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The differences between fashion designers and 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 fashion designer, becoming a designer takes usually requires 6-12 months. Additionally, a designer has an average salary of $66,347, which is higher than the $54,265 average annual salary of a fashion designer.
The top three skills for a fashion designer include fashion design, sketch and apparel. The most important skills for a designer are sketch, customer service, and graphic design.
| Fashion Designer | Designer | |
| Yearly salary | $54,265 | $66,347 |
| Hourly rate | $26.09 | $31.90 |
| Growth rate | 3% | 3% |
| Number of jobs | 49,476 | 52,433 |
| Job satisfaction | 4 | 5 |
| Most common degree | Bachelor's Degree, 61% | Bachelor's Degree, 61% |
| Average age | 37 | 38 |
| Years of experience | 6 | 12 |
Fashion designers design and assist with the making of shoes, accessories, and clothing. They identify trends and styles, colors, and trims of a clothing collection. The designers keep an eye on travel shows and read fashion magazines to spot trends and interpret specific patterns, color palettes, and prints for each season. They sketch designs by hand, address buyers as a seasoned marketer, and create technical production drawings. It is part of their responsibilities to collaborate with team members to make edits to lines, select seasonal themes, and create new concepts.
A designer is someone who creates a master plan of the look or workings of something before it will be made. It could be tangible or intangible objects, products, procedures, laws, events, games, graphics, services, and even experiences. Designers are creative thinkers with a great eye to configure the skeletal and structural properties of the targeted output. They work in several fields, such as fashion, architecture, web graphics, and user experience. In spite of the variety of professionals in the design industry, all of them are artistic, passionate, inspiring, and emotionally connected to their projects and brands.
Fashion designers and designers have different pay scales, as shown below.
| Fashion Designer | Designer | |
| Average salary | $54,265 | $66,347 |
| Salary range | Between $37,000 And $78,000 | Between $45,000 And $97,000 |
| Highest paying City | San Francisco, CA | Seattle, WA |
| Highest paying state | Nevada | Washington |
| Best paying company | Ralph Lauren | Meta |
| Best paying industry | Retail | Technology |
There are a few differences between a fashion designer and a designer in terms of educational background:
| Fashion Designer | Designer | |
| Most common degree | Bachelor's Degree, 61% | Bachelor's Degree, 61% |
| Most common major | Graphic Design | Graphic Design |
| Most common college | Cornell University | University of Pennsylvania |
Here are the differences between fashion designers' and designers' demographics:
| Fashion Designer | Designer | |
| Average age | 37 | 38 |
| Gender ratio | Male, 17.3% Female, 82.7% | Male, 56.9% Female, 43.1% |
| Race ratio | Black or African American, 7.3% Unknown, 5.6% Hispanic or Latino, 11.9% Asian, 11.6% White, 63.0% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.5% | 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 Percentage | 18% | 13% |