The AIGA|Aquent Survey of Design Salaries is published every year and includes responses from more than 9,000 design professionals. In it, you’ll find everything from compensation to benefits for all different design professions — even freelancers. There are also some very nice descriptions to break down the different facets of design, and lots of helpful career advice as well.

Download a copy of the 2009 Survey

Use AIGA’s Interactive Salary Calculator to find out how much money you should be (or could be) making

Visit the AIGA Website for invaluable design resources and advice

Hi, I’m a design student at Victoria University in Wellington, New Zealand and I would like to know about the pros and cons of the different options a design graduate has.

These options being..

1. Get a job with an established firm of experienced designers.

2. Go out and start up your own company/be a free lance designer.

3. Form a co-operative design company with a partner.

Obviously there are pros and cons to each of these options and therefore they will suit different people depending on their personality and situations, but I am unsure about what they are and what is right for me.

Look forward to hearing your reply!

Debbie

Hi Debbie,

I’m so glad that you are putting so much thought into this, and are taking the time to weigh your options. You’re absolutely right, there are pros and cons to each of these alternatives. But, I feel very strongly that only one of these options is right for you as a new graduate (even though I expect to hear some disagreement in the comments). Later in life, after you have some experience under your belt, I think that you can be successful as a full-time employee, an owner, a partner, or a freelancer. And, that path will probably seem obvious to you once you know what parts of design you like best, and where your strengths are as a designer. But at this point in your career, when you have just graduated from design school, I highly recommend that you get a job with an established firm of experienced designers. Here is why:

1. Real-life Design Skills
I say real-life design skills because there are tons of real-life problems that just don’t come up in a classroom. Setting up a 5-color job for press, coding a website that will actually behave in IE6, and color correcting a photo to look a certain way on a specific color of paper are things that will most likely be expected of you as a designer, but that you probably didn’t cover in class. I could create an extremely long list of things that I learned in my first five years as a design employee that I never learned in school. It’s so much easier to learn these things from experienced co-workers and directors than to figure them out through trial and error on your own.

2. Inspiration and Motivation
Any freelance designer will tell you that one of the hardest parts of working on your own is lack of inspiration and motivation. There is nothing like the collaborative team environment of a design firm. As a beginning designer, it will be even more difficult to summon up the discipline necessary to stay on task each day, constantly creating new and inspiring designs. Take advantage of the opportunity to learn to work within a team, to experience idea-building exercises, and to be inspired by the other creative people around you.

When you are young, it should be your daily privilege to be inspired by your co-workers, learn from your superiors, and take in as much knowledge as possible. This will only make you a stronger designer later if or when you decide to venture out on your own.

3. Customer Service
Customer service is top priority for any successful design firm (well, any successful firm, period). It’s one of the most important elements of being a designer, and it’s completely overlooked in school. This is, most likely, because the only way to really learn about customer service is to experience it first-hand.

As students, most of us design for us. Sometimes for our teachers, but mostly for ourselves. We make what we like. When you venture into the business world, though, you will be designing for another person. A person with different taste, different likes and dislikes, and their own set of visions and goals. Making that person happy is your job. It’s not an easy balance — creating something you can be proud of because it is a visual masterpiece and creating something that pleases your client.

You will learn a great deal in a design firm, watching how other designers and your directors deal with clients. It’s much easier to learn about customer service from experienced professionals on the job, than by losing your freelance clients when you can’t get it right on your own.

4. Sales, Accounting. etc.
There is more to running a successful design firm than being a good designer. Without sales, there are no clients, and there is no work. Without billing, there are no paychecks. Basics like these may be covered in business school, but are usually not part of design school. By working for a successful design company, you can pay attention to the other departments. You will learn how to land new clients. You will find out how designers track their time, how projects are billed, and how everything is filed for easy recall later. You’ll know what to do if a client disappears or tries to skip out on the bill.

It’s going to be very hard to run your own well-oiled design-business machine if you’ve never experienced how the other successful design businesses work.

5. Networking
Most design firms rely on outside businesses in their day-to-day operations. They work with printers, illustrators, photographers, video editors, copywriters, etc. Just out of school, you probably don’t know too many of these people. You probably also do not know how to find these people — short of typing “Photographer” into the Google search box. After you’ve gained experience working for a successful firm, you will form relationships with all of these people. You’ll know who is the best, who is the cheapest, and who is going to be the perfect fit for any job.

6. Peace of Mind
As designers, many of us make quite a few career moves in our lifetime. It’s fairly normal for designers to have been employees in design firms, directors in design firms, freelancers, owners, partners, and everything in between. There is a lot of growth, and when you first graduate, there is a lot of time. You may not know exactly what you want to do right now, but I know that I would feel regret if I didn’t at least try all of it. If I had just jumped into my own business right out of school, I would have always wondered what it would have been like to work in a creative collaborative professional environment.

