What Training Is Needed to Become a Graphic Designer

Graphic Designer

By TACP Staff on November 03, 2021

Perhaps you've loved art and design all your life and want to pursue it as a career, but you're also practical enough to wonder if you can make a living doing it. The answer is yes, but there are some things you should know before starting your career as a graphic designer.

As a graphic designer, you will design layouts, logos, brand campaigns, point-of-sale materials, digital ads, and more for businesses that need a cohesive design for their branded materials. Depending on your area of specialty, you might also design invitations, brochures, booklets, ads for print newspapers and magazines, or even billboards. Continue reading to explore the career path of a graphic designer, including salary expectations, work environment, education requirements, and important skills you will need to succeed in this role.

What Is a Graphic Designer?

Graphic design is the art of visual communication, using text and imagery to create engaging messages. Graphic designers use color, shapes, and images to communicate ideas in the visual language of marketing materials, advertisements, logos, websites, packaging, brochures, and much more.

A graphic designer typically works for a business or corporation, creating designs that will project the desired image or promote the business's intended message to its target audience. Because companies know that design impacts how their customers feel about their products and the business as a whole, they often hire graphic designers to create a cohesive look across all of their branded materials. The designs may be implemented in print media such as posters, books, or magazine ads; or they can be used in electronic media such as websites or social media accounts.

What Does a Graphic Designer Do?

Many businesses need a brand to help them stand apart in a crowd of similar products. Having a defined, consistent look and feel across their entire product line – from company logos, business cards, and all their branded materials – makes a company's products memorable. Graphic designers use their creative skills and business knowledge to come up with a design plan that will project the right image for their clients.

Graphic designers choose fonts, colors, and shapes to create a cohesive design that consumers will remember. In addition, they create logos and brand art that represent the company's values or communicate a certain message. Think of Nike's "Swoosh" logo, which has become one of the most recognizable brand logos in the world. The image immediately brings to mind the Nike brand, which has come to stand for excellence in performance.

Graphic Designer Job Description

• Creating digital or print layouts that are both visually appealing and convey the desired message
• Developing campaigns with cohesive branding that reflects the company's personality
• Designing custom art for use in advertisements, brochures, flyers, posters, invitations, magazines, business cards, websites
• Planning branding strategies across all media platforms
• Designing for digital presentations
• Creating custom logos or brand marks
• Meeting with clients and understanding their needs, to create a design that will meet both the client's business goals and the graphical requirements of each project
• Creating ad layouts using copy, typefaces, images, and color schemes to communicate the client's message
• Collaborating with writers or art directors to discuss project goals and design concepts
• Editing and preparing files for printing (for example, preparing files for an offset printer)

Examples of Graphic Design

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Graphic Designer Jobs

A graphic designer may be self-employed or work on the design team for a company. The job duties and responsibilities of self-employed graphic designers are very similar to those of their corporate counterparts, with the exception that they are responsible for finding their own clients, so they typically need to do more marketing and sales of their own work.

Graphic designer jobs are available across industries, including advertising, media, publishing, fashion, entertainment, public relations (PR), marketing, and retail. The most popular job titles for graphic designers include:

• Graphic Designer
• Art Director
• Creative Director
• UI UX Designer
• Brand Identity Specialist
• Multimedia Designer
• Web Designer

Graphic Designer

A graphic designer uses artistic and technical skills to make an aesthetically appealing design with the correct message, font, shape, color scheme, images, and layout for a particular project. Graphic designers are detail-oriented and organize projects carefully to ensure that the end result is consistent, cohesive, and effective.

Art Director

Art directors manage a team of graphic designers and may be in charge of developing branding strategies for their company or organization. They oversee the design process from start to finish, from the initial client meetings and design brief to planning, reviewing, and approving designs created by their team members and/or outside designers.

Creative Director

In companies or organizations that have a large creative department, the creative director is in charge of all aspects of design for the organization. In smaller organizations, a creative director may oversee the efforts of the entire creative department or just the graphic design team.

UI UX Designer

A UI UX designer is responsible for creating an online user experience that is easy to navigate and visually appealing. Their focus is on elements such as color, font styles, layout, and overall ease of use when designing screens, menus, buttons, graphics, navigation, and other elements for websites and software interfaces. A thorough understanding of human psychology is necessary to create an intuitive design that works well for both the client's users and their business goals.

Brand Identity Specialist

A brand identity specialist designs logos and brand marks for organizations individuals, including custom illustration work and the use of color and typefaces to create a unique vision for each brand. Their work can range from coming up with a new, innovative logo for an established company to personalizing and refreshing the brand identity of a new business.

Multimedia Designer

A multimedia designer creates interactive or animated designs for websites, digital presentations, online games, app interfaces, and more. A solid understanding of color schemes, typography, layout, motion graphics, animation, and interactivity is necessary to create a design that looks good on the screen and is intuitive to use.

Web Designer

A web designer is responsible for creating websites using graphics, video, sound, and other multimedia elements. They are often responsible for planning how website content will be organized, including basic page structure and navigation between pages. They also create templates that can be used by less-skilled web developers to build websites using pre-designed layout blocks.

Graphic Designer Salary

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the mean annual wage for a graphic designer was $58,370 in May 2020, which is the equivalent of $28.06 per hour. Graphic designers in the top 10 percent nationally earned an annual mean wage of $93,440.

The job market for graphic designers varies greatly depending on experience and skill level, which suggests that there are significant opportunities for graphic designers to earn more as their career progresses.

Highest Paying States for Graphic Designers

The salary earned by a Graphic Designer can vary significantly by location, with some graphic designers earning substantially more than others with the same job description in another state. For example, graphic designers in the District of Columbia earn over $83,000 on average, whereas graphic designers in Wyoming earn just $40,200 per year on average. The states listed below represent the top-10 highest paying states for graphic designers.

STATE	HOURLY MEAN WAGE *	ANNUAL MEAN WAGE *
District of Columbia	$39.94	$83,070
Washington	$37.02	$77,000
Massachusetts	$33.74	$70,180
New York	$32.82	$68,260
Virginia	$32.14	$66,850
California	$32.02	$66,600
New Jersey	$31.58	$65,680
Rhode Island	$31.04	$64,570
Alaska	$30.49	$63,430
Maryland	$29.65	$61,660
* Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor, Occupational Outlook Handbook, May 2020

Helpful Organizations and Resources for Graphic Designers

• National Association of Schools of Art & Design
• American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA)
• International Council of Graphic Design Associations (Icograda)
• Society for Experiential Graphic Design
• Association of Registered Graphic Designers
• The University & College Designers Association (UCDA)

Graphic Designer FAQ

What Training Is Needed to Become a Graphic Designer

Source: https://theartcareerproject.com/careers/graphic-design/

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