Graphic designing jobs are primarily related to image creation, be it for advertisements or for any logos. There are tools available now for graphic designers which are useful for website development and animation arts.  Most of the opportunities for a graphic designer are, therefore, in the image creating related industries.

Scope of Graphic Designers in Various Industries

While the requirement of graphic designers is increasing like most of the other industries, the  publishing industries such as newspapers, business stationary makers, magazine businesses, direct marketing catalogue businesses, etc., are witnessing graphic designers in high demand in their business. This is showing immense job prospects of graphic designers focusing on printing and publishing jobs.

The types of businesses that require services of graphic designers include-
-Marketing and advertising businesses;
-Newspaper and magazine publishing businesses;
-Website developers;
-Animation and art businesses;
-Games developers;
-Museums; and
-Stationary and logos businesses.
The skills of graphic designers may also be useful in other industries such as-
-Fabrication;
-Photographs and images related services;
-Packaging industry;
-Textile designing industry;
-Modeling industry;
-Interior decoration; and
-Landscaping

Job Opportunities for Graphic Designers

When the graphic designer chooses to become a website designer, then he or she needs to be familiar with User Interface designing. What it means is that graphic designers should be able to facilitate access to various features present in the website for the user. Not only should such interfacing allow visitor to access various types of information from the website, it should also facilitate easy access. This means the visitor should not waste much time searching for the data. People tend to remain and search for relevant information if the website offers them required comfort. Such designing duly considering the convenience of the user is referred to User Experience.

Therefore, there are three levels of employment possible in this line.

1. Initial Level

This is merely ability to use the software tools related to the subject. The person may be asked to change the resolutions of any images, increase or decrease their sizes, upload, remove or store images, make changes, etc. As of now, popular software programs for this job are InDesign and Quark.

2. Mid-Level Jobs

For this job, the person needs both qualifications as well as experience. Usually, employers expect the person to have about 3 to 7 years experience when they reach this stage. These are the people who churn out work, but do not have any say in deciding whether it would be the right stuff for a particular website, advertisement, animation film, etc. In other words, there are people above them, who have to approve such work.

3. Senior Level Graphic Designers

There is not much difference between senior and junior graphic designers. Desired number of years of experience is about 7 years or more. Duties and responsibilities include adhering to schedule, allocating work to mid-level or entry-level graphic designers, and in general organizing work.

4. Creative Graphic Designers

This is where the responsibility of the graphic design’s success lies. These people are often naturally gifted, but more often than not have qualifications as well to be in that position. They obviously have experience of more than 10 years behind them. They approve or disapprove the work of senior level graphic designers, offering suggestions, and likewise the authority of approving, disapproving, making changes to the designs percolates down.

5.Freelance Graphic Designers

There are many self-employed graphic designers also who do the entire work and offer their services at competitive rates. Therefore, people can do graphic designing jobs as freelancers and bid for relevant jobs through various websites that are now offloading such works.

Pay Scale of Graphic Designers

At a global level, in today’s scenario, a graphic designer may start around $25,000 to $27,500 per annum. By the time he or she reaches mid-level, the pay packet would touch almost $33,000 to $60,000. Senior level designers including the art directors could be making almost $80,000 each year. The pay scale, however, differs even according to the industry and country where the person is employed. Therefore, designers working for Computer Aided designing businesses would draw more than those who work in physical printing businesses.

Requirements for Becoming Graphic Designer

However, designers may have to add some industry specific tools and technologies to their repertoire of skills. In order to become a graphic designer the person should have Graphic designing degrees, which include either Bachelor’s or Associate degree in this field. But people with artistic inclinations and ability to master required tools, i.e., graphic designing related tools, can quickly be absorbed somewhere, though their career prospects may be hampered if they do not try to get any of those degrees.

Here are some of the best schools worldwide offering various Graphic Designing Courses to earn degrees in Graphic Design.

1.Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, Rhode Island

One of the finest Graphic Design schools offers 4-years Bachelors program -BFA and MFA in Graphic Design. Apart from these traditional courses various credit-bearing courses and workshops are conducted to develop the graphic designing skills in the students.

