Graphic Designer: Key Responsibilities, Skills and Salary

• Who is a Graphic Designer?
• Key Job Responsibilities of Graphic Designer
• Required Qualification/Education
• What makes you qualified for this job?
• Top Companies/Organizations Hiring Graphic Designers
• Graphic Designer Salary Statistics

Who is a Graphic Designer?

Graphic designers are known to be individuals that combine art and technology for communicating ideas and use a variety of design elements for achieving artistic/decorative effects. These designers work hard to develop the overall layout and production design for different things. This includes magazines, advertisements, brochures, and corporate reports. They start out by producing rough illustrations of design ideas. They do that either by hand sketching or can even use a computer program.

Graphic designers always have to come up with new ideas to inspire, inform, and captivate their consumers through physical and virtual art forms. This includes images, words, and graphics.

This article is all about understanding what a graphic designer does, what are the educational requirements and skills and how much you can earn as a graphic designer in different major countries.

Key Responsibilities of a Graphic Designer

Below we have listed some of the very common key responsibilities that come along with graphic designers job title.

• Coordinate with clients or art director and then determine the scope of a project.
• Give advice to clients on strategies for reaching a particular audience.
• Determine the message that a design should portray. Even though, the client gives the guidelines about what they want, putting it into a design that reads out the message correctly is a graphic designer’s job.
• Create images that can identify a product or convey a message.
• Develop graphics, visuals, and audio images for product illustrations, websites, and logos.
• Study design briefs and determine the requirements of the design.
• Schedule projects and define budget constraints.
• Conceptualize visuals based on requirements.
• Use appropriate colors, images, layouts, and styles for each graphic.
• Incorporate changes recommended by the clients into final design.
• Review designs for errors before printing or publishing them.
• Make sure the final graphics are not only visually appealing but on-brand.
• Ensure client’s designs reflect the desired message by communicating with the client.
• Use variety of text, images, and media for advertisement and promotions.

Required Qualification/Education

• You better have a bachelor’s degree in Graphic Design or any other relevant field.
• A master’s degree in the relevant field would add value.
• Similarly, a minimum of 2 to 3 years of graphic designing experience is also required. With that, some employees demand a graphic designer to possess some particular skills which we have mentioned below for you.

Recommended Courses:

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What makes you qualified for this job?

A graphic designer doesn’t only need a degree to prove his worth. He needs some skills that can help him outshine others and do his job in the best possible manner.

Desired Skills:

• Strong portfolio of illustrations or other graphics.
• Ability to work methodically is crucial.
• Good know-how in design software and technologies like InDesign, Illustrator, Dreamweaver, and Photoshop.
• Ability to communicate ideas.
• A keen focus on aesthetics and details.
• Expertise in brainstorming different ideas and designs.

Top Companies/Organizations Hiring Graphic Designers

If you talk about how much money you can make by becoming a graphic designer then it depends on the graphic design jobs you choose. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) in the year 2020 stated the average yearly salary of a graphic designer was $53,830. With that, BLS also reported the job outlook should grow at a 3% rate till 2030.

Graphic designers can work in top companies like Amazon, Freelancer, Creative Circle, Google, Apple, NIKE, Walt Disney Company, and more.

Industries like manufacturing, advertising, publishing, design services, computer system designs, and many others are always open to efficient graphic designers.

Graphic Designer Salary Statistics

This section contains salary details of a graphic designer working in different major countries.

USA:

The average annual salary of a graphic designer working in the US is around $53,062.

Canada:

Working as a graphic designer in Canada can help you make an average annual salary of CA$53,532.

UK:

In United Kingdom, the average annual salary of a graphic designer is expected to be around £30,614.

India:

In India, a graphic designer can expect to make around ₹650,000 a year.

Australia:

If you are working in Australia as a graphic designer then you can expect to earn an average annual salary of A$72,000.

References/Sources:

• https://www.glassdoor.com/
• https://www.indeed.com/
• Please note that mentioned salary stats are as of August, 2023.

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