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Artist assistant vs freelance designer

The differences between artist assistants and freelance designers can be seen in a few details. Each job has different responsibilities and duties. While it typically takes 1-2 years to become an artist assistant, becoming a freelance designer takes usually requires 6-12 months. Additionally, an artist assistant has an average salary of $71,274, which is higher than the $57,260 average annual salary of a freelance designer.

The top three skills for an artist assistant include adobe photoshop, video shoots and photography. The most important skills for a freelance designer are sketch, CSS, and HTML.

Artist assistant vs freelance designer overview

Artist AssistantFreelance Designer
Yearly salary$71,274$57,260
Hourly rate$34.27$27.53
Growth rate5%3%
Number of jobs4,20545,914
Job satisfaction--
Most common degreeBachelor's Degree, 71%Bachelor's Degree, 73%
Average age4038
Years of experience212

Artist assistant vs freelance designer salary

Artist assistants and freelance designers have different pay scales, as shown below.

Artist AssistantFreelance Designer
Average salary$71,274$57,260
Salary rangeBetween $43,000 And $115,000Between $39,000 And $83,000
Highest paying City--
Highest paying state--
Best paying company--
Best paying industry--

Differences between artist assistant and freelance designer education

There are a few differences between an artist assistant and a freelance designer in terms of educational background:

Artist AssistantFreelance Designer
Most common degreeBachelor's Degree, 71%Bachelor's Degree, 73%
Most common majorFine ArtsGraphic Design
Most common collegeUniversity of PennsylvaniaUniversity of Pennsylvania

Artist assistant vs freelance designer demographics

Here are the differences between artist assistants' and freelance designers' demographics:

Artist AssistantFreelance Designer
Average age4038
Gender ratioMale, 35.7% Female, 64.3%Male, 48.0% Female, 52.0%
Race ratioBlack or African American, 4.4% Unknown, 5.6% Hispanic or Latino, 14.4% Asian, 7.8% White, 67.2% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.6%Black or African American, 3.4% Unknown, 5.0% Hispanic or Latino, 10.6% Asian, 10.4% White, 70.2% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.4%
LGBT Percentage11%13%

Differences between artist assistant and freelance designer duties and responsibilities

Artist assistant example responsibilities.

  • Demonstrate effective communication skills, well-execute and expedient application of makeup to achieve the look guests desires.
  • Re-Modele the website using HTML, AJAX, XHTML and CSS.
  • Design and implement after-school arts clubs for Pre-K to 2nd grade students.
  • Design, fabrication, and sales of products and art ranging from furniture to printmaking.
  • Paint and market fine art.-Produce original watercolor artwork-Coordinate with galleries-Work with publishers for reproduction contracts-Teach watercolor workshops-Wrote watercolor instruction book
  • Create original artwork using pen & ink, charcoal, and acrylic paints.
  • Show more

Freelance designer example responsibilities.

  • Lead the transition from paste-up, typesetting, pasting up page layout to digital ad/page building and web printing.
  • Hand-Code HTML, CSS, JS and PHP for custom design solutions and form processing, validation, and animations.
  • Provide identity and stationery design, web design, HTML / CSS development and WordPress integration (content management system).
  • Image manipulation in platforms such as Photoshop and illustrator as per assign.
  • Develop high-qualityshop drawings for all casework to be build by in-house woodshop.
  • Design websites, landing pages, banner ads, pop-ups, and HTML emails.
  • Show more

Artist assistant vs freelance designer skills

Common artist assistant skills
  • Adobe Photoshop, 17%
  • Video Shoots, 13%
  • Photography, 9%
  • Sculpture, 8%
  • Graphic Design, 5%
  • Art Projects, 4%
Common freelance designer skills
  • Sketch, 11%
  • CSS, 7%
  • HTML, 6%
  • Adobe Photoshop, 6%
  • Adobe Illustrator, 6%
  • Photography, 5%

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