If building a career in the field of graphic design sounds interesting to you, it’s time to take the next step and find out what it takes to make it happen. Since a dream without a plan is just a dream, let’s discover the qualifications required to occupy a position of graphic designer.
Bachelor of Fine Arts vs. Associate’s Degree in Graphic Design
An associate’s degree is more like a certification, so it can be said it’s inferior to a Bachelor of Fine Arts. Although the first one qualifies you for an assistant or technical support job position, if you want to have significant academic and career achievements you certainly need to attend courses that grant you a BFA.
Not only that it will ensure you a well-paid job, but it will also give you the chance to eventually work for a big and well-known company, which is in my opinion an important accomplishment in one’s career.
BFA programs usually are four years long, but in some cases it may take longer to obtain the diploma because of the heavy course load involved. Carnegie Melon University occupies the number one position in the top of graphic design schools and it is followed by Virginia Commonwealth University, Rhode Island School of Design, Pratt Institute and Maryland Institute College Of Art.
However, you will most probably choose a graphic design school depending on your limited financial possibilities. Still, if you afford to pay the tuition fees, it’s always best to send application forms to top ranking universities because you will find yourself in a highly competitive environment, which is known to improve your performance. In addition, you already know that having a degree from a college brand gives you a pole-position start at a job interview.
Additional Certifications
Sometimes, even though you have a BFA, it may not be enough to get the job you dream of. That is why you should obtain some certifications that attest your knowledge and capabilities of operating with some of the essential graphic design software such as Adobe Photoshop, Flash, Illustrator, CorelDraw or Macromedia FreeHand.
In conclusion, use your financial and intellectual resources at maximum and try to get admitted to a good graphic design college. However, this is not the end of the road because you will need to be a constant learner if you want to keep up with the newest discoveries. In fact, when you are accepted at a graphic design school, your journey just begins. Who knows? Maybe one day you will be running one of the best graphic design companies in the U.S. (or beyond)!
Guest Author:
Land your Bachelor’s or Associates Degree in design and you could be working for a firm like Vionet Grahpics, one of Pennsylvania’s best design firms.
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Ruan Smit started Pixelsmithstudios with the vision of creating a new design orientated environment of sharing, learning and expertise development amongst local Animators,Illustrators,Game Developers and VFX artists in South Africa.
5 responses to “How Do I Become a Graphic Designer?”
I am interested in Animation & graphics designing.
Looking for .Can you please suggest me some.Also do let me know what are scopes if i make it my career.
Warm Regards
Monica
Thank you so much for this very interesting article! 🙂 This is good!
Do you have a picture of dishonored because graphic designers can do things like video games?
Design can literally be anything, its what you specialize in at the end of the day that counts.There are universal principals that can be applied to all forms of design and once you understand those it’s just a case of finding the design that suites you best. You can become a web designer or even a book/game illustrator or concept artist after studying Graphic Design.It depends on where you want to be in a few years, so start collecting work of people who inspire you and find out in what career path they are investing in.
Also…we added the picture because we really liked it =D
Also really liked the picture. My roommate has been trying to get me to play the game for a couple of weeks now.
I think that a potential designer’s best bet is a combination of a degree and first-hand experience with various pieces of design software.