How much to charge for freelance graphic design

Designers create layouts of covers and pages, develop or select fonts, independently illustrate or create collages from photographs and drawings, work on a corporate identity. The design profession requires good taste and creative thinking.

If a person with a direct relationship to art wants to become a designer, he will be interested in what graphic designers do and how much money graphic designers make. Doing art is, of course, very interesting, but everyone also wants to keep their life in abundance.

What do graphic designers do?

Graphic designer

They work in the printing industry, creating designs for various printed products, including packaging and labels. They are engaged in branding and developing a corporate identity for private companies (business cards, logos, letterheads, calendars - all elements of this style).

They work in the fashion industry, between classic fashion illustration, modern lookbooks, and graphics for glossy magazines.

They work in IT, designing the appearance of sites, banners, and other advertising elements. Create layouts for books, magazines, and other printed publications, working on infographics for print media.

How much money do graphic designers get?

A graphic designer earns about $45,000 to $55,000 a year in the US.

Experience, skills, and professionalism play an important role. The state of residence also affects. Therefore, the average designer’s salary depends on a lot of factors.

Factors on which the salary of graphic designers depends

Your earnings as a graphic designer will depend on how great your experience as a professional will be. The more professional experience, the more money you get. Below is the dependence of income on the number of years working as a graphic designer:

  • Work experience from 0 to 2 years

They can be art school graduates or newbies in the field of design. Basically, such designers are already well versed in a couple of design techniques, but their skills and range of professional capabilities are far from ideal.

For this graphic designer experience, employers can offer a salary of $49,000.

  • 2-5 years experience

Graphic designers with 2-5 years of work experience often have their own professional web portfolio with their own rules and conditions of work, which are described there.

Also, these designers often have a well-coordinated team and require less guidance from the management. The salary is between $50,000 and 58,000.

  • 5-10 years of experience

A graphic designer may be involved in freelance or hold a senior management position, where he will manage junior employees.

Such designers already have a lot of experience in their field; therefore, they clearly understand which methods and technologies are most popular.

The salary of this level graphic designer is estimated at $70,000.

However, these are not all factors on which the graphic designer's salary depends.   

The relationship between the field of graphic design and salary

Freelance graphic design

In addition to work experience, the amount of money received is also influenced by the field of graphic design.

List of design directions and salary:

  • Intern - $25,291
  • Graphic Designer - $38,310
  • Senior Graphic Designer - $55,149
  • Senior Designer - $83,312
  • Art Director - $76,602
  • Creative Director - $108,833
  • Training kit - $60,294
  • Web Designer - $61,970
  • Visual Designer - $77,109
  • User Experience Designer - $89,061
  • User Interface Designer - $80,712

Salary and freelance

Freelance for designer is one of the opportunities for development and earnings. It is difficult to calculate how much a graphic designer will receive for a freelance job. 

The amount of money a graphic designer earns on freelancing depends not only on the level of his professionalism, the direction of his specifics but also on time invested. That is, most often, the time costs are directly proportional to the graphic designer's earnings on freelance. 

Thus, a designer who works 12 hours a month will receive significantly less than a graphic designer who works 120 hours a month.

Also, a professional, experienced graphic designer can earn even more than $10,000 per month thanks to crowdsourcing contests. Even though, according to statistics, a web designer receives only $5,000.

Also, the customer base is an important factor. Perhaps, for a start, a graphic designer should take more various orders, even though he has his own preferences in work. However, soon, with the expansion of the client base, a professional will be able to choose more interesting orders without losing money.

Setting an adequate and fair price for your services will help you get good money on freelancing. When a graphic designer is just starting his professional career, it may be difficult for him to develop a specific freelancing strategy to establish fair prices for his services, create his own client base, and find the most interesting orders. However, with the acquisition of your experience, you can make your work interesting and comfortable. And get good money for it.

How to increase the value of your work?

How to increase the value of your work

What should a graphic designer do?

It is worth hone your craft to become a worthy graphic design professional. Below is a list of some important skills you should possess. The list of skills depends on the chosen direction. In some areas, specialized software is used, certain requirements are applied. But any professional working in the field of graphic design should:

  • Understand the basics of visual design (color, composition, typography, gestalt principles in graphic design).
  • Be able to work in raster and vector programs.
  • Check the literacy of writing texts;
  • Have communication skills to get closer to customers.
  • Be able to analyze the needs of potential customers.
  • Constantly track trends and keep abreast of the latest design changes.
  • Impeccable artistic taste and sense of style provide huge competitive advantages.

A person who possesses these qualities is able to create harmonious compositions that cannot be overlooked.

To receive profitable freelance orders, you must:

  • Create a selling portfolio and arrange it into a presentation. A portfolio is a designer's “face.” You need to choose 5-6 successful cases that most fully reflect your professional level as a graphic designer.
  • Gradually increase the cost of your services. Often newcomers are marking time, fearing for months to raise the price tag for work because they believe that customers will refuse to cooperate with an "arrogant" specialist. Such tactics can lead to disenchantment with the profession. In fact, customers are not buying a picture but a business solution. Show that your projects will bring real value, and customers will be willing to pay more.
  • Develop all the time. Graphic design is an area in which it is not enough to get an education and then forget about learning. You need to follow trends, analyze the successful work of competitors, attend professional webinars, exhibitions, and festivals. It is advisable to get an artistic base, master the basic principles of marketing, and learn how to use additional programs.

For designers who do not want to be satisfied with what has already been achieved and plan to work with profitable clients, we have developed the course "Advertising Design from Brief to Layout.” This program will help you master modern tools for developing visual advertising, learn how to influence the target audience, and create expensive projects.

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