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.
Design Specialist Overview
Design Specialist Careers
There is more than meets the eye when it comes to being a design specialist. For example, did you know that they make an average of $34.76 an hour? That's $72,302 a year!
Between 2018 and 2028, the career is expected to grow 4% and produce 3,300 job opportunities across the U.S.
What Does a Design Specialist Do
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.
When it comes to the most important skills required to be a design specialist, we found that a lot of resumes listed 10.9% of design specialists included communication, while 10.6% of resumes included customer service, and 5.7% of resumes included email. 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 design specialist job title. But what industry to start with? Most design specialists actually find jobs in the technology and retail industries.
How To Become a Design Specialist
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 52.6% of design specialists have a bachelor's degree. In terms of higher education levels, we found that 11.6% 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.
Choosing the right major is always an important step when researching how to become a design specialist. When we researched the most common majors for a design specialist, we found that they most commonly earn bachelor's degree degrees or associate degree degrees. Other degrees that we often see on design specialist resumes include master's degree degrees or high school diploma degrees.
You may find that experience in other jobs will help you become a design specialist. In fact, many design specialist jobs require experience in a role such as sales associate. Meanwhile, many design specialists also have previous career experience in roles such as graphic designer or designer.
What is the right job for my career path?
Tell us your goals and we'll match you with the right jobs to get there.
Design Specialist Career Paths
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 is the right job for my career path?
Tell us your goals and we'll match you with the rights job to get there.
Average Salary for a Design Specialist
Best Paying Cities
Recently Added Salaries
Job TitleCompany  | Company | Start Date | Salary |
|---|---|---|---|
Dish Network Corporation Autocad Design Specialist Autocad Design Specialist | Dish Network Corporation Dish Network Corporation | 01/27/2021 01/27/2021 | $64,80001/27/2021 $64,800 |
Kelly Services Design Specialist Design Specialist | Kelly Services Kelly Services | 01/21/2021 01/21/2021 | $31,30501/21/2021 $31,305 |
Skookum Contract Services Design Specialist Design Specialist | Skookum Contract Services Skookum Contract Services | 01/08/2021 01/08/2021 | $48,00101/08/2021 $48,001 |
University of Montana Accessible Technology & Media Design (Atmd) Specialist, Rural Institute for Inclusive Communities (2 Accessible Technology & Media Design (Atmd) Specialist, Rural Institute for Inclusive Communities (2 | University of Montana University of Montana | 09/22/2020 09/22/2020 | $40,25809/22/2020 $40,258 |
Moraine Park Technical College Design Specialist Design Specialist | Moraine Park Technical College Moraine Park Technical College | 09/10/2020 09/10/2020 | $47,87609/10/2020 $47,876 |
Calculate your salary
Use Zippia's Salary Calculator to see how your pay matches up.
Design Specialist Resumes
Designing and figuring out what to include on your resume can be tough, not to mention time-consuming. That's why we put together a guide that is designed to help you craft the perfect resume for becoming a Design Specialist. If you're needing extra inspiration, take a look through our selection of templates that are specific to your job.
Learn How To Write a Design Specialist Resume
At Zippia, we went through countless Design Specialist resumes and compiled some information about how best to optimize them. Here are some suggestions based on what we found, divided by the individual sections of the resume itself.
View Detailed InformationTop Colleges for Design Specialists
1. Cornell University
Ithaca, NY • Private
2. University of Washington
Seattle, WA • Public
3. University of Minnesota - Twin Cities
Minneapolis, MN • Public
4. Ball State University
Muncie, IN • Public
5. University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, PA • Private
6. Stanford University
Stanford, CA • Private
7. University of Maryland - College Park
College Park, MD • Public
8. University of Texas at Austin
Austin, TX • Public
9. Georgia Institute of Technology
Atlanta, GA • Public
10. University of Southern California
Los Angeles, CA • Private
Top Skills For a Design Specialist
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, 10.9% of design specialists listed communication on their resume, but soft skills such as detail oriented and visualization are important as well.
- Communication, 10.9%
- Customer Service, 10.6%
- Email, 5.7%
- CAD, 4.6%
- Product Knowledge, 4.5%
- Other Skills, 63.7% See All Design Specialist Skills
Best States For a Design Specialist
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 Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Jersey, and New York. Design specialists make the most in Connecticut with an average salary of $72,610. Whereas in Rhode Island and New Jersey, they would average $71,705 and $71,611, respectively. While design specialists would only make an average of $69,873 in New York, 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. Rhode Island
$71,705
Avg. Salary
2. Oregon
$68,454
Avg. Salary
3. Connecticut
$72,610
Avg. Salary