There is more than meets the eye when it comes to being a graphic designer/illustrator. For example, did you know that they make an average of $20.33 an hour? That's $42,282 a year!
Between 2018 and 2028, the career is expected to grow 3% and produce 8,800 job opportunities across the U.S.
There are certain skills that many graphic designer/illustrators 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 graphic designer/illustrator, we found that a lot of resumes listed 13.8% of graphic designer/illustrators included adobe creative suite, while 9.8% of resumes included graphic design, and 9.2% of resumes included company website. Hard skills like these are helpful to have when it comes to performing essential job responsibilities.
If you're interested in becoming a graphic designer/illustrator, one of the first things to consider is how much education you need. We've determined that 64.9% of graphic designer/illustrators have a bachelor's degree. In terms of higher education levels, we found that 7.5% of graphic designer/illustrators have master's degrees. Even though most graphic designer/illustrators 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 graphic designer/illustrator. When we researched the most common majors for a graphic designer/illustrator, we found that they most commonly earn bachelor's degree degrees or associate degree degrees. Other degrees that we often see on graphic designer/illustrator resumes include master's degree degrees or high school diploma degrees.
You may find that experience in other jobs will help you become a graphic designer/illustrator. In fact, many graphic designer/illustrator jobs require experience in a role such as graphic designer. Meanwhile, many graphic designer/illustrators also have previous career experience in roles such as art director or graphic designer internship.
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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 graphic designer you might progress to a role such as designer eventually. Later on in your career, you could end up with the title design manager.
Tell us your goals and we'll match you with the rights job to get there.
Use Zippia's Salary Calculator to see how your pay matches up.
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 Graphic Designer/Illustrator. 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 Graphic Designer/Illustrator Resume
At Zippia, we went through countless Graphic Designer/Illustrator 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.
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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, 13.8% of graphic designer/illustrators listed adobe creative suite on their resume, but soft skills such as analytical skills and artistic ability are important as well.
Some places are better than others when it comes to starting a career as a graphic designer/illustrator. The best states for people in this position are Virginia, Oregon, Nevada, and Washington. Graphic designer/illustrators make the most in Virginia with an average salary of $53,675. Whereas in Oregon and Nevada, they would average $52,542 and $50,217, respectively. While graphic designer/illustrators would only make an average of $50,114 in Washington, 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. Oregon
$52,543
Avg. Salary
2. Virginia
$53,675
Avg. Salary
3. Washington
$50,114
Avg. Salary