1. Cornell University
Ithaca, NY • Private
In-State Tuition
$55,188
Enrollment
15,105
A design specialist helps clients communicate an appealing image through digital, electronic, and print media. They design logos, brochures, signs, movie credits, and website graphics. Design specialists often work for advertising, marketing, and media management firms. They assess client problems and design graphic solutions to aid product branding and sales. They must be culturally sensitive in order to create images that are favorably received by consumers.
As a design specialist, your duties may vary according to your specialization. Design specialists work with computers and may also draw sketches. They choose artwork, colors, and type size to produce an effective visual image. Expertise in software graphics is required so you can design layouts and create animations effects are desirable.
Educational requirements include a bachelor's degree in graphic design. However, associate's degree and/or certificates from professional design schools may lead to entry-level jobs as well. For career advancement, the employer may require a bachelor's degree along with three or more years of work experience.
The average hourly salary for working in this capacity is $33.26, although you may be required to work flexibly, depending on the workload. The average annual salary amounts to $69,187. The career is projected to grow 4% and produce various opportunities across the United States.
There are certain skills that many design specialists 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 detail oriented, visualization and problem-solving skills.
If you're interested in becoming a design specialist, one of the first things to consider is how much education you need. We've determined that 62.1% of design specialists have a bachelor's degree. In terms of higher education levels, we found that 6.6% of design specialists have master's degrees. Even though most design specialists have a college degree, it's possible to become one with only a high school degree or GED.
In addition to switching up your job search, it might prove helpful to look at a career path for your specific job. Now, what's a career path you ask? Well, it's practically a map that shows how you might advance from one job title to another. Our career paths are especially detailed with salary changes. So, for example, if you started out with the role of designer you might progress to a role such as design engineer eventually. Later on in your career, you could end up with the title project engineering manager.
What Am I Worth?
The role of a design specialist includes a wide range of responsibilities. These responsibilities can vary based on an individual's specific job, company, or industry.Here are some general design specialist responsibilities:
There are several types of design specialist, including:
Graphic Designers are responsible for creating visual concepts either through a computer software or by hand. The goal of becoming a graphic designer is to really engage consumers through inspiration. So being creative is kind of needed.
Typically Graphic Designers need a Bachelor's degree, but perhaps the most important thing you can bring to an interview is having a well-rounded portfolio.
A career as a designer can go so many different directions. From fashion designers to floral designers or even graphic designers or interior designers, as long as you have an eye for detail and a steady hand you could design whatever you wanted.
The education that is required to become a designer can vary depending on what type of designing you're going to be doing. For example, a floral designer only needs a high school diploma, but a graphic designer may need a Bachelor's degre. It really depends on what direction you want to take your career.
When we think of a dream job, interior design is probably high up on many people's list. Coming up with functional and beautiful interior spaces for a living does not fall short of glamorous.
Interior design, however, goes way beyond selecting harmonious colors for drapery and picking nice furniture. People interested in Oriental culture might already have some idea of how interior design affects our mood and outlook on life, how spaces might energize or calm us, depending on the way they are structured.
Studies have shown, for example, that the sight of windows may alleviate physical pain. The color blue often dominates business environments because it is a color that increases productivity. Natural materials seem to promote concentration, so investing in natural light sources and furniture made of wood or other organic materials is not only eco-friendly but would eventually return profits as well.
Mouse over a state to see the number of active design specialist jobs in each state. The darker areas on the map show where design specialists earn the highest salaries across all 50 states.
