One thing that I find interesting about the creative industry is that 30% of the marker is self-employed designers. And that self-employed designers and small design firms make up a majority of the creative market. You do have a few of the giants with global offices, but know that the majority is small.
With the creative industry there are a few types of employment. These are in-house, small firms, large firms and freelancers. Each of these types of work have a good and a bad side, it’s more up to the designer which is best for them.
An in-house designer is a designer who works exclusively for a company. The benefit for an in-house designer include a stable job, insurance & maybe stock options, learning complete lifestyle and seasonal usage of branding, learning corporate design, and it’s good resume padding. The downsides of in-house work is that you might work on the same brand for months or years, which leads to limited experience with other industries.
The next is small firm, which I did for many years. A small firm is usually a consulting business that usually produces advertising, business identity or new products. The cliental are from different industries with many different needs. The advantages of a small firm are the work environment is face-paced, clients from many different companies, highly collaborative work, and the big advantage is design is the core focus. A few down sides include it’s usually a small business so there’s no benefits and limited room for any kind of advancement or promotion.
Another employer is a large firm. These are usually advertising agencies that can even have global offices. They usually handle large, brand name accounts. Advantages are that there are big name clients to bulk up your resumes and you get to learn from the creative industry’s largest clientele! But downsides include you are limited to your creative freedom, there’s a line of power to follow , long time line for project & idea approval, and multi-year project planning.
Freelance graphic designer is when a designer is self-employed. You are your own business and you set your rates according to your skill set. An advantage is that you work from home and can work contract work for companies from time to time as well. The disadvantage is no income is available when there is no work, it’s often hard to balance marketing yourself & working, and there are small business taxes to take care of.
Great design work is everywhere; it all depends on where in the creative industry a designer feels like they fit in.