Scholarships– Financial aid to the deserving and academically brilliant students is provided in the form of RISD scholarships and Special scholarships. Moreover, Trustee Scholarships up to five in number are awarded each year to the student that is worth of $10,000.

2. Art Centre College of Design, Pasadena, CA

The institute offers several graduate degrees for enhancing the creative designing skills of the students. Some of the popular Graduate programs are Graduate Media Design Practices, Graduate Industrial Design, Graduate Art, and Graduate Environmental Design.

Scholarships- Annual scholarships are given as a support to the students with weak financial backgrounds who aspire to become artists and designers.

3. Pacific Design Academy, Canada

PDA offers both full-time and part-time programs related to Graphic Design fields. With the various Graphic Design programs, students can attain the broad knowledge of designing for both at commercial and corporate level.

Financial Assistance– Read the FAQ page to get a better idea about financial assistance and student’s loan. Collected from different sources, financial aid is given to the students of the Diploma programs.

4. The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong

Commonly known as PolyU Design the University offers both undergraduate and postgraduate courses for building the careers in design field. This is top-notch design school of Asia and has marked its presence at global level too with the efforts of the international faculty members.

Scholarships– For the students of design field enrolled in the 2013-2014 year several scholarships are been provided including First Initiative Foundation Design scholarship and Ming Foundation Design scholarship. Contact the General Office of School of Design for further information.

5. Creapole Ecole De Creation Management, Paris

Creapole School Creative and Management offer several Graphic designing courses for widening the creative skills of students. Some of the courses include Product Design, Visual Communication and Multimedia, Art Design, Transportation Design and many more in their list.

Scholarships- No information for scholarships is there on the website; contact the school authorities for further information.

6. University of the Arts, London, Central Saint Martins

The BA (Honors) Graphic Design course equips the students with the creative versatility that can later student apply in their professions. Printmakings, Letterpress, moving image, advertising, illustration are some of the subjects that make the student perfect in Graphic Design skills.

Scholarships– Apart from getting the scholarships from the University itself both the undergraduate and postgraduate students receive the scholarships by benevolent donors including The Financial Times, Proctor & Gamble and many more.

7. Umea Institute of Design, Sweden

Umea University has organized five academic programs focusing on the industrial design and other specializations related to the design field. There is one Bachelor program, 3 Masters Program and 1 Ph.D. program for broadening the horizons of the students. However, the students only from Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Iceland and Norway can take part in their programs.

Scholarships– International students are given scholarships based on the merit, who have applied for Masters Program, and who have given the topmost priority to the Umea University for admission. The scholarships will help in the partial or full deduction of tuition fees for the selected students.

8. Aalto University School of Art, Design and Architecture

The institute has Department of Design degree programs that are basically meant for the professionals of the design field. The skills developed by their program helps the students to design the products at commercial and industrial level.

Scholarships/Financial Aid– ARTS scholarships are given to both the student and staff of the School of Arts, Design and architecture for their studies, research or completing the work plan. Moreover, Aalto University provides financial support to the registered degree students (Bachelor and Master) of the School of Arts Design and Architecture. The non-Finnish students are given financial aid on the basis of case-by-case of every student. There is a separate website (KELA) of Social Insurance Institution of Finland that provides full information on the financial aid for international students.

9. Curtin University, Perth, Australia

Bachelor of Arts program is based on the Creative Advertising and Graphic Design that teaches the students to have a hands-on experience in advertising and graphic designing, such as, branding, clothing graphics, poster design, etc.

Scholarships– Curtin University provides scholarships to Undergraduate, Postgraduate Australian and International students as well. There are 32 scholarships for international students and their details can be found on the university site.

10. Carnegie Mellon School of Design, Pittsburgh, USA

This multicultural university offers Bachelor’s, Master’s and Doctoral degrees in the design disciplines. All the programs focus towards developing specialized skills in the Product design, and Graphic design areas so that the students can explore more and more designing abilities.

Scholarships– International and non-US students are given scholarships but the students have to contact the respective department for the full details. Students can also contact the HUB for getting the complete information in funding and scholarship options.

Conclusion

The career development of graphic designers depends on switching over the jobs for widening their experiences and developing their impressive portfolio. Various career moves and grabbing the right opportunity after thinking strategically will make the graphic designers successful in their careers.