/ How to Become a Graphic Designer - Career Salaries, Job Stats & Education
Graphic Design is an area where many creative people find their niche in the modern career landscape. Graphic Designers may use a combination of typography, visual arts and page layout techniques to produce the final creative result, to convey a specific message.
To become a graphic designer you will need a formal qualification in graphic design, such as the Diploma of Graphic Design or a Bachelor of Design (Graphic Design).
The number of people working as Graphic Designers stayed about the same over 5 years i.e around 26100 in 2016 as compared to 25500 in 2011.
Source: *Job Outlook Government website.
Source: *Job Outlook Government website. Based on ABS Census 2016, Customised report. Industries are based on the Australian and New Zealand Standard Industrial Classification
Graphic designers working full time can earn a salary around $1,346 weekly on average, which is about $32 per hour, and $69,992 per year. Graphic designer salaries can vary based on location, qualifications, experience, and seniority.
Earnings are expected to grow with experience.
Full time Graphic designers spend around 42 hours per week at work as compared to the average of 44 hours.
68% work full time as compared to the average of 66%.
Source: *Job Outlook Government website. ABS Census 2016
As expected, the Graphic Design industry has a strong appeal amongst young people, making it a vibrant and dynamic work environment.
Source: Based on ABS Census 2016, Customised Report. Age profile of workers in this job compared to the all jobs average.
Graphic Designers role includes planning, developing and preparing information for publications using images, icons, colours, text and layout to fulfill the business requirements as well as communication needs of the company. Ensuring that the message conveyed in the final graphic design product is tailored to meet the needs of target audience, also forms a part of the Graphic Designer's job.
Source: *Job Outlook Government website. ABS Census 2016, Customised report. Highest qualification completed by workers in this job (in any field of study). Qualifications needed by new workers might be different from the qualifications of workers already in the job.
According to the last census , Graphic design and graphic arts employment figures have stayed about the same for over 5 years. The creative industries have emerged as a strong sector in Australia with employment with around 26,100 designers in 2016.
Graphic design is considered a good career with opportunities across many industries and has many areas to specialise in.
A great way to start your career in Graphic Design is to enrol in a Graphic Design course. Open Colleges offers brand new Graphic Design courses, namely Diploma of Graphic Design and Graphic Design Pathway Program. Become a skilled graphic designer by studying our flexible Graphic Design courses.
In two sentences, tell us a bit about your role as a Graphic Designer.
A Creative Director in graphic design is a person whose responsibility it is to ensure that the creative output of the business (including graphic design) meets client objectives and represents a high standard of design. A Creative Director will often be a senior Graphic Designer and therefore represents a career pathway for those considering graphic designs as an occupation.
What does a person who works in graphic design do on a day to day basis?
A Graphic Designer will find themselves absorbing creative briefs, working out how to respond to those briefs, generating visual concepts digitally, perhaps talking with clients and definitely responding to dozens of requests for changes and corrections.
What are the best parts of the job?
Being able to take your own life skills and experiences and funnel them into a creative solution. Graphic design can be used as a tool to expand the experience or perception of someone when engaging with an everyday item such as a website or a piece of marketing collateral. You can push boundaries.
The type of work you create constantly changes and you also must come to terms with different businesses, different ideas and different perspectives that all must be rolled up and spat out in a design for a client. It's a process of constant change and it is therefore rarely boring - it's a classic "what you make of it" type of job where you can really control your career path.
What skills/attributes do potential Graphic Designers need to have?
Patience, eye for detail and a high level of intelligence that allows them to stand outside of their own set of taste values and respond to a client problem as if the problem was their own.
If you are looking for new ideas to build a graphic designer resume, try this helpful resource from Novoresume
What’re your favourite things about working in the graphic design industry?
You get to see your design produced in tangible real-world items. You get to see your design produced in tangible real-world items. Hours are often flexible as design can be produced at any time of the day or night. Challenging convention is also something that you can do provided you have the right project and right client. Design is an evolutionary process and as you grow and change, your creative work evolves too.
Thanks, Stephen, for sharing your story with Open Colleges.
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