Can you make money from studying art?

[FriendlyLaundryMonster]

My dd loves drawing and art in general, but feels she ought to choose school subjects like sciences that line up with careers like medicine. Are there well paying jobs for art graduates?

@sunglassesonthetable
You list a lot of poorly paid careers. The op
@FriendlyLaundryMonster was asking about pay. Some of the careers you list are very hard to get into. It’s not what you know either!!!! It’s contacts.

Art isn’t enough to be an architect. Some of the jobs you mention pay absolute peanuts! I know. DDs been scraping along for years! We subsidise her. If you want to stand on your own two feet it’s very very hard. It’s not personality to cope either. That truly doesn’t pay the rent! Fashion buyer? Fashion journalism? In your dreams. Totally who you know! Fashion is not a great area for work for many in fact it’s no work. Art therapy? It’s peanuts. CAD expertise helps. Some avenues are better than others. Museums pay little. Auction houses pay more but jobs are hard to get. Very. They also like History of Art grads.

@Lifeisnotfair4 I know young people who have done Environmental science and chemical engineering with those A levels. I’m sure there’s combinations of degrees using biology and chemistry too.

@PhotoDad
The salaries quoted are trying to show that these degrees don’t elevate salaries. Lots of people think degrees do. In reality, many don’t. Ok if you know that, and go in with your eyes open. To others, parents pay a big contribution and the young person will now pay loan repayments when the new system starts, so it’s not much of an advantage having the degree for salary purposes. It’s only fair that eyes are wide open. Can the young person get the same job via smother route? However if they don’t want anything else, know the challenges and don’t care about money, then of course that’s different. We need to be honest though and decide if that’s ok for the family and the future.

*You list a lot of poorly paid careers. The op
@FriendlyLaundryMonster was asking about pay. Some of the careers you list are very hard to get into. It’s not what you know either!!!! It’s contacts.

Art isn’t enough to be an architect. Some of the jobs you mention pay absolute peanuts! I know. DDs been scraping along for years! We subsidise her. If you want to stand on your own two feet it’s very very hard. It’s not personality to cope either. That truly doesn’t pay the rent! Fashion buyer? Fashion journalism? In your dreams. Totally who you know! Fashion is not a great area for work for many in fact it’s no work. Art therapy? It’s peanuts. CAD expertise helps. Some avenues are better than others. Museums pay little. Auction houses pay more but jobs are hard to get. Very. They also like History of Art grads.*

With respect i talk from within the TV Industry. It pays WELL.

And my SiL is a retail buyer. It pays WELL. Grad entry opportunities.

And Fashion Design ( and associated jobs ) are not a dream . Nor are all the branches of Fashion Journalism etc ....? A dream, no. Unless the years I did in Magazines were a dream. Social Media is a massive driver for all that now. So probably more accessible.

The one thing I agree is CAD can be useful. I keep meaning to learn it....

You need to get yourself in the room before you get the job.

The question was can you make money from studying art. Yes, you can. Can you make MUCH money? No. It is the lowest earning degree you can do, I believe.

If your daughter has a really unusual level of talent and you have the family connections to open doors for her, and the family wealth to support her until she makes her big "break" (if she does) then by all means go for it.

My family has a number of professional artists with formal and prestigious qualifications and significant national recognition, and the only money they can depend on is from teaching art part time.

Graphic design is a different story, maybe. Architecture, too.

But your daughter can choose subjects that will lead her towards a versatile, employable degree and still be a practicing and even successful artist. I would not encourage her to limit her choices by studying fine art.

Did a BA textiles degree and honestly I regret it. Happy to have done an art degree as that's where I wanted to be at the time. But honestly I should have done something else. But still can't complain, life has worked out ok for me.

The op
@FriendlyLaundryMonster was asking about pay. Some of the careers you list are very hard to get into. It’s not what you know either!!!! It’s contacts

I went to Art School.
I know people who do loads of those jobs probably for that reason.

I'm in TV now. There is a lot of money to be made now as so much TV being made. Lots of youngsters coming in. I am working with a 22yr old. They are crying out for all the skills.

A close friend has just switched from doing Interior Design to TV for that very reason. Long hours but shorter than the Architects I know.

SiL travelling all over as a retail buyer for chain stores. Very well paid. She works with lots of youngsters.

All the Computer Animation Grads I know are being snapped up. Internationally. ( Art entry route)

I have a friend with an art degree which included graphical design and digital.

She recently worked on designing a sports app.

The coders worked on how it works.
the sports experts worked on its content and what it says.
She worked on its design and how it looks, including the app logo.

