AIBU to think I can have a creative career that pays well also??

[Alittleditsy]

I had a ten year career as a Womenswear designer in the Fashion industry. It was fun, creative and well paid, but after a while I found it less rewarding due to the pressure, politics, competitiveness etc. Working in Fashion often also means location wise you're tied to capital cities for work.

Now I'm trying to switch to a new career, and considering my options. I'm leaning towards Graphic Design as I already work as a freelance Illustrator anyway, have a lot of design experience etc, and Graphics really interests me due to the range of companies/fields you can apply it to.

A lot of creative careers are either paid quite badly, or not that hands-on creative. I would love to be hands-on designing rather than managing people/overseeing things.

Anyone have success in a creative career and get a good salary? I'd love to hear what you do for work!

I know less than nothing about either fashion or graphic design, but what would you consider well-paid?

Graphic design is often freelance. Our local council have some designers on staff but also a bank of designers when needed.

@BinocularVision I dream of getting up to £40,000/£45,000 in a role when further up the ladder, to me that would be a very comfortable salary.

In that case, I can think of a lot of people in creative industries who earn that, but often by combining different types of work. I'm a novelist, but my earnings purely from my books are (obviously) patchy, but I also teach at a university, and I earn above that.

Not from a creative background, but in my area around high £30s is when you start having to move away from hands on doing to managing others, and thus need to start moving away from the day to day.

I would imagine there are loads of people in the creative industries earning over £40k but they’re probably mostly in London, Manchester etc. If you’re tied to a smaller location then I’d think it would be less likely.

My friend is a graphic designer for a well known magazine and gets around £40k. She works quite average hours. I guess it depends a lot on your qualifications and/or experience and skill set.

What about UX/Product design for software companies?

[quote Alittleditsy]@BinocularVision I dream of getting up to £40,000/£45,000 in a role when further up the ladder, to me that would be a very comfortable salary.[/quote]
The Head of Design where I work is on £48k. However, he has ten years’ experience and two direct reports. From what I understand, the junior designers are in the £25-30k bracket. This is in Central London.

The salary you are looking for isn’t out of reach long-term, but you are relying on someone taking a chance on you when you haven’t had the direct experience they’d need. Also, be realistic about how creative the work will be. Juniors get given a lot of ‘nuts and bolts’ type work. Be prepared to be tarting up someone’s PowerPoint rather than coming up with exciting creative concepts from scratch.

I work in content creation - good motion graphics and animation artists are always in pretty huge demand. I expect there are other niches too

I’m a professional musician (classical). I could get £45-50k in London as a freelancer on a decent (not huge) workload, after 3-4 years establishing contacts in the city. Less to begin with, burn lots of potential once you know a few people.

If I land a full time job (very rare, 4-5 positions worldwide for my particular instrument) I’d be on anything between £20-80k, depending on the country and specific orchestra. That’s before bonuses, extra income from international tours, freelance gigs and teaching. Which everyone does.

So yeah, my ‘creative career’ can pay very well, but only if you reach the absolute top. The reality is that very few people achieve that, most will have a decent income whilst working average jobs in average cities. Geography matters in music.

Forgot to mention, I’m still in training and my current annual earnings are around £2k. So nothing too exciting yet The level of the companies and people I’m training with, means I will be aiming for £50k+ jobs though, as soon as I leave training/studies.

@CMeredithC, that's interesting. So what happens when you finish training? What is your next step? If you were auditioning for one of the big orchestras, do you need large amounts of previous experience even to be considered? And are you prepared to move anywhere in the world.

(Also wondering what your niche instrument is... )

I used to work in the cultural sector and we had lots of creative staff from graphic designers who would design the art work for exhibitions to engineers who would make models for the galleries.

All very creative and very much a 'wow' job, but salary wise up to £30,000 and this was In London.

If you truly want a creative role, maybe you should focus on freelancing as you would get to do the creative stuff but not the boring stuff that comes with it.

[quote BinocularVision]@CMeredithC, that's interesting. So what happens when you finish training? What is your next step? If you were auditioning for one of the big orchestras, do you need large amounts of previous experience even to be considered? And are you prepared to move anywhere in the world.

(Also wondering what your niche instrument is... )[/quote]
If you want an orchestra job, you start auditioning, yes. I am personally prepared to move anywhere, if it’s my dream job. Eg I wouldn’t move to Canada if I had a very similar job offer in France, because I’d prefer staying in Europe. But if Canada was the absolute best position at the time then yes, I’d go in a heartbeat. Of course there are people who want to stay close to home, already have families etc. They probably won’t go for somewhere that would massively disrupt their lives. Others target exotic places - I have a friend who specifically wanted to move somewhere without a big traditional music scene and she now works with the Qatar Philharmonic.

The most coveted orchestras won’t invite you to audition unless you have other top orchestras or ‘internships’ on your CV. University, teachers, competitions also influence this. Experience required varies a lot - if you’re 23 and fresh out of a masters or a training position, they won’t be too demanding as they know you haven’t had the time to do much yet. Expectations for a 35yo would be different, you’d need a pretty solid CV that shows that you’ve worked at that level for the last 10 years, even on a freelance basis. In either case, you will then have a 6-24 month probationary period after you get the job, during which time your experience becomes evident. If you’ve little experience you stand next to no chance of passing the trial period. It’s drummed into us since youth orchestra, get all the experience you can, as early as you can.

Most people spend a few years freelancing, because winning an audition can take years. So we all do a mixture of orchestra, ensemble, solo and teaching work during the early years of our careers, which helps you mature artistically and makes you much more prepared for a permanent job.

