When facing a choice between numerous career opportunities and university courses, most prospective design students will have to reflect on how their future job might evolve by the time they enter the workplace. With technology, emerging global economies and fast-growth industries reshaping employment as we knew it, regional and world markets are changing at such a fast pace that even today we see some in-demands jobs and skills didn’t exist a decade ago. So, the question is – what will the designers of the future be expected to do? And how can design students of today futureproof their careers of their choice?
Experts estimate that the design sector is projected to increase by 20% annually over the next two to three years. Mariana Amatullo, co-founder and former vice president of the Designmatters department at Art Center College of Design, points it out that design is now more widespread than ever. “The temporalities of design are more varied, and territories of design have been altered,” she says.
In the UK alone, 900,000 new creative jobs are set to appear by the year 2030, which will bring along a vast scope for nuanced tasks and entirely new roles. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts that there will be only a 0-1% growth in traditional graphic design positions between 2014 and 2024, falling well short of the anticipated 7% growth across all sectors. In the meantime, design positions in “networked communications,” including social media, app design, and basically anything to do with the internet, are expected to increase by 27% over the same period. The advancements in technology has not only made the market more competitive, with around 45% of jobs currently in the market set to become automated in the future. They have been changing the very landscape of design, shifting its role from a largely stylistic endeavor to a field tasked with solving various technological and social problems.
According to Dave Miller, a recruiter at the design consultancy Artefact, over the next five years, design as a profession will continue to evolve into a hybrid industry that is as much technical as it is creative. “A new wave of designers formally educated in human-centered design—taught to weave together research, interaction, visual and code to solve incredibly gnarly 21st-century problems—will move into leadership positions. They will push the industry to new heights of sophistication.”
With this in mind, design practitioners and educators try to predict which careers will continue to emerge, and be in demand in the future. Now as technology permeates almost every aspect of our lives, it creates cross-disciplinary opportunities that will become the foundation for future design jobs. When asked about the most important design jobs within the next three to five years, design experts name roles that describe design thinkers with fluent digital capabilities.
Graphic designers of yesterday have evolved into UI/UX designers, an already in-demand role that is expected to witness job growth. Major brands and financial services are investing heavily into this field as they need to improve the digital experiences and loyalty of the customers who use their apps. Same is true about digital product designers required to design any technology-driven products and experiences, from designing smart gadgets and systems to apps and technological advancements.
Among the fields on the forefront of design and technology explorations are virtual and augmented realities that are set to be layered over the physical world in seamless ways. Gavin Kelly, co-founder and principal of Artefact, is sure that augmented reality designers delivering intuitive and immersive experiences will be welcome in a wide spectrum of industries, from entertainment to education and health care.
Other future design careers balancing between technology and creativity include real-time 3D designers who are expected to leave behind game design and join product teams to create entertainment and productivity tools with complex interaction problems; avatar programmers who will occupy themselves with creating celebrities’ best representation in virtual scenarios such as VR, mobile games, and movies; and sim designers who will pull together customer data, behavioral models, and statistical models to design simulated people that will help predict future customer behavior. Machine-learning designers, intelligent system designers, and cybernetic directors are also on the list.
Similarly, wearable technology has the ability to help and transform lives as it spreads across various spheres, from healthcare to wellness and fitness to aged services. Experts predict that in the nearer future it will see an influx of fashion designers and artists partnered with engineers, in order to create technologies that will go into our fibers and onto our skin. Therefore, wearable technology designers will be sought after in the next decade, particularly as populations age.
Choosing a career of a complex 3D designers also seems to be a great investment in the future. With growing affordability of 3D printers, more and more industries are going to employ 3D printing techniques to deliver improvements in materials as well as cost efficiency. According to a research by MIT, the strength of 3D printed buildings has considerably improved to withstand stresses from adverse weather, which gives every reason to believe that construction industry will need 3D designers to further develop 3D printing technology, especially in remote areas with limited resources, like the surface of Mars.