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Home designer vs freelance designer

The differences between home designers and freelance designers can be seen in a few details. Each job has different responsibilities and duties. While it typically takes 2-4 years to become a home designer, becoming a freelance designer takes usually requires 6-12 months. Additionally, a home designer has an average salary of $66,541, which is higher than the $57,260 average annual salary of a freelance designer.

The top three skills for a home designer include in-home, customer service and design solutions. The most important skills for a freelance designer are sketch, CSS, and HTML.

Home designer vs freelance designer overview

Home DesignerFreelance Designer
Yearly salary$66,541$57,260
Hourly rate$31.99$27.53
Growth rate1%3%
Number of jobs86,22345,914
Job satisfaction--
Most common degreeBachelor's Degree, 61%Bachelor's Degree, 73%
Average age4238
Years of experience412

What does a home designer do?

A home designer is responsible for executing creative designs for house furnishing according to clients' requirements and specifications. Home designers assess the clients' best interests to make decisions about layouts and structure. They also select the best materials and equipment that go along with the house's designs, customizing decors, and emphasize the elements of the residential space. A home designer must have excellent communication and organizational skills, especially in creating cost and expenses reports for the client's preference.

What does a freelance designer do?

Freelance designers are creative, independent contractors who create visual and graphic designs for their clients. They develop text and illustrated versions of brands, messages, and communications with strong visible influence with their clients. Typical activities include networking, seeking projects, and negotiating prices to their customers. They manage client proposals, develop concepts, present solutions, and ensure the timely completion of projects. Freelance visual and graphic designers are creative, self-motivated as well as result and deadline oriented.

Home designer vs freelance designer salary

Home designers and freelance designers have different pay scales, as shown below.

Home DesignerFreelance Designer
Average salary$66,541$57,260
Salary rangeBetween $38,000 And $114,000Between $39,000 And $83,000
Highest paying CityAlameda, CA-
Highest paying stateOregon-
Best paying companyBest Buy-
Best paying industryRetail-

Differences between home designer and freelance designer education

There are a few differences between a home designer and a freelance designer in terms of educational background:

Home DesignerFreelance Designer
Most common degreeBachelor's Degree, 61%Bachelor's Degree, 73%
Most common majorInterior DesignGraphic Design
Most common collegeCornell UniversityUniversity of Pennsylvania

Home designer vs freelance designer demographics

Here are the differences between home designers' and freelance designers' demographics:

Home DesignerFreelance Designer
Average age4238
Gender ratioMale, 53.6% Female, 46.4%Male, 48.0% Female, 52.0%
Race ratioBlack or African American, 1.5% Unknown, 4.1% Hispanic or Latino, 7.6% Asian, 4.6% White, 82.1% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.1%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 Percentage23%13%

Differences between home designer and freelance designer duties and responsibilities

Home designer example responsibilities.

  • Manage multiple residential kitchen and bath projects simultaneously from design inception to delivery in a fast pace energetic environment.
  • Prepare hand sketch elevations in perspective views.
  • Design kitchen and bath building and renovation projects for consumer and commercial customers, coordinating credit applications and processing payments.
  • Monitor orders utilizing POS system.
  • Manage multiple residential kitchen and bath projects simultaneously from design inception to delivery in a fast pace energetic environment.

Freelance designer example responsibilities.

  • Lead the transition from paste-up, typesetting, pasting up page layout to digital ad/page building and web printing.
  • Hand-Code HTML, CSS, JS and PHP for custom design solutions and form processing, validation, and animations.
  • Provide identity and stationery design, web design, HTML / CSS development and WordPress integration (content management system).
  • Image manipulation in platforms such as Photoshop and illustrator as per assign.
  • Develop high-qualityshop drawings for all casework to be build by in-house woodshop.
  • Design websites, landing pages, banner ads, pop-ups, and HTML emails.
  • Show more

Home designer vs freelance designer skills

Common home designer skills
  • In-Home, 35%
  • Customer Service, 31%
  • Design Solutions, 16%
  • Space Planning, 3%
  • Sales Associates, 3%
  • Retail Sales, 3%
Common freelance designer skills
  • Sketch, 11%
  • CSS, 7%
  • HTML, 6%
  • Adobe Photoshop, 6%
  • Adobe Illustrator, 6%
  • Photography, 5%

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