Visualizer
Visualizer is a special position (designed by local advertising agencies) to assist Art directors, in producing quick & good quality artworks, for presentation (to please the clients). The salary of a Visualizer is very low, an average salary of a Visualizer is less than half, or sometimes quarter, of the salary of an Art Director. Visualizer is specifically used in advertising agencies in non-native English speaking countries, Malaysia, Singapore and others.
Visualizer & Art Director
Local advertising agencies usually hire 3-5 young Visualizers (mostly fresh from local art colleges) and train them years to create quick attractive artworks, exploring their talents of drawing, sketching, coloring, designing skills, etc, and usually those who have stronger command of English (most coming from English schools) would be promoted to become Art Director and later on as Creative Director, whereas the 'non-English educated' ones, (weak in verbal communication skills especially English) would continue as Visualizer, illustrator or as Graphic designer.
Tight deadline
The competition of advertising agencies is fierce. Usually the servicing department wanted to please the wealthy clients, sometimes they agreed with their clients to have the presentation done in less than 24 hours, therefore the deadline of presentations in advertising agencies is very challenging and tight. Visualizers must produce quick artworks and sometimes need to work overnight.
Advertising in Malaysia
The name Art Director in Malaysia is mostly refer to English educated Art Directors, Oversea graduated ones and Can speak English ones. This is mainly due to the local Malaysian education system. Art Director is an important position in advertising agency where they must possessed good skills in verbal communication. Only those who can speak close to native English or those trained years in universities of English speaking countries, are qualified in this position. This also explained why there are numerous advertising agencies in Malaysia (also include other industries in Malaysia) employed native English to work as Creative Director or other top positions, because of the command of English.
Schools in Malaysia, mostly, trained students to speak Malay, Chinese and Tamil. When they step into the society, they confronted the crisis of Rojak Language. In the advertising, some of them were hired, with low pay, to work as Visualizer, Illustrator, Graphic designer, DTP artist, Artist, etc. These 'art workers', tend to have the attitude of 'quietly at work' due to their poor command of English. To understand more about non-native English, please read Manglish, Singlish and Rojak Language.