If you feel the same way — if you want to experience it all — start by working for someone else. It’s much easier to move from working for a creative firm into owning your own business than it is to do it the other way around. Once you build your resume in one direction, it’s hard to jump into another field of design. Once you’ve started your own business, it’s hard to convince another business owner that you really want to give that up to work for only him, by his rules, with his clients. It’s hard to work backwards.

At this time in your life, the world of design is completely open to you. You can probably get an entry-level job with almost any design firm you choose. It’s up to you: web design, print design, motion design, advertising design, promotional design…anything you want! You won’t ever have that opportunity again.

My advice for you is that you take this time in your life to continue your education by learning from the professionals at a successful design firm. Where could you go from there? Anywhere.

Thanks so much for taking the time to write, Debbie. I wish you the best of luck in your career!
Manda

Alright, Creative Opera readers, you’ve heard what I have to say. What do you think? Please leave Debbie your advice in the comments below — I know that we all have different life and career experiences, and I’m sure it would be extremely helpful for her to hear as many points of view as possible.

Yes. 

I’d love to tell you that drawings skills are just a “plus” or that the age of pencils has passed. But, I can’t do it. I’m sure many of you could (and will) argue with me. Please do. Comments are open and welcome, and I’d love to hear what you think. I can imagine that some of you have stories of successful careers, even though you “can’t even draw a stick figure,” or perhaps you’ve worked for a talented creative director who could ONLY draw stick figures. I don’t think it’s impossible to be a designer with little or no drawing skills, but I do think that it is a huge advantage.

Here are the 4 reasons I believe that every designer should know how to draw:
 

1. Drawing will Make You a Better Communicator: 

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been in the middle of trying to explain something to someone, when I finally stopped and said, “Here, let me draw you a picture.”  It works every time. Can’t quite describe the shape you have in mind for the tradeshow booth? Draw a picture. Can’t quite bend in the position of the ballerina you want on the cover of the DVD case? Draw a picture. A simple drawing can put you and your client on the same page.

You have to remember, that as an artist, you are a visual person. You can imagine what something looks like as you hear a description. Most of your clients will not be visual people. They won’t understand what you are saying until they can see it. Instead of trying to explain what you are thinking, sketch your ideas while you discuss the project with the client. That way, the client can give you immediate feedback. After your meeting, your client will be happier knowing you are on the right track, and you will be able to start your digital comps confident the client will have a positive reaction to your initial designs.

Drawing skills are also a big advantage while working with professional photographers, animators, and illustrators. If your client is serious about using an illustration for a campaign, or if you’re working on an ad that calls for one-of-a-kind photography, you’ll be hiring a professional. It is going to be MUCH easier to communicate with your illustrators and photographers if you can give them a sketch of what you’re looking for.

2. Drawing Skills Allow You to Offer More to Your Clients

Photo Manipulation
There will be plenty of times that, as a designer, you’ll be asked to edit a photo, and it won’t always be as easy as changing the color of someone’s hair. You may need to reconstruct a portion of a person that had been covered up, or make a building still in stages of construction appear complete. You may need to digitally furnish a room. Drawing skills will be critically important in these circumstances. Even in the most simple situation, you’ll find yourself digitally drawing in shadows, using your basic shading skills to remove wrinkles from clothing, and making effects look professional with hand-drawn details. If you don’t take the time to fine-tune your drawing skills, you could find yourself paying outside professionals for even the simplest photo manipulation projects.

Logo Design
Not every logo consists of a typeface and a default Illustrator shape. If you want to take on logo design work, you’re going to have to know how to draw. Logos are no place for clipart or stock art. Logo symbols must be original. You’ll find that most logo designers either sketch, scan and trace their ideas, or draw directly into Photoshop or Illustrator with a tablet. But, no matter how you look at it, drawing is an essential part of the process.

3. Drawing will Save You Money

So, what if you can’t draw? Can’t you just get someone else to do it? Sure, but it’s going to cost you. If you can’t create a sketch for a presentation, you’ll have to pay someone else to do it. If you can’t create your own symbol for a logo design job, you’ll have to pay someone else to do it. If you don’t have the drawing skills to work on advanced photo restoration or manipulation jobs, you’ll have to pay someone else to do it. And, if you don’t have the drawing capabilities to create idea sketches for a client, or show a photographer what you’re looking for in the photo shoot, you’ll end up paying the price in longer project times, more comps, and perhaps additional shoots. Just think of the money you would save if you could do all of these things yourself.