Hi @Lifeisnotfair4, I will answer your question slightly obliquely, simply because my response will then be more useful. As a family unit we are all creative; it is partly what defines us.

None of us have pursued purely artistic careers but don't see ourselves as having compromised. As it happens we are all strong on the analytical side; we like patterns and form, whether in jewellery or painting or numbers. So each of us has decided, independently of each other, to monetise our numerical/process analysis skills and we save the other forms of pattern-seeking to hometime. It works for us but won't work for everyone.

One of us is involved (within a wider portfolio of responsibilities) in the commissioning of designs and original art and sees talented folk but also the commercial pressures too. One of my DC was successful, whilst still at school, in winning a steady stream of commercial graphic design commissions in a very niche area but ultimately felt they preferred that type of 'creating' as a hobby and not as a means to put food on the table. All this informs my earlier comments.

It is heartening to hear of the many and varied success stories. However, Tizor is right to flag the average outcomes in relation to earnings and that DC need to be realistic about this and/or have a viable plan to raise their individual odds of being successful in economic terms.

Finally, a shout out to @PhotoDad for their very balanced comments on this thread and their info and encouragement generally for those pursuing creative paths.

Thank you! And I agree, it's all about open-ness. There are a few high-paid opportunities out there in the art world (maybe only a few), and if they tend to be accessed via "who you know," then an art-school can be a valuable way of making those introductions. Hence all the shows and competitions (moreso in some design fields than others).

The position with my DD was; she was sure that the happiest life for her is one doing art. Obviously, that might change, but all indications are good. Given that, the only viable way to turn it into a career rather than a hobby-job is to get an art degree, and hope for the best (and work incredibly hard too). She picked her course to be one that includes an optional placement year, and also business skills modules (tax, invoicing, publicity, etc) It's a necessary but not sufficient condition... "you have to be in it, to win it," right? As with wannabe professional sports, and drama, and (some forms of) music, too. Bet we're all glad that people still choose to go into those!

We can't support her financially beyond the years at uni, and she knows that, which also focusses her mind. Amusingly, in this context, Illustration is the more employable of her artistic pursuits. She won multiple prizes (national/international) for her wildlife photography at school, but turning that into a job is even harder and it remains a hobby.

It is all relative. Art students graduate with tens of thousands of student debt but often end up on wages that don’t even reach the threshold to pay it back.

I did a fine art degree, very contemporary/conceptual, not much emphasis on what I think of as the mechanical skills like drawing, painting, sculpting.

After graduating I got into digital art and from there into web development. After about 5 years in Web dev I did a Computer Science masters, not especially for career reasons since I was already in the industry but for my own depth of understanding.

My earnings have gone from about 14k in my first web design role mid 90s to about £165k today (that's basic, my total package is about £220k.)

OP is asking if you can make money from studying art.

if you go into an "art" job (ie one where you produce original visual content or design) it's possible. Some creative/art jobs are well paid. However many are not simply because the competition is so high. A lot of people actually earn their money in something either totally unrelated, or art-adjacent like teaching, then make their art as a sideline.

I also think commercial artists and designers, the ones who create to a brief and are working within existing trends/styles to position a product/brand, are very at risk from AI,

But there is also whether it equips you well for other types of job. The classic assumption is no. I think otherwise.

My job is not an "art" job but I found my specific art education, with its emphasis on concepts, presentation, critical thinking and self direction, has given me a massive advantage in my career. I sometimes think it's like having a cheat code vs my colleagues.

The other thing is that art people tend to be attracted to and seek out cultural changes and new ideas, and that means we can end up working in upcoming new industries, the ones that don’t have a career path or related degrees yet because they are too new.

My niece is a talented artist and a good all rounder. She is doing interactional design at university and is about to go out on her placement year with a blue chip company. I suspect that in about 20 years she will do something like become an art therapist in Cornwall and an artist in her spare time.

Oh, one thing to be aware of is that art at degree or higher level can be very different to art at school. So she may want to look into that more, maybe visit the final year shows of a range of different courses before she commits. OP, you say she enjoys making art, but does she go to to galleries etc to see what people out there are creating?

The other thing is that art people tend to be attracted to and seek out cultural changes and new ideas, and that means we can end up working in upcoming new industries, the ones that don’t have a career path or related degrees yet because they are too new.

Very true

Oh, one thing to be aware of is that art at degree or higher level can be very different to art at school. So she may want to look into that more, maybe visit the final year shows of a range of different courses before she commits. OP, you say she enjoys making art, but does she go to to galleries etc to see what people out there are creating?

Very very true

No! She doesn't go to galleries.