Rank | State | Number of Jobs | Average Salary |
---|---|---|---|
1 | California | 4,470 | $67,602 |
2 | Texas | 2,371 | $59,181 |
3 | New York | 1,748 | $67,705 |
4 | Florida | 1,605 | $39,068 |
5 | Massachusetts | 1,132 | $52,053 |
6 | Pennsylvania | 1,113 | $64,307 |
7 | Illinois | 1,108 | $48,631 |
8 | North Carolina | 1,050 | $56,309 |
9 | Georgia | 1,050 | $46,485 |
10 | Washington | 1,020 | $46,055 |
11 | Virginia | 1,020 | $47,891 |
12 | Ohio | 931 | $49,726 |
13 | Michigan | 922 | $51,949 |
14 | Oregon | 734 | $50,838 |
15 | Minnesota | 692 | $46,138 |
16 | Arizona | 686 | $47,241 |
17 | New Jersey | 666 | $58,780 |
18 | Maryland | 629 | $52,396 |
19 | Colorado | 614 | $43,557 |
20 | Wisconsin | 534 | $53,754 |
21 | Indiana | 504 | $37,859 |
22 | Missouri | 494 | $39,269 |
23 | Tennessee | 445 | $37,824 |
24 | Iowa | 441 | $51,694 |
25 | Alabama | 383 | $39,264 |
26 | Connecticut | 373 | $64,423 |
27 | Utah | 369 | $31,407 |
28 | South Carolina | 355 | $40,151 |
29 | Kansas | 284 | $50,729 |
30 | Kentucky | 266 | $48,306 |
31 | Oklahoma | 250 | $35,697 |
32 | Louisiana | 235 | $44,070 |
33 | Nebraska | 219 | $36,979 |
34 | Arkansas | 207 | $53,752 |
35 | New Hampshire | 199 | $52,850 |
36 | Nevada | 192 | $41,253 |
37 | Idaho | 158 | $45,372 |
38 | New Mexico | 156 | $59,463 |
39 | Delaware | 147 | $60,838 |
40 | Rhode Island | 137 | $61,406 |
41 | Mississippi | 127 | $31,979 |
42 | Maine | 125 | $51,099 |
43 | Montana | 114 | $35,399 |
44 | Hawaii | 108 | $41,734 |
45 | West Virginia | 107 | $55,687 |
46 | South Dakota | 98 | $36,445 |
47 | Vermont | 97 | $34,931 |
48 | North Dakota | 96 | $57,390 |
49 | Alaska | 90 | $34,826 |
50 | Wyoming | 81 | $29,966 |
Ithaca, NY • Private
In-State Tuition
$55,188
Enrollment
15,105
Seattle, WA • Private
In-State Tuition
$11,207
Enrollment
30,905
Minneapolis, MN • Private
In-State Tuition
$14,760
Enrollment
31,451
Muncie, IN • Private
In-State Tuition
$9,896
Enrollment
15,529
Philadelphia, PA • Private
In-State Tuition
$55,584
Enrollment
10,764
Stanford, CA • Private
In-State Tuition
$51,354
Enrollment
7,083
College Park, MD • Private
In-State Tuition
$10,595
Enrollment
30,184
Austin, TX • Private
In-State Tuition
$10,610
Enrollment
40,329
Atlanta, GA • Private
In-State Tuition
$12,424
Enrollment
15,201
Los Angeles, CA • Private
In-State Tuition
$56,225
Enrollment
19,548
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, 12.8% of design specialists listed customer service on their resume, but soft skills such as detail oriented and visualization are important as well.
Zippia allows you to choose from different easy-to-use Design Specialist templates, and provides you with expert advice. Using the templates, you can rest assured that the structure and format of your Design Specialist resume is top notch. Choose a template with the colors, fonts & text sizes that are appropriate for your industry.
After extensive research and analysis, Zippia's data science team found that:
1. Digital Design Masterclass For Graphic Designers
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Some places are better than others when it comes to starting a career as a design specialist. The best states for people in this position are New York, California, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania. Design specialists make the most in New York with an average salary of $67,705. Whereas in California and Connecticut, they would average $67,602 and $64,423, respectively. While design specialists would only make an average of $64,307 in Pennsylvania, 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. New York
$67,705
Avg. Salary
2. California
$67,602
Avg. Salary
3. Rhode Island
$61,406
Avg. Salary
Rank | Company | Average Salary | Hourly Rate | Job Openings |
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | SAP | $107,759 | $51.81 | 103 |
2 | Activision Blizzard | $86,730 | $41.70 | 49 |
3 | IBM | $85,571 | $41.14 | 26 |
4 | CDK Global | $82,989 | $39.90 | 24 |
5 | Fluor Corporation | $78,353 | $37.67 | 79 |
6 | AT&T | $78,344 | $37.67 | 53 |
7 | Accenture | $77,465 | $37.24 | 24 |
8 | BAE Systems | $75,746 | $36.42 | 22 |
9 | Direct Energy | $73,812 | $35.49 | 20 |
10 | Saks Fifth Avenue | $50,908 | $24.48 | 25 |