What Can I Do With A Graphic Design Degree?
A degree in graphic design prepares you for a number of career paths that will give you the opportunity to put your creativity to good use. From the world of advertising to web design to animation, your skill and knowledge in putting together visual elements is in high demand. Your graphic design degree prepares you to work in companies where teams of graphic designers are responsible for coming up with ideas for billboard designs, television advertisements and illustrations. If the corporate world is not for you, you can also become self-employed and work as a freelancer with your graphic design training and educational background.
The most obvious profession for a degree in graphic design would be that of a graphic designer. Your task will focus on determining the best way to send an advertising message to its target audience. This can involve conceptualizing images for the company’s logos, products and service. You confer with other members of the team for their ideas, review layouts and finalize the designs.
Another occupation for those with a graphic design degree and computer programming knowledge is that of a web developer. You will be designing and maintaining websites and testing it to ensure that it works as it should. It is also your responsibility to see to it that the website is easy to navigate and speaks to its target audience.
Your graphic design training combined with storytelling and drawing skills will also get you into the world of animation. In this profession, you will be coming up with the characters and scenes of a particular animated film using software animation programs. You will also play a role in coming up with the illustrations that will be used in web pages, brochures and other promotional products for the film.
If you already have a lot of experience in the field of advertising and design, a position of advancement that you can also work towards is that of being an art or advertising director. You will be working together with department heads to give the best design approaches and solutions to their particular needs. You also see to it that the ideas you come up with are within the client’s budget. This is supervisory position that would put you in charge of personnel and other staff so you will also need to possess excellent leadership to succeed.

A graphic design degree will also enable you to work as a public relations specialist where you will prepare publications to promote the company and its products. You will also be working together with advertising executives in this role to come up with the best advertising campaign for the company. In addition to having a well-trained eye for visual elements, you also need to possess excellent interpersonal communication skills to be able to perform well as a public relations specialist.
There are a number of other fields where you can work with your graphic design degree. Even if these fields don’t necessarily deal directly with design, the skills you have gained when you were still trying to obtain your graphic design degree will prove to be valuable in areas like marketing and software development.
Career Spotlight: Graphic Designer