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Commercial artist vs freelance designer

The differences between commercial artists 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 a commercial artist, becoming a freelance designer takes usually requires 6-12 months. Additionally, a commercial artist has an average salary of $60,449, which is higher than the $57,260 average annual salary of a freelance designer.

The top three skills for a commercial artist include art projects, photography and adobe photoshop. The most important skills for a freelance designer are sketch, CSS, and HTML.

Commercial artist vs freelance designer overview

Commercial ArtistFreelance Designer
Yearly salary$60,449$57,260
Hourly rate$29.06$27.53
Growth rate6%3%
Number of jobs30,06645,914
Job satisfaction--
Most common degreeBachelor's Degree, 59%Bachelor's Degree, 73%
Average age4038
Years of experience612

Commercial artist vs freelance designer salary

Commercial artists and freelance designers have different pay scales, as shown below.

Commercial ArtistFreelance Designer
Average salary$60,449$57,260
Salary rangeBetween $36,000 And $100,000Between $39,000 And $83,000
Highest paying City--
Highest paying state--
Best paying company--
Best paying industry--

Differences between commercial artist and freelance designer education

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

Commercial ArtistFreelance Designer
Most common degreeBachelor's Degree, 59%Bachelor's Degree, 73%
Most common majorGraphic DesignGraphic Design
Most common collegeDuke UniversityUniversity of Pennsylvania

Commercial artist vs freelance designer demographics

Here are the differences between commercial artists' and freelance designers' demographics:

Commercial ArtistFreelance Designer
Average age4038
Gender ratioMale, 58.4% Female, 41.6%Male, 48.0% Female, 52.0%
Race ratioBlack or African American, 4.3% Unknown, 5.6% Hispanic or Latino, 14.1% Asian, 7.6% White, 67.8% 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 commercial artist and freelance designer duties and responsibilities

Commercial artist example responsibilities.

  • Manage external communications such as brochures and other sales collateral for direct mail from inception to circulation.
  • Utilize a variety of creative media including illustration, photography and digital design to convey ideas beautifully and intelligently.
  • Create online stores and sell artwork through Zazzle, Etsy, and Cafepress.

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

Commercial artist vs freelance designer skills

Common commercial artist skills
  • Art Projects, 32%
  • Photography, 12%
  • Adobe Photoshop, 12%
  • Technical Illustrations, 8%
  • Customer Relations, 6%
  • Posters, 5%
Common freelance designer skills
  • Sketch, 11%
  • CSS, 7%
  • HTML, 6%
  • Adobe Photoshop, 6%
  • Adobe Illustrator, 6%
  • Photography, 5%

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