A creative designer is a broad designation that encompasses creative professions across multiple industries. For example, it could refer to a graphic designer or fashion designer at a clothing brand. Creative designers could also be artists or photographers who create strong visuals for a marketing campaign.
In marketing, a creative designer's job is to produce and design innovative concepts. He may generate ideas from scratch or work with other marketing team members to develop what works. If the concept is to be printed, creative designers may also have to coordinate with vendors to ensure the final product meets standards.
To become a creative designer, you need a relevant educational background. That may be a degree in graphic design or photography. Creative designers also need a lot of internship/apprenticeship experience to land bigger roles. Necessary skills include software proficiency, creativity, and an understanding of current trends.
Creative Designer Overview
Creative Designer Careers
There is more than meets the eye when it comes to being a creative designer. For example, did you know that they make an average of $36.28 an hour? That's $75,468 a year!
Between 2018 and 2028, the career is expected to grow 3% and produce 8,800 job opportunities across the U.S.
What Does a Creative Designer Do
There are certain skills that many creative designers have in order to accomplish their responsibilities. By taking a look through resumes, we were able to narrow down the most common skills for a person in this position. We discovered that a lot of resumes listed analytical skills, artistic ability and communication skills.
When it comes to the most important skills required to be a creative designer, we found that a lot of resumes listed 21.0% of creative designers included graphic design, while 10.7% of resumes included adobe creative suite, and 6.5% of resumes included layout. Hard skills like these are helpful to have when it comes to performing essential job responsibilities.
When it comes to searching for a job, many search for a key term or phrase. Instead, it might be more helpful to search by industry, as you might be missing jobs that you never thought about in industries that you didn't even think offered positions related to the creative designer job title. But what industry to start with? Most creative designers actually find jobs in the retail and technology industries.
How To Become a Creative Designer
If you're interested in becoming a creative designer, one of the first things to consider is how much education you need. We've determined that 66.1% of creative designers have a bachelor's degree. In terms of higher education levels, we found that 10.8% of creative designers have master's degrees. Even though most creative designers have a college degree, it's possible to become one with only a high school degree or GED.
Choosing the right major is always an important step when researching how to become a creative designer. When we researched the most common majors for a creative designer, we found that they most commonly earn bachelor's degree degrees or associate degree degrees. Other degrees that we often see on creative designer resumes include master's degree degrees or high school diploma degrees.
You may find that experience in other jobs will help you become a creative designer. In fact, many creative designer jobs require experience in a role such as graphic designer. Meanwhile, many creative designers also have previous career experience in roles such as art director or designer.
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Creative Designer Career Paths
As you move along in your career, you may start taking on more responsibilities or notice that you've taken on a leadership role. Using our career map, a creative designer can determine their career goals through the career progression. For example, they could start out with a role such as senior designer, progress to a title such as creative director and then eventually end up with the title marketing vice president.
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Average Salary for a Creative Designer
Best Paying Cities
Recently Added Salaries
Job TitleCompany  | Company | Start Date | Salary |
|---|---|---|---|
Randstad SR Creative Designer SR Creative Designer | Randstad Randstad | 01/11/2021 01/11/2021 | $110,61101/11/2021 $110,611 |
Randstad Creative-Designer Creative-Designer | Randstad Randstad | 01/05/2021 01/05/2021 | $62,61001/05/2021 $62,610 |
Webpagefx JR. Online Creative Designer {TOP 5 Employer JR. Online Creative Designer {TOP 5 Employer | Webpagefx Webpagefx | 04/15/2020 04/15/2020 | $35,00004/15/2020 $35,000 |
Randstad Digital Creative Designer Digital Creative Designer | Randstad Randstad | 02/21/2020 02/21/2020 | $77,74102/21/2020 $77,741 |
Kelly Services Creative Designer Creative Designer | Kelly Services Kelly Services | 12/02/2019 12/02/2019 | $93,91512/02/2019 $93,915 |
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Top Colleges for Creative Designers
1. University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, PA • Private
2. Carnegie Mellon University
Pittsburgh, PA • Private
3. University of Southern California
Los Angeles, CA • Private
4. Harvard University
Cambridge, MA • Private
5. Duke University
Durham, NC • Private
6. Northeastern University
Boston, MA • Private
7. New York University
New York, NY • Private
8. Boston University
Boston, MA • Private
9. Northwestern University
Evanston, IL • Private
10. University of Michigan - Ann Arbor
Ann Arbor, MI • Public
Top Skills For a Creative Designer
The skills section on your resume can be almost as important as the experience section, so you want it to be an accurate portrayal of what you can do. Luckily, we've found all of the skills you'll need so even if you don't have these skills yet, you know what you need to work on. Out of all the resumes we looked through, 21.0% of creative designers listed graphic design on their resume, but soft skills such as analytical skills and artistic ability are important as well.
- Graphic Design, 21.0%
- Adobe Creative Suite, 10.7%
- Layout, 6.5%
- Design Concepts, 6.2%
- Html, 5.3%
- Other Skills, 50.3% See All Creative Designer Skills
Best States For a Creative Designer
Some places are better than others when it comes to starting a career as a creative designer. The best states for people in this position are Washington, Oregon, Nevada, and Maryland. Creative designers make the most in Washington with an average salary of $84,300. Whereas in Oregon and Nevada, they would average $76,626 and $73,851, respectively. While creative designers would only make an average of $73,147 in Maryland, you would still make more there than in the rest of the country. We determined these as the best states based on job availability and pay. By finding the median salary, cost of living, and using the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Location Quotient, we narrowed down our list of states to these four.
1. Washington
$84,300
Avg. Salary
2. Oregon
$76,626
Avg. Salary
3. Rhode Island
$72,472
Avg. Salary
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