Best Jobs For Former Graphic Designers [2023]

It’s tough to be a graphic designer nowadays, and more and more of them are losing confidence in their own profession.

While the amount of people majoring in courses preparing people for a job as a graphic designer isn’t necessarily dropping, fewer and fewer people are applying to become graphic designers in the first place and the workforce itself is looking grim.

With so many graphic designers no longer sticking around, this begs the question:

What are they all doing now?

We were curious, so we looked through the resumes of former graphic designers to see what kind of jobs they were moving into after leaving the field. There were thousands of answers, so we made the cutoff at the top 100 jobs.

But given that there are some very surprising and interesting items on this list, we’ve decided to highlight a few of those instead.

Best Jobs For Former GRAPHIC DESIGNERS

Some of these items are admittedly more attractive than one another as far as actually working the job goes, but one way or another, you’ve got to admit they’re eye-catching.

The full list of those jobs can be found below.

Detailed Ranking of the Most Common Jobs of Former GRAPHIC DESIGNERS

Rank	Job Title	%
1	Art Director	2.9%
2	Senior Graphic Designer	2.71%
3	Creative Director	1.8%
4	Web Designer	1.58%
5	Freelance Designer	1.57%
6	Graphic Artist	1.44%
7	Production Artist	1.32%
8	Graphic Designer Internship	1.15%
9	Sales Associate	1.08%
10	Graphic Designer/production	1.07%
11	Designer	1.06%
12	Owner	0.77%
13	Graphic Designer, Marketing	0.77%
14	Customer Service Representative	0.72%
15	Administrative Assistant	0.71%
16	Project Manager	0.69%
17	Marketing Manager	0.68%
18	Web Graphic Designer	0.67%
19	Senior Designer	0.66%
20	Marketing Coordinator	0.64%
21	User Experience Designer	0.62%
22	Lead Graphic Designer	0.59%
23	Marketing Director	0.59%
24	Web Developer	0.59%
25	Graphic Designer/illustrator	0.57%
26	Internship	0.56%
27	Photographer	0.56%
28	Graphic Designer And Photographer	0.5%
29	Production Designer	0.45%
30	Senior Art Director	0.43%
31	Graphic Design Manager	0.43%
32	Graphic Design Specialist	0.42%
33	Contract Graphic Designer	0.41%
34	Marketing Specialist	0.41%
35	User Interaction Designer	0.41%
36	Artist	0.39%
37	Office Manager	0.39%
38	Freelance Web Designer	0.38%
39	Visual Designer	0.38%
40	Production Manager	0.37%
41	Design Consultant	0.35%
42	Manager	0.35%
43	Web Design/development	0.34%
44	Cashier	0.33%
45	Designer/art Director	0.33%
46	Marketing Assistant	0.32%
47	Senior Web Designer	0.31%
48	Owner & Designer	0.31%
49	Creative Director & Designer	0.31%
50	Graphic Design Consultant	0.31%
51	Assistant Manager	0.31%
52	Social Media Manager	0.3%
53	Owner/operator	0.29%
54	Lead Designer	0.29%
55	Substitute Teacher	0.27%
56	Digital Designer	0.27%
57	Consultant	0.26%
58	Server	0.26%
59	Communications Specialist	0.26%
60	Specialist	0.25%
61	Front End Developer	0.25%
62	Design Manager	0.25%
63	Creative Designer	0.25%
64	Volunteer	0.24%
65	Freelance Photographer	0.23%
66	Sales Representative	0.23%
67	Multimedia Designer	0.23%
68	Junior Graphic Designer	0.23%
69	Freelance Art Director	0.23%
70	Instructor	0.23%
71	Marketing Internship	0.23%
72	Marketing Designer	0.22%
73	Teacher	0.22%
74	Art Teacher	0.22%
75	Production Assistant	0.22%
76	Design Director	0.21%
77	Design Internship	0.21%
78	Adjunct Professor	0.21%
79	Principal	0.21%
80	Video Editor	0.2%
81	Interactive Designer	0.2%
82	Package Designer	0.19%
83	Graphic Design Assistant	0.19%
84	Account Manager	0.19%
85	Senior Designer/art Director	0.19%
86	Supervisor	0.19%
87	Customer Service Trainer	0.19%
88	Operations Manager	0.19%
89	Graphics Specialist	0.18%
90	Creative Services Manager	0.18%
91	Graphic Designer/coordinator	0.18%
92	Product Designer	0.18%
93	Press Operator	0.18%
94	Technician	0.17%
95	Technical Writer	0.17%
96	3d Artist	0.17%
97	Design Specialist	0.17%
98	Photographer, Editor	0.17%
99	Store Manager	0.17%
100	Designer/artist	0.16%

Most Common Jobs For Former GRAPHIC DESIGNERS

These are all good jobs, all of them either utilizing some skill that a graphic designer would have or being a stepping stone to a different career.

Here’s the thing about these jobs though — they’re pretty much exactly what you’d expect a lot of former graphic designers to do.

How We Determined the Best Jobs of Former GRAPHIC DESIGNERS

Using resume information from our database of over 7 million resumes, we looked at all resumes that listed graphic designer under their work history. Then we looked at which jobs showed up on their work histories following their stints as a graphic designer, sorting them by their most frequent.

That’s how we made the initial ranked list.

To make our list of most interesting jobs, we looked through the ranked list to see if any positions:

Showed up in fewer than 1% of all new jobs
And, were not part of the 100 most common jobs in our database

Author

Chris Kolmar

Chris Kolmar is a co-founder of Zippia and the editor-in-chief of the Zippia career advice blog. He has hired over 50 people in his career, been hired five times, and wants to help you land your next job. His research has been featured on the New York Times, Thrillist, VOX, The Atlantic, and a host of local news. More recently, he's been quoted on USA Today, BusinessInsider, and CNBC.

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