How To Become An Advertising Designer: What It Is and Career Path

What is an advertising designer and how to become one

Updated January 8, 2025

3 min read

There is more than meets the eye when it comes to being an advertising designer. For example, did you know that they make an average of $22.15 an hour? That's $46,079 a year! Between 2018 and 2028, the career is expected to grow 3% and produce 6,800 job opportunities across the U.S.

ScoreAdvertising DesignerUS Average

Salary

3.6

Avg. Salary $46,079

Avg. Salary $59,228

Stability level

4.2

Growth rate 3%

Growth rate 0.3%

Diversity

4.5

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 0.37%

Asian 10.42%

Black or African American 3.42%

Hispanic or Latino 10.63%

Unknown 4.99%

White 70.17%

Gender

female 51.18%

male 48.82%

Age - 37

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 3.00%

Asian 7.00%

Black or African American 14.00%

Hispanic or Latino 19.00%

White 57.00%

Gender

female 47.00%

male 53.00%

Age - 37

Stress level

4.2

Stress level is moderate

7.1 - high

Complexity level

8.5

Complexity level is advanced

7 - challenging

Work life balance

3.9

Work life balance is poor

6.4 - fair

Key steps to become an advertising designer

Explore advertising designer education requirements

Most common advertising designer degrees

Bachelor's

69.7 %

Associate

20.6 %

High School Diploma

4.3 %

Start to develop specific advertising designer skills

Skills	Percentages
Print Advertisements	15.30%
Adobe Photoshop	11.47%
Layout Design	9.79%
Mac	6.11%
Creative Concepts	5.04%

Complete relevant advertising designer training and internships

Accountants spend an average of 1-3 months on post-employment, on-the-job training. New advertising designers learn the skills and techniques required for their job and employer during this time. The chart below shows how long it takes to gain competency as an advertising designer based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data and data from real advertising designer resumes.

Research advertising designer duties and responsibilities

Create original ads as well as manage camera-ready PDF files to place into newsprint pages for publication on a weekly basis.
Design and update HTML and CSS for various websites and landing pages.
Design & layout using QuarkXPress.
Proofread and copy write various columnist submissions.

Prepare your advertising designer resume

When your background is strong enough, you can start writing your advertising designer resume.

You can use Zippia's AI resume builder to make the resume writing process easier while also making sure that you include key information that hiring managers expect to see on an advertising designer resume. You'll find resume tips and examples of skills, responsibilities, and summaries, all provided by Zippi, your career sidekick.

Choose from 10+ customizable advertising designer resume templates

Build a professional advertising designer resume in minutes. Browse through our resume examples to identify the best way to word your resume. Then choose from 10+ resume templates to create your advertising designer resume.

Apply for advertising designer jobs

Now it's time to start searching for an advertising designer job. Consider the tips below for a successful job search:

Browse job boards for relevant postings
Consult your professional network
Reach out to companies you're interested in working for directly
Watch out for job scams

How do advertising designers rate their job?

-/5

5 stars

4 stars

3 stars

2 stars

1 star

Advertising designer reviews

A zippia user wrote a review on Jul 2022

Pros

There is so much to like about working as Graphic Designer ... the seeing how all the elements of words, space, colors, visuals (photos, graphics, charts,...) come together on a page...sharing info with others to learn and use

A zippia user wrote a review on Dec 2019

Cons

That I don’t get to do it more often