Must-have Competencies for Multimedia Designers

Regardless of taking a niche on static graphics, motion graphics, video, layout for print, web design, or 3D, it is important to develop your competency as a designer in a holistic approach. A multimedia designer's professional development track usually appears to be an expansion of technical skill in the command of digital imaging softwares, but there are way more seldom-discussed competencies that are equally relevant to design career.

It is common belief that multimedia designers, along with similar digital creatives, only need two things to become successful in their field: software skill proficiency and creativity. While these two are in fact massively important to the multimedia design practice, the idea that these are the only competencies a multimedia designer needs couldn't be further from the truth. Here are four other competencies a multimedia designer must have.

Digital Marketing and Advertising Fundamentals

Based on experience, most multimedia design tasks fall under marketing and advertising projects. Logo design, visual brand identity, print media, social media content, website content and design, and branded merchandise are among the most common marketing collaterals in-house and freelance designers usually work on. It is for this reason that marketing and advertising fundamentals are important in the multimedia design practice.

Having this competency allows a designer to create appropriate and effective assets that achieve a client's or organization's marketing objectives. Knowing the technicalities in digital and social media marketing also provides evident advantage in the effectiveness of a designer in delivering to their task. Aspect ratios and resolution of marketing collaterals are useful information alongside best practices when dealing with content. Basic knowledge on search engine optimization and social media algorithms also help in making the most out of these assets. At the same time, the right application of visual psychology and messaging makes marketing efforts more effective. This makes knowledge in marketing and advertising a non-negotiable for multimedia designers, and most multimedia design curricula in the academe have touchpoints with marketing and advertising.

Written, Visual, and Speech Communication

Whether you are working freelance or in-house, communication is of paramount importance to a multimedia designer. After all, being a designer often means being a communicator as well, especially if you are within a marketing, advertising, or external affairs division in your organization.

Written and visual communication work hand-in-hand in delivering the perfect multimedia assets that cater to your client or company's needs. While multimedia designers primarily give emphasis on visual communication, writing is just as important in production of project outputs. Creating a logo design and visual brand identity systems, for example, require profound visual and written communication work, especially in the drafting of your visual branding proposal. Visual content for marketing usually incorporate written assets, and most project outputs usually require written rationale. In some cases, more commonly observed in smaller organizations, multimedia designers are tasked in creating not only visual assets but also written copy and microcopy that come with them, such as social media post captions, alternate texts, image descriptions, and general content on web.

Communication is a very significant aspect of collaboration, which is often the case for multimedia design projects. Competency in both written and verbal communication also demonstrate their importance in correspondences with clients, seniors, managers, and other stakeholders, as being articulate presents huge value in presenting project outputs.

Project Management and Organizational Skills

On its simplest definition, project management is the leadership of a team towards achieving project goals. At some point in the in-house multimedia designer career, they will be enlisted to lead a production task, a project, or a team. Seniority in design practice means being able to spearhead project efforts and fulfill administrative duties geared towards the best interest of the team. This is where project management and organizational skills become most relevant.

Project strategy and time management are immensely important to multimedia designers either working in-house or freelance. Collaboration, communication, and quality assurance are also some of the many aspects of project management that are hugely helpful to a multimedia designer. In addition, structure and productivity, which are aspects of organization skills, are valued in design leadership. Exhibiting these skills does not only ensure satisfactory outcomes to projects, it also demonstrates a designer's seniority and effectiveness as a corporate professional.

Research

Research and development are words commonly heard in the scientific space. In the business context, it usually refers to the development of new products. However, it can also be applied in multimedia design practice.

While seldom verbalized, designers are expected to be able to gather useful and relevant data, resources, and references for their tasks, often quickly and effeciently so as not to impede with production timelines. For example, ideation activities that predate the production such as mind-mapping, liststorming, mood boarding, and identifying the appropriate creative direction, although done very quickly in most cases, all require fast-paced, purposeful research.

Defined simply as generation of knowledge, research and development in multimedia design are most relevant in the design strategy. This kind of research can be done towards clients and company stakeholders, customers or audiences, competitors and market segment frontrunners, or the subject of the design itself. This ensures the relevance, accuracy, and overall success of the design project output.

Having competency in research aids a designer to make the right design decisions. For multimedia assets produced for marketing and advertising objectives, for example a billboard advertisement or collaterals for promotional events, data from customers and competitors are valuable. For multimedia assets with scientific or cultural themes, for example a creative character design for a POC or an infographic about virology, accuracy is the designer’s accountability.

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