Graphic Design Career Paths

What’s really nice about being a graphic designer, is that you have a wide range of job options in this one career field -- no two graphic designer’s jobs are the same, and neither are their career paths. You can become as specialized as you like, or put to use a wide range of skills. It’s all a matter of finding a job that’s the right fit for you. 

Having tons of options can be scary though if you don’t know where to start, so this page breaks our industry into three main categories: freelance, agency and in-house. 

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This page offers general information about the three types as a whole. No matter which avenue you choose, keep in mind that each company or agency has different needs, so don’t base your decision on where to apply purely on what you think in-house or agency jobs entail. Apply for any job you’re qualified for, read the job description carefully and do some research into the company. If you interview for that position, make sure to ask questions about what your duties will be. 

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WORKING FREELANCE

You’re a one-man show. You’ll have to handle client recruitment, billing, contract negotiation, project management and the actual design work yourself. You’ll have to have strong people skills, business know-how and excellent time management. 

  • Since you’ll be working on your own, you’re accountable directly to your clients. 

  • Design work is varied depending on what kind of clients and work you’re able to round up. 

  • Be prepared to spend about 40% of your time doing design work (billable hours), and 60% handling self-promotion, client recruitment, contract negotiation, invoicing, sending out quotes and other customer service tasks. 

Pro: 

  • You make your own schedule 

  • You can work from home 

  • You could potentially have a wide range of projects to work on, or you can specialize

  • You don’t have a boss

  • It’s a great way to supplement your income if you have another job

Con: 

  • No guaranteed paycheck -- you don’t work, you don’t get paid 

  • Must be good at a wide range of things 

  • No colleagues or boss to learn from 

  • No promotional structure/traditional career advancement opportunities

  • Will spend 60% of time on admin tasks, other 40% on actual design work

Freelance may be for you if you: Can manage your time well, are comfortable talking to strangers, are flexible, and enjoy switching between tasks frequently.

It’s not an all-or-nothing deal: Freelancing part-time is also a great to supplement your income, and to build a client base if you eventually want to switch to full-time freelance. It can also give you the opportunity to take on projects outside of your day job’s scope. 

 

One of my favorite Illustrators Yuko Shimizu is very open about the pros and cons of freelance careers and she posts little pearls of wisdom on her Instagram account pretty regularly. This particular post came on a Saturday where she was once again working in her studio with her dog Bear.

Freelance career example:


She says: “People tend to tell us freelancers “it’s great you can take any random day off” like we are working in between play. I’m not the only one who’s making imaginary eye roll in our head as we smile, right?
The reality is, we end up working all the time, non stop, because we want to get work done, we need to pay our bills, we have no set office hours, and yes, we really care about what we do.
About 20 years ago when I was still in art school, I went to @barnesandnobleto do research, then happened to catch not yet so famous creator of Sex and the City @candacebushnell speak; “being a freelancer means I can never stop working”. I took that to heart, and think of that often, even till this day.
I’m going to go to my studio this Saturday. Bear and I wish every hardworking freelancers and artists a very productive weekend.”

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WORKING FOR AN AGENCY

Agency work can be quite varied, depending on which agency you work for and what level you’re at (production artist, junior designer, graphic designer, senior graphic designer, art director etc.). You could be working on branding, campaigns, or one-off projects. Agencies are often brought on by companies to work on branding or special projects. 

Pro: 

  • Lots of projects where you’re asked to be creative and to try something new

  • Set schedule, steady paycheck 

  • Team environment with other professionals you can learn from

  • Promotional structure/traditional career advancement opportunities

Con:

  • You’ll usually start out doing production work (pixel pushing). Don’t worry, it’s usually just a temporary stepping stone and you’ll learn a lot.

Agency work may be for you if you: Enjoy starting projects from scratch, if you like establishing design rules but not working on applying them to projects for an extended period of time, have a specific skill, are adaptable.

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WORKING IN-HOUSE FOR A COMPANY

In-house designers work at reinforcing an existing brand, and have to be creative under very specific project parameters. As an in-house designer, you’re working at implementing a long-term strategy, so you’ll have to be good at doing the same thing over and over again, following instructions, and doing production work while still using your brain. 

Pro: 

  • Set schedule, steady paycheck

  • Team environment with other professionals you can learn from

  • Professional hierarchy, potential for promotion

  • Promotional structure/traditional career advancement opportunities

Con:

  • You’ll usually start out doing production work (pixel pushing). Don’t worry, it’s usually just a temporary stepping stone and you’ll learn a lot.

In-house work may be for you if you enjoy: Not starting a project with a blank page, if you like working off of established rules and implementing them for brand consistency. 

It’s important to keep in mind that not all in-house jobs are the same, and that you’ll need to really read the job description and ask relevant questions during your interview before deciding if it’s right for you. For example, I work as an in-house graphic designer at a University where I’ve worked in two different departments. My role varied wildly between the two: in the first department, I worked on community-facing marketing materials and was doing 90% production work because everything had to fit into the university brand. In the second department, I create materials for different University initiatives and programs that are student-facing and don’t need to fit so tightly into the university's brand. This means that I work on projects like brand strategy, campaigns, logos and separate identities for each of our on-campus clients.

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I work as an in-house graphic designer at the University of West Florida and this is my desk on a normal day. You can check out the work I do for UWF here. You’ll notice that most projects have common elements such as using the same typeface and color palette, but that they’re still very different from each other.

One notable difference between in-house and agency work:

Agencies like to hire various designers with specific skill sets vs. in-house who like to hire generalists.