Illustration Colleges

Illustration Colleges Help Graduates Succeed

Do you love art? Are you ready to follow your creative inspiration toward an inspiring new career? Learn about the courses and degrees offered by illustration colleges.

What Do Professional Illustrators Do?

Professional illustrators create original artwork across a range of mediums. As a professional illustrator working for a corporation, you may be asked to illustrate publications, reports, marketing materials or sales presentations and to create everything from original logos and letterheads to product packaging and marketing displays.

Do I Need a Degree to Make a Living as a Professional Illustrator?

Though it's not an absolute requirement for employment, most professional illustrators hold a bachelor's degree in illustration or a related field.

What Do Illustration Colleges Teach?

A successful illustrator is able to tell a story through the use of artistic concepts and images. While the artistry required for professional illustration may be inborn, many of the skills and abilities needed for a career in professional illustration are not. Illustration colleges teach the background skills and abilities you need for a career in professional illustration, including:

• Art history
• Narrative techniques
• Composition
• Color theory
• Drawing
• Painting, and
• Sculptural forms

What are the career prospects for graduates of illustration colleges?

Illustration is a broad term, and the field of professional illustration is equally diverse. Graduates of illustration colleges go on to perform a wide variety of jobs and follow numerous career paths, both independently and in corporate settings. Earnings for professional illustrators, both salaried and self-employed, vary widely. To cite one specific example of a career that graduates of illustration colleges might hold, median annual wages of salaried multimedia artists and animators were $56,330 in 2008.