying, “I’m not quite feeling that color.”
UX Designer - Someone who can’t design anything visually but has all the confidence to tell others how to do it right. You can easily spot them by their overuse of hashtags. #UX #UX4LIFE
UX/UI Designer - An old school interface designer who couldn't get jobs anymore, so they added "UX" to their title because that’s what gets you hired.
UI Designer - Still finishing that Winamp skin while living in their parents' basement.
Creative Director - Someone with proficient Powerpoint and Google Docs skills.
Lead Designer - Just a regular designer who works at a tech company and gets paid a little more than the other designer who isn’t a lead designer.
Full-Stack Designer - Someone who knows at least 10 design prototyping tools that all do the exact same thing.
Head of Design - Basically a Design Director below the Vice President of Design. On rare occasions the Head of Design, the Design Director and the VP of Design all meet up in a room and nothing gets done.
IA Designer - Got killed by the UX designer.
Empathy Designer - I just made this one up.
