What is a Freelance Designer?

Whether we are talking about industrial design or visual communication, a designer is a creative professional who comes up with ideas for objects, packaging, or layouts. Working as a freelance designer means you are not employed by one company but work on your own, for different clients, on a project basis.

There are many different aspects of design. You can be a graphic designer creating product illustrations or visuals for brand identities, a user experience designer making easy-to-navigate websites, software, or applications. You can design interior spaces, or special effects for the entertainment media, or clothes and accessories for the fashion industry.

Whatever the case, as a freelance designer, you are basically an entrepreneur and find your own clients, take care of accounts, and the promotion of your services for yourself and in exchange, you enjoy the freedom and flexibility of working on your own time and your own terms.

What Does a Freelance Designer Do

There are certain skills that many freelance 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.

How To Become a Freelance Designer

If you're interested in becoming a freelance designer, one of the first things to consider is how much education you need. We've determined that 73.1% of freelance designers have a bachelor's degree. In terms of higher education levels, we found that 5.3% of freelance designers have master's degrees. Even though most freelance designers have a college degree, it's possible to become one with only a high school degree or GED.

Top Freelance Designer Jobs Near You

Freelance 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 freelance designer can determine their career goals through the career progression. For example, they could start out with a role such as designer, progress to a title such as project manager and then eventually end up with the title marketing communications manager.

Freelance Designer

Average Salary for a Freelance Designer

Freelance Designers in America make an average salary of $57,260 per year or $28 per hour. The top 10 percent makes over $83,000 per year, while the bottom 10 percent under $39,000 per year.
Average Freelance Designer Salary
$57,260 Yearly
$27.53 hourly

What Am I Worth?

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Roles and Types of Freelance Designer

There are several types of freelance designer, including:

Graphic Designer

Role:

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.

  • Average Salary: $49,450
  • Degree: Bachelor's Degree

Designer

Role:

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.

  • Average Salary: $66,347
  • Degree: Bachelor's Degree

Graphic Artist

Role:

Also called Graphic Illustrators, a Graphic Artist has excellent artistic and computer skills. You will be creating artwork for different graphic projects, like posters, advertisements, and covers. You may also be tasked to use a specific art style even though you have your own. The important thing to do is be able to deliver the project or company's message through your artwork.

As a Graphic Artist, you need to have good analytical skills, great communication skills, and, of course, excellent artistic ability. You will need all these skills for you to perform well as a Graphic Artist.

You can earn an average salary of $47,306 per year as a Graphic Artist. With a 3% job growth rate, you can also explore other roles and further your career. You can be a Graphic Designer, a Designer, and a Design Manager. This is only one path; there are other possibilities when you start as a Graphic Artist today.

  • Average Salary: $54,900
  • Degree: Bachelor's Degree
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States With The Most Freelance Designer Jobs

Number Of Freelance Designer Jobs By State

RankStateNumber of JobsAverage Salary
1California3,337$68,370
2New York1,343$67,277
3Texas1,238$53,396
4Washington868$89,729
5Georgia788$45,157
6Illinois768$55,712
7Florida767$50,358
8Massachusetts756$70,860
9Virginia681$67,810
10North Carolina614$58,208
11Pennsylvania612$62,454
12Michigan530$59,736
13Ohio477$57,657
14Oregon463$65,257
15Minnesota427$51,541
16Maryland421$63,920
17Wisconsin385$59,753
18Colorado385$55,653
19New Jersey381$69,585
20Arizona305$54,412
21Missouri274$48,617
22Indiana273$49,293
23Utah248$53,035
24Tennessee239$52,345
25Connecticut215$55,838
26Alabama197$44,237
27Iowa181$46,559
28Kansas158$48,399
29South Carolina157$49,020
30Kentucky152$41,052
31Louisiana128$47,665
32New Hampshire127$54,942
33Oklahoma125$42,550
34Arkansas110$43,013
35Nebraska109$51,841
36Nevada93$64,490
37New Mexico92$45,339
38Maine84$48,284
39Rhode Island79$60,437
40Mississippi78$46,685
41Idaho77$47,789
42Delaware63$60,139
43West Virginia52$64,045
44Montana52$44,707
45South Dakota45$37,844
46Vermont43$53,946
47North Dakota39$48,892
48Hawaii36$62,119
49Alaska34$66,398
50Wyoming30$52,456

