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 to 5 young Visualizers, and train them to create quick attractive artworks, exploring their talents of drawing, sketching, coloring, designing skills, etc. The competition of advertising agencies is fierce. Usually the servicing department has 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, therefore Visualizers must produce quick & good quality artworks, and sometimes need to work overnight.
A Visualizer can be promoted to become an Art director. Usually those who have stronger command of English, have far better opportunity and a few of them could become Creative Director. Whereas the 'non-English educated' ones, with much weaker verbal communication skills, especially English, would continue as Visualizer, illustrator, Graphic designer, DTP artist or Artist.
Advertising in Malaysia
The name Art Director in Malaysia is mostly refer to English educated Art Directors and Oversea graduates. 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, some with extreme 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. They were commanded by peoples that able to speak a mouthful of fluent English. To understand more about non-native English, please read Manglish, Singlish and Rojak Language.