50 Examples of Design

John Spacey, updated on December 12, 2023

A design is a plan to create something. Practically everything that people produce involves design. Likewise, intangible things such as processes can also be designed. The opposite of design is emergence whereby something is created without a plan. For example, a city can be designed with an urban plan or it can be left to emerge through the uncoordinated work of individual building projects. The following are common examples of design disciplines.

App Design	Brand Design
Character Design	Commercial Art
Communication Design	Construction Design
Costume Design	Craft Design
Digital Design	Editorial Design
Engineering Design	Environmental Design
Ergonomic Design	Exhibition Design
Experiment Design	Fashion Design
Floral Design	Game Design
Graphic Design	Industrial Design
Information Architecture	Infrastructure Design
Instructional Design	Interior Design
Landscape Design	Lighting Design
Logo Design	Mobile Design
Motion Graphics Design	Organization Design
Packaging Design	Print Design
Process Design	Product Design
Production Design	Research Design
Retail Space Design	Scenic Design
Service Design	Set Design
Software Architecture	Software Design
Sound Design	Transportation Design
Typography Design	Universal Design
Urban Design	User Experience Design
Wayfinding Design	Web Design

Visual Design

Visual design is the design of digital or physical things that are highly visual. The following are common examples of visual design.

Digital Design

Digital design includes a handful of design areas that are relatively large areas of employment due to the size of digital industries.

User Experience Design

The practice of designing interactive visual environments from the perspective of the user experience.

Product Design

The design of products both physical and digital. This overlaps with industrial design that is the design of physical things that are manufactured at scale. Product design is the broader term that includes things like software that aren't manufactured.

Fashion Design

The design of things that people wear for function and to express style, identity and culture.

Communication Design

The design of textual and visual messages.

Production Design

Design that goes into the production of performances, films, documentaries, animation and television.

Environmental Design

The design of spaces for function, visual appeal and other goals such as cost, sustainability, safety, security and accessibility.

Artistic Design

Areas of design that involve significant creative expression. In these areas, there is a large difference in style and talent between designers. As professions, artistic design fields tend to be unusually competitive.