If you’re looking to pursue a career in design it will usually be because you have a certain amount of visual flair and an interest in combining the aesthetic with the functional. We live in a society that is in a constant state of flux and therefore always subject to new influences. This in turn creates a need for designers to create new designs (regardless of the field) which are reflective of the environment and the times in which we live, whilst at the same time delivering functionality that hopefully makes our lives a little easier.

There are various sub-sets of design in which you can specialize. The field of graphic design is aimed at providing visual impact to corporate communications; web design is about constructing appealing and useful websites; industrial design is concerned with producing new products that have both functional and aesthetic appeal; fashion design is an applied art relating to clothing and accessories; interior design about designing pleasing spaces in which people can live and work; and games design about designing entertaining electronic games for people to play.

All of these fields will have an associated bachelor’s or associate degree attached to them. Bachelors in design degrees are obtained from a college, University or other accredited school program and will take four to five years to complete depending on how fast you wish to graduate and on how many concentrations, majors or minors you wish to attain. A bachelor’s degree will have a direct effect on your earning potential: a 2002 report by the American Council on Education showed that a an average individual with a bachelors degree earned $22,000 per annum more than a high school graduate and $14,000 more than an Associate’s degree recipient.

There are an increasing number of schools that are now offering online design degrees via the Distance Education Network. The curricula on offer via online undergraduate programs are not substantially different than those on offer to those whom are required to physically attend a campus. An online degree obviously gives you greater flexibility in how they go about pursuing your studies as well as a greater choice of schools.

Those who pursue a career in design usually do so because they have a certain amount of visual flair and an interest in combining the aesthetic with the functional. Because our society is in a state of flux and always subject to new influences, there is a constant need for designers to create new designs (regardless of the field) which are reflective of the environment and the times in which we live – and at the same time deliver functionality that hopefully makes our lives a little easier.

There are various design fields in which one can specialize. The field of graphic design is aimed at adding visual impact to corporate communications; web design is about producing appealing and useful websites; industrial design is concerned with producing new products which are both functional and have aesthetic appeal; fashion design is an applied art relating to clothing and accessories whilst interior design and landscape design can loosely be described as the indoors and outdoors of design: landscape design being about creating functional and aesthetically pleasing outdoor spaces and interior design being about designing those spaces in which people live and work.

All of these fields will have an associated bachelor’s or associate degree attached to them. Students who are looking for professional advancement and certainly people who are looking to teach within their given field – may want to check out the design masters degrees that are on offer. A design master’s degree will be available at a number of different schools. A student should already have a bachelor’s degree in the field in which they wish to pursue post graduate studies (or at least in a substantially related field) although there are some schools that will offer foundation courses with the aim of bringing a student up to speed before he/she enrolls in the masters program.

Design masters programs will take 1-2 years to complete if being pursued full time and obviously longer if being studied part time. Most post graduate courses have been developed in such a way that professionals can pursue their studies at night and on weekends.

There are an increasing number of schools that are now offering an online design degree via the Distance Education Network. The curricula on offer via online postgraduate programs are not substantially different than those on offer to those attending a campus. An online degree obviously gives a graduate greater flexibility in how they go about pursuing their studies and indeed a greater choice of schools.

The best graphic design schools teach students to create art through drawing, digital production, interactive media design, 3D computer graphics, and web design, among others. Graphic design training can empower students with a thorough knowledge of industry standard software, giving future designers the necessary skills to create and develop visual effects for movies, video games, websites and other areas of graphic design.

Graphic design training is critical to students who desire occupations in fields of advertising, fashion design, game art design, interior design, interactive media design, animation, residential planning, and website design. While graphic design has always been closely allied to technology and reproduction, it became its own discipline in the 1990s when educators and professionals embraced the desktop computer and desktop publishing software as their essential tools.

Art students now have options for executing their creativity using computers, such as Apple Mac computers and PCs; they also have many choices of useful software programs. Graphic design students will have many opportunities to get classroom experience with software such as Adobe InDesign, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe PageMaker, QuarkXPress, Macromedia Freehand, Fireworks, Paint Shop Pro, Corel Graphics Suite, and many others.

Establishments that employ graphic designers provide commercial art or graphic design services for publishers, advertising agencies, and other industrial franchises. Those who have completed their graphic design education may become professional artists, and they may engage in the production of commercial art. However, some graphic design students may choose to specialize in areas such as medical art, or they may provide drafting services for manufacturing and architectural firms.