A Career of Graphic Artist

When a person scrolls through professional websites, they notice logos. When a company is big enough, they may even have little cartoons on their website. A manager has to hire a graphic artist, or designer, to draw the logo. If one is an artist, this is the job for them. However, the facts are needed before pursuing this career.

Earnings and Benefits

Here are the earnings and benefits of a graphic artist; the usual and average graphic artist “earns about $48,700 annually”. However, advertising services are the highest paying in graphic artists. Averaging all the jobs of a graphic artist together, it falls short at $37,690 due to printing and support services. Therefore, avoid printing and related support services because they are the lowest paying due to recent demand of digital news rather than paper. According to the Occupational Outlook Handbook, “the highest 10% earned more than $83, 140”, which most were self-employed.

Even though graphic artists already know how to draw, they must receive training and earn degrees to often get what position one wishes for. In order to join most jobs in the graphic artist category, a bachelor’s degree is often required. However, to join a college for that degree one must most likely take a basic art class and/or design courses. Artists getting into a college submit sketches of their artwork to be approved by the college. They have to build portfolios to store that artwork in so, they can turn it in for jobs and colleges. Artists also take internships, unless self-employed.

Even when one has met all the education and training of a graphic artist, the employment rate determines one’s chance at actually getting hired. Unfortunately, the graphic artist field as of now is extremely saturated. The growth of demand for artists are slower than average, it being at 4%. Therefore, graphic artists face extreme competition for places in jobs. However, there is a hope for the field; studies have predicted that demand for artists in computer systems will grow by 20% from 2016 to 2026, but employment in newspapers and other related art publishers will decline by 22%.

All jobs have a duty and responsibility, graphic artists have special ones, however. According to the AIGA, design artists are “responsible for interactive design where the content changes as it gets updated, as well as the screen interface that helps people navigate through a lot of information”. To achieve a high ranking graphic artist level, one must combine the artistic abilities with technology. In the 2001 article “Supporting Multimedia Designers: Towards More Effective Design Tools”, the authors state that designers have to deal with “satisfying a seemingly insatiable demand for creativity in terms of content and behavior, given the constraints of a short time frame and limited budget”. Therefore, one must be able to handle stress with time frames and budgets. Artists also have to meet with the art director to view the main point of the art piece and who the audience is.

Conclusion

Given with all the pros and cons of a graphic artist, it may be better to pursue this career in the near future. However, if one earns a great degree and gets a job, it would be a great amount of income. Graphic designers are critical for marketing so, they will always be around. Some designers even earn thousands of dollars off one design. Therefore, graphic design is an interesting career to pursue given many pros over cons.