Money isn't everything, but it is important to understand the expected salary range of your future profession before you pursue that career. You wouldn't take on a career that left you with $100,000 in student loans with a $30,000/year income potential, would you?
What You'll Be Paid as a Graphic Designer
Knowing your potential salary range is also important for deciding which aspect of graphic designing you want to pursue. For example, a person who works in specialized design services where everything is custom ordered and a lot of time, detail and attention goes into every piece will make considerably more money per year than an entry-level magazine graphics editor.
Currently, the average graphic designer makes about $40,000/year, while the top-level graphic designers can make over $70,000/year. However, it's important to understand what the market for graphic designers is like your area – graphic designers in New York City will likely earn more than those in Boise, Idaho. By learning what the true median salary of those in your area is, you'll be able to find out which graphic designer specialties earn the most.
It's also a good idea to understand to compare the salaries of freelance graphic designers and those hired through design agencies. In some cases, designers make more working on their own. For example, if a company hires a designer for $25/hour and bills the work he or she does at $75/hour, there's an opportunity for the designer to make more money freelancing. However, in some cases, established graphic design firms tend to get the higher-priced jobs and the more well-known clients. In this situation, the firm may actually pay the designer more than he or she would be able to earn working as a freelancer.
As mentioned previously, the range of graphic design specialties available can affect a designer's salary. Those offering specialized design services make more on average than any of the other types of graphic designers, with an average salary of $43,000/year. This type of highly-individualized graphic design generally takes more time and energy, which is why their pay is typically higher. Also, these types of projects tend to come more from the upper end of the clientele, who are accustomed to paying more for high quality work.
Those graphic designers who offer their services in advertising and related public relations fields make just slightly less on average, earning $42,000/year. Since these graphic designers also act as sales people for their work, their services are also highly individualized – and consequently, more expensive. In addition, because their designs have the potential to bring in a lot of money for the client, they tend to make more than an average graphic designer working on a magazine or a newspaper. While graphic designers who specialize in publishing newspapers and magazines work just as hard as other graphic designers, the styles and layouts of the periodicals tend to be far less detail-oriented, leading to a slightly lower average salary.
Really, it doesn’t matter what type of graphic designing you plan to do – the salary range will vary greatly depending on everything from the clients you deal with to the area you live in to the company you work for. The reason that there is such a fluctuation in the salary rates of different graphic designers is that it can be a highly specialized job with a variety of different aspects that can ultimately affect a designer's earnings.
