Jeremy
What is the difference between a Production Artist and a true Graphic Designer?
I am a student at Mississippi State University in their Graphic Design program. I am about to take a production course and I need some clarification on the difference of a Production Artist vs a True Graphic Design position #design #artist #graphics #production #multimedia #visual-arts #visual-design #visual-studio
3 answers
Vivian Urata
Vivian’s Answer
Hi Jeremy,
Essentially, being a production artist and graphic designer are the same thing. However, it really depend on where you work and how they define it. I once worked at a printing company that had me down as a production artist, which meant, I was prepping design files sent to me by clients. I would double check to make sure everything is ready to be made into metal plates, where it would be use to print on paper. I guess, that's why they call it a production artist.
As for being a graphic design, you have more freedom to be creative. Be it logo design, website/app design to billboards and poster designs. You are to dream up and create something out of nothing.
When I worked at the printing company, some times clients would come to us with a vision and I got to work on my graphic design skills. I hope this helps clarify some things. Good luck!
Dream big, Vivian
Ken’s Answer
A quick way to think about this is if you're a "graphic designer," you are responsible to create something new for someone. Like the movie Mission Impossible needs a poster, they get a graphic designer to do it. A "production artist" take some's design and they either check the quality and fix file issues, or they take the design and resize it for other sizes. Say the same example before, The MI poster needs to be printed in Japan and they have a different size, a production artist will size it. Both are using similar skills, programs, principals, but apply them different ways. Because of that, there are a myriad of variations between and one can cross from one over to the other.
Charlie Forbes
Charlie’s Answer
It depends where you work. A production artist in shop could be building sets or props. In another place could be doing the same as a designer. Designers usually are in front of computer doing graphics and animation. Some maybe doing the role as an art director.