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Job Title: Senior Graphic Designer
Type of Company: I work for a creative agency that provides services to a wide range of clients in areas such as print design, interactive web design, video editing, events and commercials.
Education: certificate, Graphic Design
Previous Experience: I began my career as an unpaid intern and after three months of that I was hired by the company that still employs me and worked my way up to be senior designer.
Job Tasks: I am a graphic designer and work closely with creative directors and art directors to craft eye-catching designs for print pieces, ads, branding, PowerPoint presentations and occasionally websites. I do all of my work on the computer and use programs such as Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, and Adobe InDesign. I also specialize in photo touch-up and color correction.
Everyday I am assigned certain jobs. Sometimes I will work on one project all week and other times I will have three or four different projects to complete in just a single day. I usually meet with the creative director and we go over what I am expected to do and when the piece is needed by the printer or the client. Then I sit at my computer and start laying out a design, or if I am scheduled on photo work I will start doing that. I usually get asked to take people out of pictures or add more to the bottom or change colors of shirts and take off blemishes. It is my job to make everything look aesthetically pleasing. We have tight deadlines so I am always working at a very fast pace.
Best and Worst Parts of the Job: The best part of my job is that I get to be creative every day and design new things from scratch like an artist with a blank canvas. Sometimes I cannot believe I get paid to do this because it is so much fun.
The worst part of my job are the tight deadlines and also clients making changes to your original design and making text changes after the piece is completed and looks good. Sometimes they can really ruin a nice design.
Job Tips: Intern somewhere so you can get a feel for what the field is like before you sign up to major in it at college. I didn't go to college for this but took a seven-month course. Natural talent and on-the-job experience are key.
Additional Thoughts: What surprised me most about this occupation was just how fun this type of job can be.
If I could change one thing about how I have approached my career, I would have done more research in high school on the field so I could have started younger.
Most important quality for success in my career is creativity and a good eye. Some things cannot be learned at college.
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