4. Drawing will Make You a Better Designer

Here are just some of the skills you will acquire in drawing classes that will be beneficial to your design work:

Eye for detail
Believe it or not, years studying the detail in life to translate into your drawings will help you to develop the detail-oriented skills you will need in the design world.

Balance on a page
Drawing will help train your eye to see the lightness and darkness of grey areas on a page, a skill that comes into play as you are balancing text, images and white space as s designer.

Light Source
Awareness of light becomes natural to those who draw. It is a skill you’ll need again and again as you place separate elements together to form one image or layout.

Perspective
Perspective is another fundamental skill gained through drawing classes. Understanding of perspective is critical for some effects and layouts.
 

So, there you have it. I do believe designers should know how to draw. It’s going to make you a better communicator, give you a larger skill-set to pull from, save you money when you don’t need to hire out, and make you a better designer.

What if I Can’t Draw?

Don’t worry if you can’t draw. Don’t pack your bags and start looking for a new career. You have options, and here is what I would recommend:

Learn – everyone can learn
As a former Drawing & Composition instructor, I truly believe that anyone can learn to draw. I’ve had students who couldn’t even write their names legibly in the beginning of class, drawing portraits by the end of the semester. If you want to learn to draw, take a class. And practice and practice and practice. If you know someone who can draw, you might think, oh, they are so talented. But, in reality, they’ve probably been drawing non-stop for YEARS, practicing constantly and improving as they go. You can do the same. It’s no different from learning an instrument. Take the classes, learn the basics, and practice.

Stock up on photos for reference
In the meantime, while you are learning to draw, stock up on photos, clippings, website bookmarks, anything that will help you to communicate better with your clients and with the professionals you may need to hire. It’s going to be much more efficient to pull out a photo of the dog you want to use in the commercial than it will be for you to describe him. If you can’t draw your idea for the layout of a website, it will be helpful if you can pull up a sample online for your client. Communication is one of the biggest advantages to knowing how to draw, so you’ll have to make up for it in other ways. You might have to use collage, idea boards, or online inspiration galleries — anything that will help you to explain your ideas to another person.

Get Connected
Start a new address book full of talented people that you’ll be hiring. If you can’t draw, you’ll need a logo person, a photo effects/manipulation person, and an illustrator. You may need a few different types of illustrators, depending on your area of design — maybe one person for storyboards, and another for initial meeting sketches. You’ll probably have to go through quite a few people to find the best person for your needs, but be ready, because good professionals don’t come cheap.

 
So, what do you think? Have I convinced you to sign up for a drawing class, or are you confident that a professional designer can be just as successful without any drawing skills at all? Please tell me your thoughts in the comments below. I’d love to hear them!

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What you do

Are you a print designer? A web designer? A programmer or developer? Not all categories of designers make the same money. If you’re thinking about going to school, and you’re wondering which design field is going to be the most lucrative, work on your programming and development skills. According to the AIGA|Aquent Salary Survey from 2008, a designer is on the low end of the pay scale, followed by print production artist, web designer, copywriter, front-end web developer, and bringing home the biggest paychecks, the back-end web programmer/developers.

Your experience and level of responsibility

Are you managing a department? Are you responsible when things go wrong? If so, you’ll be making more cash than the entry-level designers. In order of compensation, an entry-level designer earns the least amount of money, followed by a designer, a senior designer, an art director, and a creative director. Expect to spend some time working your way up if you want to bring home the big bucks.

Where you live

It makes sense that location would have a lot to do with a designer’s salary. Those working in metropolitan areas are going to make larger salaries than those living in smaller cities. San Francisco, New York, and Los Angeles are on the top of the big money list. You may be surprised, though, to find out that Atlanta, Cleveland and Washington, D.C. pay almost as well as those larger cities.

Thinking of moving to Los Angeles? Don’t pack your suitcases just yet. Many times larger salaries mean that there are more designers competing for positions. Do all of your research before moving to a new city for better pay. You want to make sure that there are some jobs available first!

Other Variables

Other things that factor into pay scale are: the type of organization you work for, the size of the organization, and your client base. And, what about benefits? Sometimes a job with great benefits can outweigh a higher paycheck.

Where’s my answer?

So, where can you find the details? AIGA and Aquent put together an extensive Survey of Design Salaries every year. In it, you’ll find everything from pay scales to benefits. To download a copy of the 2008 survey, click here. To use AIGA’s interactive Salary Calculator to find out how much money you should be (or could be) making, click here. And, if you have some extra time, visit the AIGA website for invaluable design resources and advice.

Looking for the 2009 Survey? Check out the updated information here: 2009 Design Salaries: How much money should you be making?