Freelance Designer Education

Freelance Designer Majors

Graphic Design
52.0 %
Fine Arts
10.7 %
Design And Visual Communication
6.4 %

Freelance Designer Degrees

Bachelors

73.1 %

Associate

17.5 %

Masters

5.3 %

Top Colleges for Freelance Designers

1. University of Pennsylvania

Philadelphia, PA • Private

In-State Tuition

$55,584

Enrollment

10,764

2. Carnegie Mellon University

Pittsburgh, PA • Private

In-State Tuition

$55,465

Enrollment

6,483

3. University of Southern California

Los Angeles, CA • Private

In-State Tuition

$56,225

Enrollment

19,548

4. Harvard University

Cambridge, MA • Private

In-State Tuition

$50,420

Enrollment

7,582

5. Duke University

Durham, NC • Private

In-State Tuition

$55,695

Enrollment

6,596

6. Northeastern University

Boston, MA • Private

In-State Tuition

$51,522

Enrollment

13,760

7. New York University

New York, NY • Private

In-State Tuition

$51,828

Enrollment

26,339

8. Boston University

Boston, MA • Private

In-State Tuition

$53,948

Enrollment

17,238

9. Northwestern University

Evanston, IL • Private

In-State Tuition

$54,568

Enrollment

8,451

10. University of Michigan - Ann Arbor

Ann Arbor, MI • Private

In-State Tuition

$15,262

Enrollment

30,079

Top Skills For a Freelance 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, 10.8% of freelance designers listed sketch on their resume, but soft skills such as analytical skills and artistic ability are important as well.

Choose From 10+ Customizable Freelance Designer Resume templates

Zippia allows you to choose from different easy-to-use Freelance Designer templates, and provides you with expert advice. Using the templates, you can rest assured that the structure and format of your Freelance Designer resume is top notch. Choose a template with the colors, fonts & text sizes that are appropriate for your industry.

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Freelance Designer diversity

Freelance Designer Gender Distribution

Female
Female
52%
Male
Male
48%

After extensive research and analysis, Zippia's data science team found that:

  • Among freelance designers, 52.0% of them are women, while 48.0% are men.

  • The most common race/ethnicity among freelance designers is White, which makes up 70.2% of all freelance designers.

  • The most common foreign language among freelance designers is Spanish at 43.8%.

Online Courses For Freelance Designer That You May Like

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1. User Experience Design Immersive (Full-time)

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Launch a future-proof career designing digital experiences that power revenue, user loyalty, and product success. Distinguish yourself as a designer by compiling a portfolio to showcase solo, group, and client projects to employers based on UI design and Agile methodologies...

2. User Experience Design (Part Time)

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Translate user wants and needs into intuitive digital experiences that power revenue, loyalty, and product success. Build confidence and credibility to tackle complex design problems on the job. This course is offered in person and live online, in a remote classroom setting...

3. Design of Everyday Things

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This course provides a summary of key concepts from the first two chapters of The Design of Everyday Things (Revised and Expanded Edition, November 2013) by Don Norman. It's intended to be enjoyable and informative for anyone curious about design: everyday people, technical people, designers, and non-designers alike...

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Top Freelance Designer Employers

We've made finding a great employer to work for easy by doing the hard work for you. We looked into employers that employ freelance designers and discovered their number of freelance designer opportunities and average salary. Through our research, we concluded that *N/A was the best, especially with an average salary of $61,645. New York & Company follows up with an average salary of $62,518, and then comes Ralph Lauren with an average of $72,200. In addition, we know most people would rather work from home. So instead of having to change careers, we identified the best employers for remote work as a freelance designer. The employers include Solomon Page, Creative Circle, and pensar

Most Common Employers For Freelance Designer

RankCompanyAverage SalaryHourly RateJob Openings
1Homes.com$96,508$46.408
2Adobe$92,599$44.528
3Calvin Klein$83,901$40.3415
4The Donna Karan Company LLC$78,810$37.898
5Nike$78,287$37.6411
6Macy's$75,941$36.5114
7Ralph Lauren$72,200$34.7128
8Department of Public Social Services$70,076$33.6912
9Bananas$67,204$32.319
10Projects$66,766$32.108
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Updated April 6, 2023