Design Manager

Being a Design Manager relies on fine-tuning the perfect blend of people skills and creativity. If this is your chosen career path, prepare to put the needs of others first. Your responsibilities will include building a happy team, nurturing talent and advocating a positive and safe work environment.

Having a background in games design is needed but in this role you will not always work directly with designing games, instead, you will oversee and support the design team. This will involve managing performance, hitting deadlines, and ensuring consistent outputs.

Creative problem solving, being able to delegate, and possessing solid communication skills will propel your success in this field.

Design

Also referred to as:

Design Director

You’ll love this role if you’re into:

Coding
Drawing
Being Organised
Writing
Telling Stories
Maths
Designing things
Helping People

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YOUR LEARNING JOURNEY

Some, but not all, people working as a Design Manager have a degree in Game Design. Above all, you should be someone that loves designing things, creative problem-solving and inspiring and helping others.

As a professional, you’ll be leading a design team to bring to life concept art by using a range of tools that may include Blender, Maya and ZBrush, as well as game design programs (engines) like Unity and Unreal. We recommend using our tool picker to help you choose the right ones for your current level and purpose.

Working in the games industry is highly competitive and you’ll need to make sure your portfolio (a collection of your best work) stands out to employers and course leaders.

As a Design Manager, your work should showcase the best games you’ve designed and projects you’ve managed. You should show a range of technical skills and an understanding of fundamental game-design principles. For more general ideas on developing your portfolio, see our top tips page.

Whatever role you are working in, it is essential that you understand the game making process. You can head to our build a game section for first steps; join a regular game jam to build up your skills & network; or start modding others games to gain experience.