With websites an absolute must for any modern business, talented graphic designers are in hot demand for the production of unique designs. Freelance designers can potentially earn $100,000 in a single year, as grad Joana Galvao showed, demonstrating a real market appetite for creatives. Happiness is not just the salary, however, but evidence suggests that, nowadays, there is a well paid niche for any design.
Looking at freelancers
Freelance work can be daunting but is often exceptionally lucrative. Creatives like Joana Galvao are not outliers, as Fortune have found that graphic designers can earn $48,500 out of the gate, and expect that salary to grow 60% over the next 12 months. This sort of cash flow creates opportunities for you. It can liberate you financially, helping you to pay your outstanding balance or find preferential rates on your student loan, ultimately saving you money. Without debt on your shoulders, it is often easier to find and pursue creative fields and develop your design trademarks. Design freelancers will often travel the world as digital nomads as they work.
Whole stack development
Many artists have a problem-solving or analytical mindset that is not often attributed to the creative arts. Pairing this with your talents can enable you to make huge earnings and also build entire projects for your portfolio. You’ll also never be short of work; full stack developers are amongst the most needed professions in the country. The advantage you will have as a graphic designer is the front end edge; unique and well thought out designs are likely to find bigger commissions from clients.
Video game designer
The advent of easy to use and widely distributed game engines, such as Unity, has made the game design industry far easier to access. It has also made the market saturated, with over 7,000 new titles on platforms such as Steam in 2018 alone. Graduates with their own unique design philosophy and style will find a lot of leeway in the video games industry. It can be low-cost to start up, demands a creative mind, and the dividends are potentially massive – gaming is now a $110bn industry, with video game developers making an average of $85,877 per year.
Creative and graphical design will always have a role as long as there are businesses. The role that you can take on as a designer is forever changing, and is becoming increasingly more complex. Embrace this, and your career will take off – both in terms of creativity and earnings.
