How Much Does A Graphic Designer Make: Infograph
Posted by Bryant Jaquez on Jul 3, 2011 | 7 commentsSo, how much money do those darn Graphic Designers make anyway?
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GRAPHIC DESIGN: This is one of those professions that have almost as few conventional standards as a group of hipsters! Even as a graphic designer myself, I’m not sure how much money I should charge for my services. Trust me, this is a question that every designer has asked themselves on multiple occasions. I’ve decided to help out all of the other artists who are still looking for an answer to this question.
These statistics are all taken from the bureau of labor statistics and only apply to paid, employee level graphic design positions. As with everything, these are not limitations, rather standards and if you can imagine a greater possibility for yourself, then you should pursue that.
Top Graphic Designers:
The top designers usually make between 50,000.00 and 95,000.00 a year. These are the kinds of postions held by people like David Butler, the Vice President of Design at Coke and Andy Hertzfeld, an original Designer for Apple, and most recently the UI designer for Google+ . These salaries are reserved for the best designers in the world. They are at the top of their game. Typically designers at these levels are actually making more then their company salary because they will have additional sources of revenue like shares of stock and personal freelance work.
Software, Game and Technology Designers:
This kind of design is FUN! If you decide to get a graphic design job in a software company you will make a lot of money. These artists make video games and design the user interface (UI ) for computer programs such as Google Maps or Mozilla firefox. Software Graphic Designers will make between 43,000.00 and 58,000.00 a year.
Advertising and Public Relations.
Jobs in this part of the design industry can span anywhere from making super bowl commercials to creating billboards next to the highway. If you are working as an AD/PR designer you will probably make between 35,000.00 and 45,000.00 a year.
Print Design
Print design is by far the most common area of employment in the graphic design world. There are THOUSANDS of freelance and employed print media designers. In fact, The Us Bureau of Labor Statistics estimate that by 2018 there will be 323,293 employed graphic designers and a lot of them will work in this category. The competition here can be pretty intense, however, the competition is slightly counter balanced by the level of demand. Print designers are needed to create book covers, newspapers, magazine layouts, promotional material, directories, product packaging, even business cards. This is where most graphic designers start their careers. A talented and established print graphic artist should 
.
Entry Level Jobs
If you are just starting off as a graphic designer you may have found that it can be hard to make money at first, well, hang in there. A typical starting salary for a graphic designer is about 24,000.00 a year. This can be as an intern, as a freelance designer, or a variety of entry level positions. Luckily Graphic Design is one of those industries where experience is more important then traditional eduction ( usually ). While getting a degree in design can be beneficial if you are planning on advancing to management or director levels, you don’t need one when you’re starting off. The best advice I can give designers is just get out there and start making stuff. Even if you are designing for free, try to make something cool at least once a day. The more you practice the quicker you will advance.
I hope you enjoyed this tid-bit of Design FYI. I wold like to conclude by saying that Graphic Designers are the renaissance artists of the 21st century. We have the privilege of being paid to create art. Designers influence every area of our culture, I believe that designers will continue to gain more and more input into every area of society. These artists are responsible for creating clothes, furniture, signs, websites, books, magazines, commercials, home appliances, cars, traffic signals, product packaging, even the layout of city parks and tourist attractions.
Feel Free To Share This Post With The World. Tell all of your friends which level you are currently at!
Really usefull and inspiring info !
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Great artical! I might just have gotten a job in graphic design, I’ll know in a few days. Hopefully I will, I want more money!!! =)
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I find this graph to be incorrect. Of course graphic design is different than many careers because you can be absolutely awful and still call yourself a graphic designer. These awful people still get jobs and they are low paying ones. In my experience, if you’re coming straight out of college and you’re good, you should expect around $40,000. Some get more, but you have to be quite good first year out to get more than that (in 2012). This is all as an in-house designer at an agency. Each year, if you work real hard and start mentoring people, get promoted to intermediate and them eventually senior designer and then art director you should be able to up in salary about 3-5 thousand dollars a year. Specializing in something like interface design for games etc. is good. Depending on where you’re working you can (eventually with enough experience) make over $100,000. This is fairly rare.
Even good designers tend to top out at around $80,000.
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Bryant Jaquez Reply:
January 21st, 2012 at 10:23 AM
Thanks for sharing. I think you are assuming that every graphic designer lives in a “high demand” city. Not every city offers “industry standard” pay for beginning designers (view this list of which cites offer the best pay for Graphic Designer.) For example, I live in a city of 100,000 people. Even finding a job as a full time Graphic designer is tough, much less finding a job that starts you at 40,000 a year.
However, if you live in San Fransisco, DC, London, or Austin…etc, I agree that a good designer can expect to start off at the salary you’ve described.
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The problem with the graphic design industry is that people go into it with no natural talent and expect that the $30,000 they pay for school is going to teach them that talent. Unfortunately they graduate with a $30,000 piece of paper, and they are still terrible designers. All these art schools are a bunch of scams. People hire on portfolio, not where you went to school.
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Jeff Reply:
March 9th, 2012 at 10:55 PM
Great article here, the author is right.. don’t limit yourself with possibilities. The average is the status quo and who want’s that? It’s true, your portfolio means everything. I have yet to even open my college degree certificate. It’s difficult, but you have to start somewhere. With persistence, a client will eventually risk YOU with your work. Don’t limit yourself to just print. Learn how webdesign works so you can work with developers. Get involved with smart phone applications and research marketing in general. Learn how to work with people! This will push you beyond these stat numbers. A seasoned designer should now at least the process of all common multimedia applications. Print, web, video, animation, and even audio. Show your boss or your client that you know more than just how to design a flier and it’s a foot in the door. Research every day! It’s easy to be more than average.
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A good web/UX/UI designer can find a new job in the same day for $75k a year. The best designers working on mega-accounts (~ 1% of the designers employed by a firm) can make up to $150k a year in larger cities (where the mega-accounts/firms are).
If you are in high demand because of your skills, design style, accolades received etc… then you can reach the big leagues as a consultant. I’ve seen solo illustrators, web designers make well over 250k a year without sweating it too much.
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