However; there is a solution for Graphic Design students. Did you know that there are actually a great deal of scholarships and grants that are devoted solely to students who are studying graphic design? Well, you do now! Here are a few of them that you might want to consider.

Bob Coonts Graphic Design Scholarship

Unfortunately this great scholarship is only for students who are studying at the Colorado State University. The Bob Coonts Graphic Design Scholarship is need based and the amounts awarded to each student will vary. However; the scholarship is designed to help students to accomplish their study goals and not to completely pay for their tuition.

California College of the Arts Scholarship

This scholarship is great because if you are attending the school, you are eligible for need based aid. This aid can be used to substitute your Federal Pell grant or etc. The grant is available to all students attending the school, however; will rarely exceed the sum of a few thousand dollars.

Graphics Scholarships

The Graphics Scholarships Institution offers scholarships to students in the New York Metro area. Deadline for application is May, 15 of the year you wish to receive a scholarship. The institution also offers student information, tutoring and other graphic and design aid to students wishing to excel in this area. Scholarships are need based and can vary greatly depending upon the student, their major and level of education.

No matter where you decide to study, you can probably find a graphic degree scholarship at your college. You can also look talk with the financial advisor at your school to determine if you eligible for any other scholarships.

Earning your graphic design degree is exciting at any study level. However; most of the time, many of us have no idea what we can do with our degrees after we earn them. Graphic design is no different. There are in fact, hundreds of different career opportunities that you can choose to enter with a degree in graphic design. Choosing just one of them can be difficult. Here are a few of the best graphic design careers for your consideration.

Creative Art Director

You can earn between $50,000 and $80,000 per year as a creative art director. Being an art director means that you will be in charge of a team of artists (probably with graphic design degrees) to direct work in making advertisements, illustrations, ad campaigns and much more. You should have a master degree for this job position because it does require a high level of knowledge and you could easily find yourself in charge of photographers, writers and advertisement managers as well. However; the only real differences between working as a creative art director and as a graphic designer are that 1. You are mostly in charge and 2. You get paid more!

Layout Artist

As a layout artist you are in charge of deciding what goes where on a page before it is printed. This includes choosing appropriate fonts and deciding on little details like spacing and placement. Mostly, this type of work is for printing so if you don’t want your work published on actual paper, you might want to skip this one. Jobs you could be doing include book covers, cd covers, movie covers, brochures, newspapers, magazines and much, much more. Depending upon where you work, you could earn between $25,000 and $50,000 per year.

Brand Identity designer

A brand identity designer is the person who decides what the company should look like and why. Brand identity is the advertising character of the company which is actually pretty important. This means you will spend your time designing, choosing colors and matching products to styles and ideology in order to attract potential customers or clients. Depending upon what company you work for, you can earn anywhere between $50,000 and $100,000 per year.

Logo Designer

The job of logo designer is actually pretty self-explanatory. You design, create and illustrate logos for various companies. This is similar to working as a brand identity designer except in this job you will work for hundreds or even thousands of companies during your career rather than just one or two. The job is a great deal simpler and generally involves matching colors to their scheme (if they have one) or creating something that represents them to their satisfaction. Because there are literally millions of small businesses that are moving on to the web, there are millions of businesses looking for a logo designer which means that you will have plenty of work and plenty of pay. This type of job can obviously vary in the pay range but for the most part, you will earn above $30,000 per year.

Technical Illustrator

As a technical illustrator you will find yourself working with and designing illustrations for commercials, movies, games and television. This means that you should be quite good at drawing as well as have your graphic design degree. You can earn between $45,000 and $60,000 per year with this job!

If you have ever asked ‘How do I become a graphics designer’ than you’ve probably also asked, “how do I become a graphics designer more quickly’. While there are a lot of companies out there that offer ‘fast’ degrees that are in fact just pieces of paper, there is an actual, legitimate way to expedite your graphics degree and earn it in as little as half of the time!

