Advertising Design Job Description
The advertising industry offers a wide scope of career choices for designers. Those at major ad agencies often get to use the very latest in technology because agencies and clients look to designers to come up with cutting-edge "out of the box" solutions. Regardless of the career path chosen, designers have to keep up with developments and be driven to find commercial applications to exploit trends and technologies. By doing so, they can command lucrative salaries, win industry awards and keep employment recruiters knocking at their door.
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Creative Director
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Creative directors come from one of two disciplines--art direction or copywriting. A creative director from the art side is an accomplished professional in the advertising industry who often has more than 10 years of experience and many industry awards to her credit. A professional is this position leads the entire creative team of designers (as well as copywriters), and is usually the key presenter of major advertising campaigns developed for the agency's clients. Salaries generally range from $75,000-$120,000, based on experience, agency size, geographic location and account responsibilities.
Art Director
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An art director is responsible for designing ads for agency clients to place or run in various media (television, magazines, billboards, online). The art director collaborates with a copywriter to develop concepts and ideas based on the strategy for the ad. He designs a layout for print ads, and constructs a storyboard. This is a series of small cartoon-size pictures, which outlines the scenes of a television commercial. Art directors also design digital advertising for banner ads and online videos (called rich media). Salaries can range from $35,000 (beginning) to over $100,000 (senior level).
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Studio Artist, Illustrator
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A studio artist and/or an Illustrator comprise recent additions to the industry in the digital age. This professional usually does most of her work digitally on a Computer Aided Design (CAD), which spells out her vision. Most are also highly proficient in software programs including Adobe Illustrator, Quark, DreamWeaver and Flash. They utilize their expertise to develop innovative designs, illustrations, videos and presentations for ad agency clients.
3-D Digital Designers
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These designers are also known as digital rendering artists. Their skills and talents are highly sought after, especially by major advertising agencies with high-profile national clients. These artists are responsible for developing 3-D designs used for everything from television commercials to packaging and in-store displays. They must have a strong drive to collaborate and innovate, to come up with fresh and exciting advertising solutions using the latest advances in technology.
Production Designer
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A production designer is part designer, part 3-D artist and part mechanical engineer. When an art director comes up with a unique idea for a display or exhibit, she turns to the production designer to bring the idea to life. For example, an art director might want to create an in-store display to promote DVDs of a recent movie, and show movie trailers on a monitor incorporated into the display. The production designer would have to design the display unit so that it has shelving capabilities for the DVDs, electrical outlets and speakers, and allows shoppers easy access to play the trailers, along with any other features the client might like seen.
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References
- Photo Credit advertising image by Boguslaw Mazur from Fotolia.com
