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Artist-in-residence vs freelance designer

The differences between artists-in residence and freelance designers can be seen in a few details. Each job has different responsibilities and duties. While it typically takes 4-6 years to become an artist-in-residence, becoming a freelance designer takes usually requires 6-12 months. Additionally, a freelance designer has an average salary of $57,260, which is higher than the $53,528 average annual salary of an artist-in-residence.

The top three skills for an artist-in-residence include fine arts, graphic design and art history. The most important skills for a freelance designer are sketch, CSS, and HTML.

Artist-in-residence vs freelance designer overview

Artist-In-ResidenceFreelance Designer
Yearly salary$53,528$57,260
Hourly rate$25.73$27.53
Growth rate6%3%
Number of jobs45,87345,914
Job satisfaction--
Most common degreeBachelor's Degree, 66%Bachelor's Degree, 73%
Average age4038
Years of experience612

What does an artist-in-residence do?

An artist-in-residence instructs and supervises elementary school students' multi-disciplinary art classes. The artist-in-residence takes part in the planning and implementation of musical theatre and in-school playwriting residencies. The artists coordinate and provide lessons for parents after the school ESL classes. They establish an innovative interdisciplinary curriculum that integrates arts to academic topics and courses. Also, they demonstrate enhanced literacy skills, graphic skills, classroom management, art history, and communication skills.

What does a freelance designer do?

Freelance designers are creative, independent contractors who create visual and graphic designs for their clients. They develop text and illustrated versions of brands, messages, and communications with strong visible influence with their clients. Typical activities include networking, seeking projects, and negotiating prices to their customers. They manage client proposals, develop concepts, present solutions, and ensure the timely completion of projects. Freelance visual and graphic designers are creative, self-motivated as well as result and deadline oriented.

Artist-in-residence vs freelance designer salary

Artists-in residence and freelance designers have different pay scales, as shown below.

Artist-In-ResidenceFreelance Designer
Average salary$53,528$57,260
Salary rangeBetween $25,000 And $110,000Between $39,000 And $83,000
Highest paying CityBoston, MA-
Highest paying stateRhode Island-
Best paying companyCranbrook-
Best paying industryNon Profits-

Differences between artist-in-residence and freelance designer education

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

Artist-In-ResidenceFreelance Designer
Most common degreeBachelor's Degree, 66%Bachelor's Degree, 73%
Most common majorFine ArtsGraphic Design
Most common collegeUniversity of PennsylvaniaUniversity of Pennsylvania

Artist-in-residence vs freelance designer demographics

Here are the differences between artists-in residence' and freelance designers' demographics:

Artist-In-ResidenceFreelance Designer
Average age4038
Gender ratioMale, 40.8% Female, 59.2%Male, 48.0% Female, 52.0%
Race ratioBlack or African American, 4.4% Unknown, 5.6% Hispanic or Latino, 14.5% Asian, 7.6% White, 67.3% 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-in-residence and freelance designer duties and responsibilities

Artist-in-residence example responsibilities.

  • Demonstrate effective communication skills, well-execute and expedient application of makeup to achieve the look guests desires.
  • Subject matter cover has include color theory, rules in creating pictorial space, and mathematics in art.
  • Create and implement class syllabus, day to day exercises, and monthly supply list pertaining to assign budget.
  • Schedule afterschool art making classes to grades k-12 where students collaboratively create permanent large-scale murals that are install into the school.
  • Collaborate developing lessons integrating art with mathematics and engineering.
  • Conceptualize and develop terrain models using Maya and partner with director and animators to correspond and produce effective shots.
  • 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.
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Artist-in-residence vs freelance designer skills

Common artist-in-residence skills
  • Fine Arts, 14%
  • Graphic Design, 12%
  • Art History, 8%
  • Printmaking, 7%
  • Sculpture, 6%
  • Community Outreach, 5%
Common freelance designer skills
  • Sketch, 11%
  • CSS, 7%
  • HTML, 6%
  • Adobe Photoshop, 6%
  • Adobe Illustrator, 6%
  • Photography, 5%

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