How It Works

An expedited degree is a degree course that you study in more compact sessions (meaning you study harder in a shorter amount of time), to earn your degree more quickly.

While not everyone offers this type of degree and obviously the degree isn’t for everyone, especially if you have to work or take care of family, it can be a great benefit if you just want to earn your degree and get on with your career.

Studying Online

Most schools that offer expedited courses in Graphics design offer them online. This is because online study allows you to study information at your own pace so that you can study as quickly or as slowly as you like. Most expedited options for graphics degrees can be finished between 12 months and 7 years depending upon the type of degree. A good rule of thumb however is that if you wish to earn your degree more quickly, you will most likely not be able to earn it in less than half the time of the normal degree.

Traditional Schools

In many cases, traditional, on campus colleges also offer expedited degrees.  An expedited degree at a traditional school is usually designed for an entire class of expedited students and will usually allow students to earn an Associate Degree in 12 months and a Bachelor in as little as 18 months (for exceptional students).  You can expect to study a great deal harder and longer than for a traditional degree which means you will have almost zero free time; however, considering that you can move on from college and into your career in a much shorter period of time, it is quite often worth it.

Schools That Offer Expedited Degrees

While there are many schools that offer expedited graphics degrees; most of them do not have the options listed on their websites which is why you should always ask your school advisor if the option is possible at the college you have chosen. A few colleges that do list expedited graphic degrees include the International Academy of Design & Technology, Brooks Institute of Photography, most Art Institutes, Full Sail University and Westwood College online as well as several other schools.

If you are considering attending the Art Institute of Pittsburgh then you should be interested in reading about it and learning about the schools policies, prices and accreditation.

The Art Institute of Pittsburgh is also known as the Pittsburgh Culinary Arts & Design School and is a private, for profit institution that has been in business since 1921. The school features offline and online courses as well as a hybrid of both in a variety of subjects, however; the school focuses on teaching the culinary arts and design as can be noted in their second name.

Accreditation

The Art Institute of Pittsburgh is accredited by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education and the Accreditation Council of Independent Colleges and Schools. The School also has been accredited by the American Culinary Federation and the Council for Interior Design Accreditation on specific subjects. Accreditation is important for any school to have because it means that the degree you earn is up to a minimum quality standard in order to qualify you for a respected degree.

Courses

There are four schools of learning at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh. The Culinary School, Media Arts School, Fashion School and School of Design, each of these schools offers accredited associate, bachelor, master and courses, many of which, you can take online. The School of Design offers specific courses such as Kitchen Design, bath Design, Industrial Design and Technology and etc. Culinary options include baking and pastry, culinary arts, restaurant management and etc.

Tuition Cost

The one real disadvantage of study at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh is the cost of tuition. On average, one study year at the institution is worth about $30,000. However; this is average for an Art Institution and you should be fine as long as you have either money saved up for college or a student grant that will help you.  Expect an average of $7,000 per year in boarding (not applicable for online students) and a few hundred dollars charge for website and necessary equipment and study materials. This cost is included in the average cost of tuition.

The Art Institute of Pittsburgh

The Art Institute of Pittsburgh is an extremely good school with a good reputation and a lot of time to prove it. Students are well equipped to handle finding a career after graduation and are given the knowledge and experience to actually do well in that job. Generally, the Art Institute of Pittsburgh only has one disadvantage which is price.

If you are interested in earning your graphic design degree or already have it, than you should be interested in where you can use your graphic degree to get a job! First of all, contrary to popular believe, once you have a job in a field, you can change fields quite easily if you get bored or decide you don’t like the field. So, don’t worry about making something permanent, just relax and pick the field that most interests you at the moment. Here are five career paths you can choose with your graphic design degree!

Advertising

Working as an advertising designer can be quite lucrative if you work for the right company. Did you know that some advertising designers earn as much as $60,000 per year!  Working in advertising requires you to be very creative, usually hold at least a bachelor degree and to be familiar with the techniques for translating communication into simple lines of text and images! Did you know that while you are working with your bachelor degree, you can earn a master degree online while still gaining work experience?

