Visualize Your Graphic Arts Career

Graphic designers are creative, highly trained professionals who bring their clients' dreams to life. They work in online, print, and broadcast media, creating illustrations or animations that evoke emotional responses from a targeted audience. You might specialize in a graphic design niche like Web design or animation, or go with generalized skills applicable to online and print publications.

More than 250,000 graphic designers work in the United States, employed by a wide range of industries including news, broadcasting, public relations, marketing, advertising, and entertainment. You may find work with professional design firms, with internal business communications departments, or with federal, state, and local governments.

Design Yourself a Career
Colleges and art schools offer online graphic design programs that teach everything from designing a logo by hand to animating a dramatic or advertising video with 3D graphics software. Graphic designers work in every state of the union, in offices or online, and more than a fourth of them are self-employed freelance designers.

Professionals who hold a bachelor's degree and possess specialized training in Website design and animation have the greatest number of job opportunities during the 2006-2016 decade according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Here are but a few of specializations to consider in the graphics design field:

• Layout Artists: Work for newspapers, magazines, advertising and public relations firms to create publications, flyers, brochures, annual reports, packaging materials, posters, and billboards.
• Art Directors (or Creative Directors): Conduct the inception, design, and delivery of print, Web, or animated productions by a team of artists, animators, photographers, illustrators, and writers.
• Flash Designers: Use the latest versions of animation software to build animated elements for use on the Web or in broadcasting. Work for design firms or in corporate communications departments in business, entertainment, health care, and government.
• Illustrators: Create logos or representative 2D and 3D images to go with the text on publications, books, advertisements, packaging, Websites, greeting cards, technical publications, brochures, and more.
• Brand Identity Designers: Build an entire corporate image around logos, color schemes, print/Web/broadcast visual elements, packaging, and letterhead.
• Photo Editors and Touchup Artists: Create and configure digital images for presentations, advertisements, publications, Websites, brochures, technical manuals, broadcasting, and more.
• Web Designers: Use state-of-the-art software to design the look and feel of Websites for virtually every sector of the economy, from commerce, sales, and marketing, to health care, education, and government.

Online Career Training and Degree Programs in Graphic Arts
Online graphic arts training programs are flexible and provide hands-on experience in traditional as well as digital design skills. Associate's, bachelor's, and master's degree programs are available around the clock, when you're ready to log on to them. Each offers an opportunity for students to build a portfolio or DVD reel of print and digital designs and animations to show to potential employers.

Graphic designers work in every state, although broadcast and entertainment centers thrive in Los Angeles and New York. Web designers may find the greatest concentration of work with digital firms located in Silicon Valley, Austin, the Carolina Research Triangle, and Seattle.