Don’t Starve as an Artist

You can be an artist and keep your day job as well. It is easy to only tune into the individuals that are suffering for the sake of their art. They will claim time and again that they are purists. You can have your art and eat your cake, too.

Creative Careers

You don’t have to choose between making a living and finding a job where your creativity is valued. There are many careers that allow you to flex your creative muscles and still earn a decent salary.

Art Director: A great way to put some of your creative prowess to use is as an art director in an industry like advertising, publishing, or movie production. As an art director, you are a design professional. You are in charge of the visual elements that go into a motion picture, advertisement, or motion picture. You have the opportunity to come up with the vision for how the design will look. You manage the artists, photographers, set builders, and graphic designers. Along with having a knack for design, you need to be able to handle business responsibilities and work with clients and other individuals.

Technical Writer: If you have a passion for writing, consider turning that passion into a profitable career. As a technical writer, you create text used in instruction manuals. You take all the technical information about a product or piece of software and explain it to consumers in a way they can understand. You act as the middleman between designers and laypeople. Condensing technical information into a simple, accessible, and easy to understand format takes a lot of creativity and knowledge of the industry. Technical writers are often also responsible for the visual elements that help users understand a product.

Art Therapist: Using your skills in art to help people can be a very rewarding endeavor. Art therapists study psychology to learn about human behavior as well as mental, emotional, and behavioral disorders. They also learn ways to use art therapeutically. As an art therapist, you might work in schools, community centers, medical facilities, or psychiatric hospitals. If you are an artist interested in giving back in such a way but lack the degree necessary, you might benefit from online degree programs. This is a way you can earn the necessary skills to really help your fellow man.

Graphic Designer: Businesses and organizations have a strong need to represent ideas through images. Graphic designers help them accomplish this. As a graphic designer, you would function as a creative professional using your artistic skills to create graphics used in advertisements, logos, magazine layouts, websites, etc. You use computer design software and hand-drawn sketches to create these graphics. To be successful, you need to be creative. If you have some business acumen, you can even work from home.

Making It as a Die Hard

If you have your heart set on working as a starving artist minus the starving, you may still be able to etch out a living on mostly your own terms. Working as a professional artist is feasible. It just requires some planning and preparedness. If you aren’t ready to put in a little hustle, you should probably keep your day job.

What feed’s your income can vary from person to person. In order to be successful, you need to use various revenue streams. Relying on multiple sources of income might come in the form of gallery showings, teaching positions, commission projects, grants, and web sales. These different means of income don’t just come without a little work. Pay attention to what methods are most lucrative for your situation. You don’t have to do all the things all the time. As you learn the market, you can focus on the areas that make you the most.

Don’t be afraid to fully embrace your weird side. Being unique is actually an asset in this profession. Be weird in your art and in the ways you sell your art. You want to stand out from the crowd and grab people’s attention.

Remember to keep an open mind. The life of an artist is often unconventional. Embrace it. There is rarely a clear road to success in this industry. Use this flexibility to your advantage. You will need to develop a thick skin. Being an artist leaves you vulnerable to criticism. Not everyone is going to love your work or know how to express their criticism in a constructive manner. Focus on the people that do appreciate your work.

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