Entertainment

The entertainment business has always circled around Hollywood and with a graphic design degree; you can work in it to! Whether its designing book, magazine, movie covers or designing advertisements for entertainment media, the entertainment business and publishing offer more jobs to graphic designers than any other single market so; chances are; this is where you will be working! In most cases, your median salary will be $30,000 to $40,000 per year!

Design

Working in design usually means creating graphic images, company logos, brochures and packaging images and usually requires that a graphic designer work in a team or studio of several or a few hundred other designers.  Working here you should be prepared to create content for printing, web use and even as demos!

Marketing

Marketing is different from advertisement in that you will create brochures, advertising campaigns, promotional material such as displays, flyers, catalogs, training materials, and etc. While working here does not really allow a lot of excitement into your design life, it will create a very steady and reliable work environment

Freelance

Freelancing is perhaps one of the most exciting paths you can take because it relies on you finding and doing the jobs that you would like to do. While freelancing you can work in any career path, do any type of graphic design and at any pay scale. Freelancing provides freedom, the ability to move around and in many cases, the opportunity to work from home.

This Art Institute of Pittsburgh review is aimed at any students who are considering attending the school. Learning about a school before you attend it is important because it can help you to choose which school you would like to attend. The goal of this Art Institute of Pittsburgh review is to inform you about the school, its study practices, tuition costs and etc.

Courses

The Art Institute of Pittsburgh features five individual colleges of learning including School of Culinary Arts, School of Design, School of Fashion, School of Media Arts and the School of General Education. Each course is pre-empted by a short foundations course which is designed to prepare you for studying in college. Courses are full, informative and designed to help you learn as easily and painlessly as possible. The Art Institute of Pittsburgh offers a wide variety of art and science degrees so that you can study almost anything you want to study at the school.

Tuition Cost

The tuition at The Art Institute of Philadelphia rates at an average of about $24,000 for an Associate degree, $60,000 – $80,000 for a bachelor degree and $80,000 to $100,000 for a Master degree. This is actually somewhat higher than most other schools of its caliber, however; most art institutes are somewhat more expensive than other schools.

Accreditation

Accreditation means that the schools courses meet a minimum quality grade offered by a regional or national accreditation foundation.  The Art Institute of Pittsburgh is accredited by the Pennsylvania Department of Education, the Middle States Commission of Higher education, The Accrediting Commission of the American Culinary Federation Education Foundation and the Council for Interior Design Accreditation. Each of these accreditation foundations periodically reviews the courses and classes at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh in order to verify its quality and effectiveness.

Statistics

The Art Institute of Pittsburgh features online study options, rolling admissions, quarterly class startup, and an average tuition fee of $24,000 per year with a roughly $8,700 living on campus fee per year. The institute offers 15 majors, and is noted for its Graphic Design and Computer animation courses. The school also has a 39% acceptance rate, a 48% graduation rate and a 59% retention rate according to studies by the American School Search.

Art Institute of Pittsburgh

Overall, the Art Institute of Pittsburgh offers high priced, but good classes with enough variety to allow you to study almost anything you might wish to. Students will find a great deal of attentive staff and a high employee to student rate which means you will get plenty of teacher attention. The main bad point about the school is that they often employ pressure techniques and continuous calls in order to encourage students to attend their courses. Other than this, The Art Institute of Pittsburgh is a good school and well worth attending, especially if you have student aid to help you out!

So you want to be a web designer?  A web designers job is always changing with technology which means that as a web designer you will have to keep learning, keep updating your skills and of course, that new job positions will constantly be opening up for you. But most of all, your job will always be interesting, exciting and even challenging!

