How To Become A Junior Art Director: What It Is and Career Path

What is a junior art director and how to become one

Updated January 8, 2025

4 min read

Quoted expert

Yash Egami

A junior art director is an individual who assists a senior art director in planning, executing, and designing creative projects for websites, magazines, books, and other media. These individuals also help create presentations and layouts, work with other art and production departments, and help organize art shows, website launches, and other creative venues. A junior art director also helps manage the visual design and marketing of products and services, designs logos and advertisements, and assists in the direction and management of creative teams.

Most junior art directors have a certificate or a bachelor's in art, studio art, or a related field. These individuals have a broad knowledge of various media and art forms, including computer graphics, and possess excellent creative, communication, and organizational skills.

A junior art director can make up to $75,000 annually, and the career field is expected to grow slightly by 1% in the next ten years.

What general advice would you give to a junior art director?

Yash Egami

VP, The One Club

A recent Forrester report says that the ad industry will lose 50,000 jobs through 2021, with 35,000 of them already lost since the pandemic. The traditional ad agency model was already in trouble, with many brands hiring away talent and creating their own in-house agencies. Add to that the recent reckoning with the Black Lives Matter movement, and what we're seeing is an industry that is being forced to go through monumental change in order to survive.

While traditional roles like art director or copywriter are on the decline, the good news is that, in an effort to reinvent themselves, agencies are seeking creatives with digital skills like UX design and programming. The rise of in-house creative departments has also meant more opportunities for job seekers within brands rather than agencies. And because of the demand for more diversity from clients and those within advertising, recruiters are making more of an effort to hire multicultural talent.

At The One Club for Creativity, we've been at the forefront of change in the industry through our diversity and inclusion, professional development and gender equality programs. We recently hosted our annual multicultural career fair, "Where Are All the Black People?" that brought together thousands of diverse talent with 40 agencies and companies looking to hire. We launched One School, a free online program for Black creatives who want to get into the industry but don't have a portfolio or the economic means to afford to go to ad school. And we're working on upskilling courses for professionals who want to reinvent themselves or keep up with the changing demands of our industry.

So if you're a recent graduate who specializes in art direction, our advice would be to keep an open mind about what kind of company you want to work for and think about expanding your skillset to include digital skills so that you can future-proof your career. Where you are isn't as important because, since the pandemic, agencies have become more comfortable with working remotely and they are more open to having a workforce not centered on the traditional agency hubs, like New York or Los Angeles.

ScoreJunior Art DirectorUS Average

Salary

6.8

Avg. Salary $86,890

Avg. Salary $59,228

Stability level

7.9

Growth rate 4%

Growth rate 0.3%

Diversity

3.9

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 0.70%

Asian 7.70%

Black or African American 4.34%

Hispanic or Latino 14.28%

Unknown 5.68%

White 67.29%

Gender

female 45.08%

male 54.92%

Age - 39

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 3.00%

Asian 7.00%

Black or African American 14.00%

Hispanic or Latino 19.00%

White 57.00%

Gender

female 47.00%

male 53.00%

Age - 39

Stress level

7.9

Stress level is high

7.1 - high

Complexity level

9.2

Complexity level is advanced

7 - challenging

Work life balance

4.0

Work life balance is poor

6.4 - fair

Key steps to become a junior art director

Explore junior art director education requirements

Most common junior art director degrees

Bachelor's

78.6 %

Associate

10.4 %

Master's

5.6 %

Start to develop specific junior art director skills

Skills	Percentages
Graphic Design	16.40%
Adobe Creative Suite	12.44%
Creative Concepts	11.05%
Visual Design	7.68%
Art Direction	5.02%

Complete relevant junior art director training and internships

Accountants spend an average of Less than 1 month on post-employment, on-the-job training. New junior art directors learn the skills and techniques required for their job and employer during this time. The chart below shows how long it takes to gain competency as a junior art director based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data and data from real junior art director resumes.

Research junior art director duties and responsibilities

Direct and manage all photography including composition, talent acquisition and photo manipulation.
Lead the interactive team from concept, UX and design to implementation.
Key player responsible for the creation and maintenance of SEO ready web pages.
Develop portions of the corporate website relative to design, layout and HTML content.

Prepare your junior art director resume

When your background is strong enough, you can start writing your junior art director resume.

You can use Zippia's AI resume builder to make the resume writing process easier while also making sure that you include key information that hiring managers expect to see on a junior art director resume. You'll find resume tips and examples of skills, responsibilities, and summaries, all provided by Zippi, your career sidekick.

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