I’d rather not say what my instrument is, but think one of those that you only see 1-2 of in a full orchestra (tuba, harp, piccolo... those kind of things ).

Where the money is in creative is doing it for a well paid industry! I work in medical communications and we have creative and digital teams doing things like designing animations of how drugs work, also meeting themes, logos, branding etc for congresses all for pharma companies. There is quite a bit of tarting up PowerPoint too! That salary but definitely be achievable but all the med comms jobs are London and Manchester/Cheshire. Other industries must use creative designers too!

@Zealois

What about UX/Product design for software companies?

This was my first thought. Hello $$$ !

My friend is a product designer, specialising in drinks bottles/ labels. She’s worked all over the world for some really interesting companies and people ( and once met Debbie Harry in a lift in LA). We friends lived vicariously through her great stories when grounded with babies. She now works freelance ( but not much) and charges out at 3k per day.

So yes, very well paid and creative. Worked like a demon through her twenties/ thirties. Thought I’d share as she’s way too cool to be on Mumsnet

CMeridithC I’m really hoping your niche instrument is the bassoon. My twelve year old is bleeding me dry in lessons and replacement reeds! Would be nice to know we might see some material benefit...

@CMeredithC but I wonder what proportion of graduates from music college end up doing mainly instrumental teaching with a bit of playing on the side? And that’s certainly not well paid

This is so interesting to hear all of your experiences and your tips! Thank you!

@BinocularVision I think you're right, one of the benefits of being creative is that you can turn it to a few different fields, so perhaps combining a few things is the way. I've always wanted to write and illustrate kids books so that's an option too.

@user1471434829 this is great advice!! You're so right! Very good to keep in mind.

I did think about UX design but I think I need something more hands on drawing and designing. I guess I have the luxury of choice and options which I'm so grateful for :-)

@Labradabradorable what does the bassoon sound like when you first start playing it?! I still remember my sister learning the clarinet when we were younger, it used to scare birds out the trees outside the window, ha!

Now I'm trying to switch to a new career, and considering my options. I'm leaning towards Graphic Design as I already work as a freelance Illustrator anyway, have a lot of design experience etc, and Graphics really interests me due to the range of companies/fields you can apply it to.

You should have a look at specialising in book cover design. I am in publishing and just last week paid my designer $2250 for 6 book covers. I had her "booked for the week" so we started Monday afternoon (morning for her in US) and I had all six of them before I went to bed that night

Nice little day rate and I suspect she is probably selling her "weekly slot to work on your series" four or fives time every week

Not that I'm begrudging it at all -- she is extremely talented and booked 6-8 months in advance, I'm happy with the covers and they'll make the money back tenfold. And another creative earns a good living and breaks the awful starving artist stereotype which hurts us all. Win win.

Obvious disclaimer: I also do covers, have never done 6 in a day in that genre (more like 1 in a day, 3 max) and my rate is closer to $250+$175 for continuations. But I'm not as talented as her and it's more of a hobby I enjoy / side hustle than what pays the bills.

Anyhow, if you want more info I'm happy to share.

I've always wanted to write and illustrate kids books so that's an option too.

I just saw this the covers I'm talking about in my post are definitely not children's books unfortunately!

The problem with books and publishing if you are someone who has "always wanted to write" is that there are two routes to financial success, and if you remove the people at the very top of the traditional pub route who skew things massively, the vast majority of joe-bloggs people who are making a decent living of $40+ are indie or at least started that way.

And the problems with that are: some genres / markets are just not for indie authors. Many try, few make money, most give up and never quit their day job. Children's books is one of them.

Which means you have to write in genres where readers don't notice you are indie, or are fine with it, or actively looking for it, or completely underserved and forgotten about by traditional pub.

This limits you to genre fiction like SF&F, Romance, LitRPG, Male Fantasy (romance for him), and Cozy/Mystery.
Thrillers & YA, harder but not impossible.
Memoir, Literary, Children's, Mash Up of Whatever I, The Author, Felt Like Writing... keep the day job and buy lottery tickets.

And thus we have to change from "I always wanted to write X" to "I write for money, I write exactly what the market wants. I write fast, so fast people probably won't believe me and if they do they will assume it's utter shit. (They will also tell you that, regularly). I write one draft and mandatory rewriting, 2nd drafts, letting it stew for a year etc are myths. I write in a style that is easily digestible and addictive because I am literally getting paid half a cent for every page a reader reads and I want them turning those electronic pages."

It is not romantic. It's not sitting around waiting for inspiration to strike. It's hard, people will hate you, readers will assassinate you, other authors will tell you that you're doing it all wrong (particularly if they're not making as much money as you) and you will write a metric shit tonne of words.

But if someone can get past all that, commit to learning and getting the work done, and can do it well... then it's absolutely the best job in the world. I genuinely love it. Every time I get a gushy message about a fictional person I invented I go all warm inside. The fact I make money from nothing more than my thoughts is mind-blowing and I have to pinch myself daily.

It is definitely a creative career that pays very well, but you have to be very deliberate about making that happen.

I'm a freelance graphic designer. I can earn between £20-£35 per hour. The higher rate being corporate clients. Of course their work is not as fun, but it's where the bulk of my income comes from. And then I just balance it out with some slightly less paid but more fun projects. I've been on maternity leave for a while now (2 kids!), so I'll need to have a rethink about my rate as I start up again and freshen up my portfolio though!