Graphic design has evolved over the years into a broad and dynamic field, especially as businesses have come to recognize its essential role in branding, marketing, and connecting with customers across every type of medium.

Yet somehow, the discipline of Graphic Design has become a catch-all term for nearly every corner of the creative industry. From motion graphics to UI/UX, from packaging to coding, the title is being stretched so far it’s starting to lose meaning.

As its value has grown, so have the expectations—and not always in the right way. More and more, I see the title “Graphic Designer” is being used as a blanket term to cover everything from social media strategy to UI/UX design, motion graphics, packaging, even front-end coding. The problem? Each of those disciplines requires unique skills, training, and tools. While they may overlap visually, they are not interchangeable.

As a Graphic Designer who was recently navigating the job market, I noticed a growing trend: roles labeled “Graphic Designer” with expectations that include UI/UX, motion design, animation, packaging, coding, social media marketing, and more. It’s as if the industry has decided that because these roles share tools or visual elements, they must all fall under the same umbrella.

I have lost count on how many job descriptions I have seen where companies increasingly try to merge roles in the name of budget efficiency. They don’t want to hire a graphic designer and a UI designer—so they attempt to hire one person to do it all and hope no one notices. The result? Overworked creatives, mismatched skill expectations, and a lower industry standard.

Even worse, it puts pressure on job seekers to “do it all” just to stay competitive. And in doing so, the depth of design expertise gets watered down. When everyone’s trying to do everything, we lose the mastery and clarity that each field brings. I am not saying that a designer can’t have the skills to work across multiple disciplines. They absolutely can, but most designer start out in one field and eventually expand into another. And if you want a designer who can truly do it well—they are few and far between. Designers no matter what their discipline have a lot of versatility by nature.

However, the designers who can juggle multiple disciplines well rare because it requires not just technical proficiency but a deep understanding of how each discipline impacts the others. For instance, someone working in both web design and print design needs to have a solid grasp of not only different software but also the design principles and nauances that go with each. A graphic design is familiar with; typography, grids, trapping, bleeds, folds, CMYK, DPI, things irrelavent to a web designer. While a web designer would need to know things like; resolution optimization, adaptive screen size layouts, web safe fonts, HEX, RGB colors and accessibility standards. They need a working understanding of how the final output will translate across different mediums.

What happens when you ask a Graphic Designer to manage the company website? Well, if this graphic designer has never touched a website before it can be a costly assumption. Something as small as deleting a single letter, glyph, or inadvertently adding a space, character, dot, or dash can break an entire webpage. If you’ve ever looked at code, you know that finding the issue can take hours—because not only do you have to scan every line and character, but you also have to know what you’re looking for to fix it. The same can be said for expecting a web designer to create social media graphics, while it seems logical, I mean they both live on the web, it would be like asking an architect to decorate your living room. Both seem to go hand and hand, both understand space and aesthetics, but one works in structure and function and the other works in mood and visuals. Different tools, different mindset, different outcome.

So, while it’s definitely possible to work across multiple disciplines, It’s not always the norm. Nor should it be expected to be. Some designers like staying in their wheel house and focus on becoming an expert in their chosen field of design. Which leads me to my next point, after an example of what is commonly seen in many job postings.

How many different fields of design did you spot? Before you argue the point YES, it's fair to expect a designer to have fluency in more than one discipline—such as print and digital design—the increasing demand for a single person to come into a graphic design roll already having the working knowledge of ten, not two or three, TEN distinct areas (see graph below), from branding to front-end development to marketing analytics, crosses the line from versatility into exploitation.

Yes, design is evolving, and hybrid roles are here to stay. But expecting deep knowledge or expertise across that many disciplines—often under titles like Graphic Designer—for $30–$40 an hour undervalues the craft. The issue isn’t whether a designer can wear multiple hats, it’s whether they’re being fairly compensated and supported to do so.

This is just one example that clearly shows how "graphic design" has expanded into a multi-disciplinary umbrella, below are the different fields found in this job description:

Design is a powerful and expansive field, but it’s often misunderstood as a one-size-fits-all profession. Just because someone is a designer doesn't mean they should be expected to do all types of design. Too often, companies and clients blur the lines between disciplines under the false assumption that it's all "just design." Yet each design discipline has its own tools, methodologies, and areas of expertise. Graphic design, UI/UX, motion, branding, packaging, illustration, 3D, print—they all require different mindsets, processes, and skill sets and to expect one person to do it all not only dilutes the quality of the work—it disrespects the craft itself.

We don’t expect a plumber to handle our wiring just because both fall under “home repair.” The same principle should apply in creative work. Respecting design means respecting its specialties and understanding that mastery in one area doesn’t automatically translate to another. If you need multiple lanes filled, build a team. That’s how good design—sustainable, effective, professional design—actually happens.

Design is not a one-size-fits-all discipline. It’s an ecosystem where each part—from individual designers and their specializations to the tools, users, business goals, and sustainability considerations—work together to create something bigger than the sum of its parts. In this ecosystem, collaboration, feedback, and continuous evolution are essential for success. Understanding that design is an interconnected system helps designers approach their work holistically, creating more thoughtful, impactful, and sustainable outcomes. This is another topic for another day.