Graphic Designer
A graphic designer creates visuals for crypto projects and exchanges: banners, ad creatives, icons, branding, and landing page layouts that comply with ad platform restrictions.
What a Graphic Designer does
A graphic designer is responsible for the entire visual side of the product and marketing, from logos and brand identity to banners, test creatives, and landing page layouts. In the crypto vertical, visuals are the main trust signal: users decide within seconds, based on one image and the first screen, whether to connect a wallet or make a deposit.
The role is needed because ad platforms, social networks, and search engines regularly restrict crypto content. They prohibit yield promises, certain words, and images of coins with "growth" signals. A designer must know these restrictions and create visuals that pass moderation and still convert. For the company, this directly affects acquisition cost and the number of approved creatives.
Within the structure, a designer usually reports to an art director or design lead, and in smaller teams works directly with marketing or product. They may supervise junior designers or motion designers, but more often they manage their own task queue and the quality of work delivered against briefs.
Responsibilities
- Develop creatives for ad campaigns (banners, previews, stories) in the formats required by each platform.
- Adapt one concept to dozens of sizes and languages while maintaining a consistent visual code.
- Maintain brand identity: logo, color palette, typography, and guidelines for teams and contractors.
- Prepare layouts for landing pages, promo pages, and app screens together with product and UX designers.
- Create icons, illustrations, and infographics for educational materials and the FAQ section.
- Produce variant series for A/B tests and document which hypothesis produced which result.
- Check visuals for compliance with platform rules and regulatory requirements before submitting them for moderation.
- Accept briefs from marketing and clarify goals, audience, and constraints before starting work.
- Hand over source files and prepare exports for development and contractors.
Skills
- Composition and visual hierarchy in small formats.
- Typography and text readability on mobile screens.
- Understanding of ad platform restrictions for crypto and fintech content.
- Fast adaptation of layouts to different sizes and languages.
- Basic understanding of CTR and conversion metrics to justify design decisions.
- Ability to take feedback and defend design decisions objectively.
- Organization of files, versions, and naming so the team does not lose source files.
- Understanding of how visuals affect trust in a product with a financial component.
Tools
- Figma
- Adobe Photoshop
- Adobe Illustrator
- Sketch
- Notion or Confluence for briefs and guidelines
- Jira or Trello for task management
How performance is measured
- Share of creatives approved by ad platforms on the first submission.
- CTR and CR of creatives in tests.
- Task delivery time relative to the agreed deadline.
- Share of tasks accepted without substantive rework against the brief.
- Number of brand identity elements used across product and marketing materials.
By vertical
Crypto
In the crypto vertical, the designer also works within platform restrictions: yield promises, "growth" badges, and certain symbols are not allowed, so visuals rely on clear product messaging, a calm presentation, and careful handling of numbers.
Levels
Specialist
A specialist executes ready-made briefs: creates creatives, layouts, and icons under the art director's supervision, is responsible for the quality and deadlines of their work, but does not independently make decisions about brand identity or visual strategy.
How to get there
Most people enter the profession from related fields such as print design, advertising design, web design, or photography. A portfolio matters most, and it should show the ability to solve commercial problems, not just produce attractive images. For the crypto vertical, it helps to include a couple of examples of fintech-style or high-load interfaces where trust and readability are critical.
Learn the basics first: grids and hierarchy, typography, color work, and the fundamentals of A/B testing and metrics. It is useful to understand how ad accounts work, what format requirements the major platforms have, and to read their published moderation policies. It is also worth practicing adapting a single layout to many formats, which is a core task in performance teams.
Growth comes through increasing independence: from executing single creatives to running campaign series, then to owning the product's visual language and guidelines. Moving to the next level usually means bringing hypotheses based on test data, not only executing briefs.
Next steps: Senior Graphic Designer, Art Director, Brand Designer, UI/UX Designer, Creative Lead
FAQ
How does a graphic designer at a crypto project differ from one at a regular retail company?
The main difference is restrictions. Ad platforms and social networks often reject crypto creatives because of yield promises, certain words, and visual symbols. A designer must account for these rules at the concept stage, or the creative will not run.
Do you need to know how to code or build web layouts?
Coding is not required, but a basic understanding of markup, responsive design, and the limits of web layouts is useful. Designers often prepare assets in the required formats and align them with development, so knowing what is technically feasible saves time for the whole team.
What determines a graphic designer's income?
Income depends on the level of responsibility, the volume and complexity of tasks, experience in performance design, the strength of the portfolio, and whether the specialist works in-house or on projects. For the crypto vertical, knowledge of platform restrictions and the ability to quickly produce creatives that pass moderation also matter.
What portfolio do you need to get hired at a crypto company?
5–8 works are enough, showing solutions to commercial problems: banners with clear hierarchy, landing pages, icons, and layout adaptations for different formats. It helps to add a short description of the goal and the result for each piece, if the result was measured.
Which skills matter most for growing into an art director role?
The most important skills are formulating a visual strategy, defending decisions in front of marketing and product, managing the quality of the team's work, and linking design to metrics. Technical skills are still needed, but they no longer define the level.
Looking for a job in the industry?
Post an anonymous resume in our bot — recruiters from iGaming, payments and crypto search it every day.