Web Designer Job Description

A web designer is faced with the task of designing and writing up the code for a website before putting it into place, perhaps managing it and fixing any bugs that might come up. Sub-categories of a web designers’ job could include web manager or etc. but often the web designer will manage their own site. Web designers are required to work on a computer and can work for a company in an office or from the privacy of their own homes.

A web designer should be good with a computer, good with numbers and be at least a little bit artistic unless they wish to always work with a graphic designer. A web designers’ chief responsibility is to put together a working website in an aesthetically pleasing manner.

Web Designer Salary

Depending upon level of experience, quality of education and the number of skills as well as where you work and how often, your web designer salary will be anywhere from $40,000 per year to over $100,000 per year which can actually make this job quite lucrative.

Web designers who work for large companies and who freelance with a lot of jobs will generally tend to make the most amounts of money where web designers working for small companies or working in small, rural areas will make less money.

Web Designer Education Requirements

The education required to be a web designer is probably less than you might think. For example, if you are already familiar with html, xhtml and css than chances are you can probably get a job without a degree. However; large, well-paying companies are more likely to hire you if you have a degree, even if it is not one in web design.

Degrees that you can earn include an associate, bachelor or master in web design or graphic design, almost any type of fine art degree or etc. If you want to work while you earn your degree, you might want to consider earning an online degree!

No matter what degree you decide to study for when becoming a web designer, remember that you will always have to keep learning as the technology of web developing increases. If you like to learn, are creative, than web design could be your perfect job!

So you are interested in being a graphic designer? You might have some skill at drawing, creating art or just think it sounds like a cool job, but something sparked your interest in this career and you are looking for information about graphic design careers. Here are five cool facts about being a graphic designer to get you started!

1.       Graphic Designers Can Earn a LOT of Money

Did you know that with your degree, your graphic designer salary will be anywhere between $36,000 per year and $60,000 per year! That’s around $15-$35 per hour when working for 40 hours per week. The normal salary (average) is about $47,000 per year (with 2-4 years of experience). As you might have guessed, the more experience, higher education and wider set of skills you have, the more you will be paid. This is a great influence to spend your free time going back to school!

2.       Graphic Designers Can Work From Anywhere!

As a graphic designer you can work from literally anywhere there is internet! Either from your boss’s office, your house; the McDonalds down the street or a remote beach in Cancun with DSL internet! It doesn’t matter where you work because all you need to work is a computer and some idea of what you are expected to do. This gives your job flexibility because you can work from anywhere and even freelance if you like!

3.       Graphic Designers are Always Learning

If you love to learn that being a graphic designer is definitely the job for you! Because technology is always advancing, you will always be learning something new and can even come up with new ways of designing your art on your own if you choose. This means that in the field of graphic design, you will constantly be offered opportunities to advance your learning, to improve your skills and earn more money

4.       You Can Get Your Graphic Design Degree Online!

Did you know that you can get your graphic design degree through distance learning? Believe it or not, if you study at one of the best schools online you can earn your associates degree, get started working in an entry level job while you earn your bachelor. Working in this way means that you can break into a well-paying graphic design job much faster than if you take a traditional 4 year bachelor course and begin work afterword.

5.       The Job Market for Graphic Designers is Always Growing!

Possibly one of the coolest things about starting a graphic design career is that the market is constantly growing. With many companies, businesses and even private individuals expanding their business to the internet, the work for a graphic designer is nearly unlimited!

If you are interested in studying for your graphics degree online, here are 5 of the best online universities that offer online arts programs. Each of these schools is well established, accredited and will help you learn to succeed in whatever graphics career you choose!

Full Sail University

Full Sail University is a very large institute of the arts that offers more than 40 online degree programs. They offer Bachelor programs in Game Art, Game Design, Computer Animation, Computer Cinematography, Graphic Design, Mobile Development, Sports Marketing & Media and Web Design & Development. Master degrees include Media Design, News Marketing and Education Media Design & Technology. Cost per credit hour for Master degree is $600 – $800 with a total cost of $10,000 – $12,000 and for Bachelor degrees $400-$600 per credit hour for a total of $6,000-$8,000 per semester. Full Sail University offers rolling admissions and will generally accept any gifted students who have the money to pay for their tuition.

