Graphic Design Careers

Salary ranges from $23,300 to $109,800 per year

In the design field creativity is crucial to your success. There is a significant amount of competition and your success is dependent on your abilities.

Career Requirements

Most graphics designers need bachelor’s degree. But due to the stiff competition a master’s degree can give you that added advantage. You must be creative and have a keen artistic sense.

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Job Description

Graphic designers are responsible for panning, analyzing, and creating illustrated solutions for communication issues. They must use items like print, electronic, and film media tools to create designs.

Graphic designers use their skill to layout designs for magazines, newspapers, reports, and other prints. They also design company and product logos and images for web use. A designer must be able to adapt their designs to convey the right message to an audience.

Artists create art to communicate ideas, thoughts, or feelings. They use a variety of methods—painting, sculpting, or illustration—and an assortment of materials, including oils, watercolors, acrylics, pastels, pencils, pen and ink, plaster, clay, and computers.

Artists’ works may be realistic, stylized, or abstract and may depict objects, people, nature, or events. Artists generally fall into one of three categories. Art directors formulate design concepts and presentation approaches for visual communications media.

Fine artists, including painters, sculptors, and illustrators create original artwork, using a variety of media and techniques. Multi-media artists and animators create special effects, animation, or other visual images on film, on video, or with computers or other electronic media.

Art directors
Art directors create and review the artistic content that is to appear in printed or digital material. They specialize in making information visually appealing by utilizing tools such as artwork, photographs and page layout.

Fine artists
Fine artists include several art forms such as painters, illustrators, sculptors, cartoonists, etc. Their work can usually be purchased in gallery showings, sold through dealers, or be requested by clients.

Illustrators
Illustrators usually work in printed media creating hand-made or digital images for books and magazines. They are also known to produce designs for commercial products like calendars, greeting cards and wrapping paper.

Medical and scientific illustrators
Medical and scientific illustrators create biological related illustrations for publications. Illustrations of plants, animals, the human anatomy, and surgical procedures are some examples of this type of art. These illustrations are used in school related text and in court case exhibits when necessary.

Cartoonists
Cartoonists create artistic stories by combining clever situations or text with drawings. This art form can range from comical entertainment to critical social or political statements.

Sketch artists
Sketch artists use simple drawing tools like charcoal, pencil and pastels to recreate a person’s likeness on paper. Their talent is used in the courtroom to sketch scenes and by law enforcement to help identify suspects. In amusement parks and events like carnivals, it is not uncommon to see people having themselves sketched for fun.

Sculptors
Sculptors can use a wide variety of substances to make their 3D creations. These substances include clay, wooden blocks, metal, wire, plaster, stone, and many other shapeable items.

Printmakers
Printmakers use designs carved into an object, such as a woodblock, to make printed images. Inking the block, and pressing by hand onto the desired surface makes the design. Sometimes images can be encoded into a computer and the design can be graphically reproduced.

Painting restorers
Restorers are responsible for the detailed work that goes into preserving and refurbishing damaged paintings. This is done by using special solvents and cleaning devices to renew the look, repair the damage and protect the paintings.

Multi-media artists and animators
These artists create animated images through the combination of hand drawings and computer techniques. Their skills are often seen in computer games, movies, and television.