Colorado Springs, Colorado bursts with resident artists who find well paid work in the field of graphic design. With more than 50,000 commercial businesses and a population past 416,000, Colorado Springs ranks highly among U.S. cities for educational and professional opportunities in this creative commercial field.
Colorado Springs Schools and Training Programs for Graphic Design
Several colleges in Colorado Springs offer degree programs in communications design. Popular favorite local design schools include Colorado Technical University, Intellitec College and Pikes Peak Community College. Nowadays, many schools offer graphic design training and degree programs online. Among the most successful of these are The Art Institutes, ITT Tech, University of Phoenix and DeVry.
Graphic artists in Colorado Springs earning degrees in Communications Design often major in fine arts or digital visual media. A typical graphic design degree program in Colorado Springs might include traditional art forms as well as computer graphics, website design, digital art, animation, technical drawing, typography, commercial marketing, software applications and modern printmaking techniques.
Working as a Graphic Designer in Colorado Springs, Colorado
Graphic designers in Colorado Springs remain in demand. Independent businesses desire brand logos. Marketing firms demand promotional artwork. City planners need street signs. Publishers seek cover art. A website must have the right “look & feel.” Graphic artists also design product packaging, textile patterns, visual assembly instructions and billboards, among other things.
Some graphic designers in Colorado Springs are employed by top local ad agencies like Braintree Marketing, Colorado Springs Business, Hanson Marketing and MTD Marketing. Other local designers team up with Colorado Springs movie producers. These include Autumn World Productions, Omni Weather, Bourbon Street Productions Morrison Video Productions and many others. Professional graphic designers in Colorado Springs can also find work with software companies, educational centers, book publishers, manufacturers, construction contractors, architectural firms, real estate offices, internet start-ups and numerous other businesses.
At present, U.S. companies employ quite a few more than a quarter-million graphic designers. About half of them earn annual incomes between $30,000 and $60,000. Starting salaries depend on factors like training, experience and skill. Employers study many designer portfolios when deciding who to hire and for how much money. The competition can be fierce.
Skills of a Graphic Designer
Graphic design professionals send messages with images instead of written words. A graphic designer manipulates symbols in a way that evokes specific reactions from particular target markets. The most common task of a professional graphic designer is page layout - defining the size, color, location and orientation of images within a two-dimensional space.
Graphic designers are visually inclined and exceedingly attentive to detail. They grasp juxtaposition of form. They consider how colors affect moods. They utilize the psychological power of symbols. They remain forever conscious that the human eye sees from left-to-right, light-to-dark, top-to-bottom and large-to-small. This information helps professional graphic designers determine optimal layouts for even the most challenging design jobs.