Art Institute of Pittsburgh Online

The Art Institute of Pittsburgh online offers a Bachelor Degree in Graphics Design as well as web design and some photography manipulation, tuition costs are about $85,000 for the entire course (the fee includes books and materials), however; many students are eligible for a great deal of student aid. The AIPO offers constructive courses that teach you how to work with color, design, shape and a variety of popular software that you will need as a professional.

American InterContinental University Online

The American InterContinental University Online is a respected university and is one of the oldest and largest international America universities. The school offers an Associate in Arts of Visual Communication and Bachelor degrees in Building Information Modeling, Interior Design, Digital Film & Post Production, Graphic Design, Web Design and Illustration. The site provides a useful net price calculator to help you decide the full net cost of your tuition so that you may apply for the appropriate financial aid.

Boston University Center for Digital Imaging Arts

The Boston University Center for Digital Imaging Arts offers degrees in 3D animation, digital filmmaking, graphic design; web design and web development. The school offers hands on learning with a study that is designed to help you succeed after you graduate from school.

DeVry College

DeVry College offers an associate degree in web graphics and design and bachelor degrees in multimedia design & development, graphics & multimedia design, graphics & multimedia management, web design & development and web game programming. DeVry University is a well-known, accredited school that offers modules and courses designed to increase your learning and better your future without ever stepping foot in a classroom.

How to Become a Web Designer

If you have ever wanted to be a web designer, this blog post tells you how to be one, about the job and what you will have to study before you can be considered an official web designer. First, it is not necessary to attend college in order to be a web designer, if you are familiar with web building blocks such as CSS, HTML and XHTML and have basic design and layout skills than most likely you can already design websites on your own. However; if you wish to work in the field of web design, you are required by most employers to have a degree.

Web Designer Job Description

A website designer is expected to design and put together the visual and non-visual elements of a website on the World Wide Web. I most cases this will involve working with a photographer or stock photographs to add imagery to a site, using a palette of colors to design the site, working with a freelance writer to design content for the site and most of all, using business statistics, information and etc. to decide what will be visually attractive for sales, advertising and viewing purposes. The web designer will then build a website using programming code (generally XHTML and CSS) in order to program their design into a form that is readable and viewable on the World Wide Web.

Web Designer Degrees

There are perhaps eight different degrees that you can earn while studying to be a web designer. First, two year degrees or Associate degrees are a great way to break into an entry level job quickly and without a lot of study time. These degrees allow you to begin working after only two years and perhaps while you continue study for your bachelor degree with an online course or program. 2 year degrees that you can earn in order to begin your career as a web designer include fine arts, graphics design; publishing or computer science.

Four year courses that help you to being your web design career include fine arts, graphics, advertising, advertising design, graphics design, publishing and computer science. Earning your four year degree will help you to earn a higher salary than if you simply chose to study for a 2 year degree.

No matter what program you choose to study in order to become a web designer, remember; if it does not contain HTML, CSS, XHTML and hands on experience with writing, coding and fixing these codes than you will have to learn it separately, either through another course or through any self-taught method you might choose.

Web Designer Job Outlook & Salary

The starting salary for the average web designer is around $46,000 per year and with a little bit of experience and additional training a web designer can earn as much as $143,447 per year. The average payment for a web designer is usually between $50,000 and $80,000 per year respectively.

In most cases, web designers who work for large companies in big cities will receive the highest pay while freelancing web designers and designers working in small or rural communities will earn the least.

Web design is a constantly expanding field because of the growing popularity of the World Wide Web, the internet and its use by large corporations for sales, marketing and advertising.  Web design careers are expected to grow by around 12% by 2018 which is a faster than average growth and will include new jobs opening up, higher salary and different fields of work opening up.