Humans are creative beings and openly express themselves through means of creative liberty. Art is a visionary manifestation of the mind and the divine flow of thoughts and ideas onto the paper and hence is the shared hobby of mine along with 75% of the rest of the world’s population. Art includes various forms including painting, drawing, sketching, digital drawing, origami etc.
At least one-third of the world’s population draws or paints in their leisure time but have you ever wondered how this past-time hobby of yours can actually make for a very successful career. Art is indeed one of the most challenging and creative jobs but when worked upon with dedication and focus can also be one of the most rewarding and liberating jobs too!
Career Options:
The art industry is a dynamic one and offers are lot of promising jobs for individuals pursuing a career in art related fields. The following jobs are in most demand in today’s world along with providing financial security.
- Fashion designing: This beautiful field of design deals with fabrics, clothing, accessories, lifestyle items and footwear. They design clothes and apparels for customers. The demand for this field has increased to 13% from 2018 which accounts for 1.5 trillion dollars along with an increase in job vacancies up to 24.46% in the US alone.
- Architect: The most popular and coming to age career is architecture. This deals with the planning and designing of construction maps, buildings and other structures along with making spaces and buildings more functional and accessible. Employment of architect is tend to increase 8% up to 2028 which is faster than the average of any other profession!
- Graphic designer: These individuals create original images for products and make them visually appealing and cohesive. They use their creativity to display the product in simple yet noticeable manner. The demand for these artistic individuals has increased 13% from 2010 creating over 37,300 jobs.
- Art director: These are upper-level executive responsible for inspiring and guiding the design team’s vision. They use their drawing skills to illustrate the outline of a magazine, clothing brand, advertisement etc, they also review and approve the final layouts and design work. The demand for art directors will show an annual increase of 27.06% annually over the years along with the world wide requirements of these individuals.
- Animator: These creators intelligently create moving images of cartoon, video games and animations. Not only do they use hand drawings and online software but also use programmes to create three dimensional drawings for the productions team. With the increase of k-pop and animated movies the demand of animators has increased 4 times.
- Art therapist: This profession combines two different fields of art and psychology in order to help patient cope up with their problems and mental health conditions like anxiety, depression, addiction, bipolar etc in a school, prison, rehab units and company settings. While this is a relatively newer field, its demand is in high demand and has a very high potential in the future,
- Media arts: This is the study of human communication through media such as films, theatre, video, audio and interactive media to employ the elements of space, time, light, motion, colour etc to express feelings, ideas and perspectives. Careers in media art can be very fascinating and provide for a greater expression of one’s artistic abilities.
- Design Thinking: This form of design was originally invented at the Stanford University in the year 1980. This fascinating field deals with creative problem solving. It helps understand the user, the challenge assumptions and identifying solutions and strategies that might not be apparent with our initial level of understanding. This is one of the most popular and new field of specialisation that has took the world by a storm.
The wide availability of career paths under the field of art and design can be quite daunting and dynamic to choose from. One must keep in mind their interests and specialisations while choosing a potential profession.
You must pick a career which not only adds value to your skills and passion but also enhances and polishes your vision for your career path.
Choosing the Right University:
Famous institutes for an art degree abroad:
| Rank | University | Location |
| 1. | Royal college of Art | United Kingdom |
| 2. | University of the Arts London | United Kingdom |
| 3. | Rhode Island School of Design | United States |
| 4. | Parsons School of Design at the New School | United States |
| 5. | Politecnico di Milano | Italy |
| 6. | Aalto University | Finland |
Famous Institutes for an art degree in India:
| Rank | Universities | Location |
| 1. | National Institute of Design | Ahmadabad |
| 2. | Industrial Design centre | Mumbai |
| 3. | Arch Academy of Design | Jaipur |
| 4. | National Institute of Fashion Technology | Mumbai |
| 5. | National Institute of Fashion Technology | Delhi |
| 6. | Pearl Academy | Mumbai |
All of these top universities and institutions provide for a wide range of degrees ranging from bachelors to masters to even doctorate. The degree that best suits your interest and field of specialisation along with your potential career choice are advisable to pick as your majors and other important subjects such as psychology, communication, mass media, business management or computer science can be taken up as minors and will help build your profiles.
Recommended Books:
Artists should never stop learning or gathering information to build up their capabilities and books can be a very useful way to build up strategies and draw inspirations from.
Some of these books will not only help with creative blockages faced by many artists while working on their projects but also create exciting new opportunities and open doors to endless sources of ideas and knowledge.
- Art & Fear by David Bayles and Ted Orland tackles the insecurities artists face while working on their projects and putting it up out in the public. It is straightforward and concise book worth a read.
- Creative Block by Danielle Krysa highlights 50 strategies for getting over a creative block and finding inspiration to create more meaningful pieces of art. This book is filled with colour and pictures and is a clever insight into the artists mind.
- Taking the leap: Building a career as a visual artist by Cay Lang takes you through practical steps in order to establish career as a professional artist. It takes you through the process of self promotion and business tactics to mater your profession.
- Art/Work by Jonathan Melber and Heather Darcy Bhandari is a practical book about legal documentations, shipping requirements and professional presentation to sky rocket your art business. It provides an insight into the little known facts and work of an artist in a very judicious manner.
Tips to Improve Your Artistic Abilities:
- Observe and watch other talented artist’s way of working, this not only provides with insight on their use of tools but also adopt their mindset for creating masterpieces.
- Practice is the key to mastering any skill and as young artists the best way to fine tune your abilities is by practicing and working on your art pieces to learn different ways of using various brushes, colours, papers and adding a sense of life to inanimate objects.
- The right mindset is the key to becoming a genius artist. Artists way of thinking is way different than any other person, they are known to have unusual ideas and spontaneous flow of thoughts and creative upsurges.
The relation of art, artists and society is the main focal point in creating and becoming a renowned artist or a specialist in any one field of design.
The design industry has a lot to offer and with the right information, tools and a positive mindset an artist can be born. The main goal of becoming a design specialist should be to create pieces of work that fill others with inspiration and hope because at the end of the day an artist does not get recognised for his labour or way of drawing but for his vision and hence I invite you to become innovators and collaborators rather than just artists.
By NEHA DALAL, Hisar
