Digital Design Careers and Programs

Lets get Digital

Iron man is a pro at it, but so is the person who designed your house. Buzz Lightyear is a masterpiece in this field, but so is the simple poster that calls millions of people to action, or the web site design that draws millions of viewers.

What is the skill key to everything above? Digital design. Maybe we don’t have the awesome 3-D digital design tools like Iron Man, but the modern computer programs common digital designers use every day make possible some incredible things. Digital designers do everything from design layouts of magazines and newspapers to animation and websites. Designers must learn all the needs of their clients and design the appropriate solution. Good designers are creative and excellent at using space, color, and dimension, but those wanting complete artistic freedom probably won’t find it in a digital design article. You will most often be designing something very specific, for the precise purpose of helping the profits of a business. That said, businesses are looking for ingenuity and artistic talent to help them communicate and become more visible.

Salary and Career Outlook

This field is expected to grow at an average rate, with most growth in new media areas, and web site design. This might not sound as cool as designing a flying suit that shoots missiles, but the multiple types of digital design are essential to many businesses. These fields of work are extremely competitive, with thousands of talented digital designers looking for work.

Average pay is about $45,000 for a year’s salary, but that pay can be much less or more depending on the type of digital design you are involved in. A degree in graphic design is the most common degree needed to make it in this field. Education in web design and training in the powerful computer programs for design should be part of your education as well.

Job Growth: Careers in Demand

Communication skills: If you don’t understand what message a client wants to portray, your projects will fail to hit the mark. You also have to be able to sell your designs back to your client.

Level headed under pressure: You should be able to work effectively under deadlines. The pressure of an assignment shouldn’t negatively affect the quality of the product.

Creative: Clients need talents that they themselves don’t possess. Namely: artistic and creative ability.

Problem solving: Often a client will have an idea of what they want but no idea how it should look. That is where you and a little innovation come in.

Job Outlook for Digital Designers

This job is in high demand in certain fields, like web design and new media. Businesses are looking for digital designers who can help them break into new markets, reach a wider consumer base, and communicate effectively. The web is becoming an excellent place to market one’s ideas and business, so digital designers are being called upon to tap into the web.

Additional Skills That Will Help You Get a Job:

Typography: Remember all the cool fonts you played with in Microsoft Word? A good digital designer will have a commanding knowledge of font types. Fonts are grouped into different families, categories, heights, and other specifications. Since most digital designers work in the communication field, understanding how words can be written is essential to success.
Understand Printing Processes: Printing different types of publications is much more complicated than simply pressing the “print” button. You need to understand margins, and most importantly, color. Most people don’t know this, but color in printing is made up of what is called “light,” meaning red, green and blue, and “pigment,” which is cyan, magenta, yellow, and black.
Photography: Pictures are an important part of communication, so whether it is analyzing photos, requesting them, or taking them yourself, you should understand the principles of photography.

Salary Forecast for Digital Designers

According to a recent survey by AIGA, a professional design association, the median salary among those surveyed in 2008 was $45,000. The lower 25 percent earned a median of $38,000, and the upper 25 percent earned $52,000. Expect comfort but not Ferraris.

The survey also found that location can be a determining factor in salary. Designers with the highest median salaries lived near the Pacific, in New England, and in the mid-Atlantic. Those desiring the highest salaries will most likely need to move to a populated area, probably one of the above.

The particular digital design field also matters. Those working in computer systems design, specialized design, advertising, and public relations tend to make more than those working for newspapers and publishers, according the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The larger the organization and the larger the reach of the organization the better when it comes to salaries. The AIGA survey found that the median salary for those working for an organization of 100-999 people was $5000 more than the median salary for those working for a company of 2-9 employees.

Probably the biggest key to getting higher salaries in digital design is to advance in position, to a position like chief designer, or director, or something where you are supervising others in their designing. This will take years of experience and high quality work.

Education and Skill Requirements for Digital Designers

A bachelor’s degree in fine arts or graphic design is what digital designers need to step into the design world and make a living. Two and three year programs offer associates degrees that teach technical skills and should allow one to become an assistant designer.

Common courses of importance are art classes, like studio art and sketching. Classes for design principles, computerized design, and graphics production will be vital courses, where one learns the power of computer design programs. Printing technique classes and web design classes should top off any quality design education.

In addition to all these classes, other courses will help the chances of a digital designer in the business world. Classes in marketing and advertising will teach how to best impact consumers, making you valuable in the business world. Art history will expand your mind to fresh kinds of design, as will cultural studies.

About 300 postsecondary institutions with programs in art and design are accredited by the National Association of Schools of Art and Design. Make sure that your school of choice is one of them. Often these programs require about a year of basic art and design education before a person can be admitted into the program.