r/financialindependence • u/fidgit86 • 9d ago

What do you do that you earn six figures?

It seems like a lot of people make a lot of money and it seems like I’m missing out on something. So those of you that do, whats your occupation that pays so well?

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112

u/linedechoes 9d ago

Art director at an ad agency

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u/noorofmyeye24 9d ago

Is it like Mad Men? Lol

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u/PauseAndReflect 9d ago

Not OP, but I’m a Senior Copywriter at an ad agency: sometimes yes, sometimes no lol.

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u/noorofmyeye24 9d ago

Omg! Do ppl call you Peggy? Lol jk

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u/PauseAndReflect 9d ago

Occasionally lol, but it's mostly non-agency people who do. But sometimes I certainly feel like it...my Creative Director took me on as a sort of protege too, and he's constantly making my life nuts lol.

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u/[deleted] 9d ago

I’m a professional grant writer. Do you have any tips about making the jump to private company copywriting?

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u/_CPR_ 9d ago

Not the OP, but I work in direct market fundraising. Copywriting in my industry can be very profitable (up to $1000 for a letter) but the work isn’t always steady enough for a freelancer and most agencies and nonprofits don’t have on-staff writers. Also, grant writing and direct fundraising copy are very different stylistically.

If you enjoy working with clients, account management at fundraising agencies can pay quite well and also involve some writing and editing.

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u/[deleted] 7d ago

Thanks. I’ve worked in both communications/social media and currently as a grant writer so I feel like my writing ability is broad enough to make the jump, but those concerns—mainly the need (or lack thereof) for the position—are what keep me where I am. Some orgs place tremendous value on writers and others consider it an afterthought.

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u/Wrong_Swordfish 9d ago

More than anyone would like to admit, but with a modern technological dystopian twist.

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u/probathrowawayacc 9d ago

Senior AD in NYC here, depends on the accounts you’re on and the kind of agency you’re at. There can be super late nights to get client deliverables out on time, but every agency I’ve been at always keeps the food and booze flowing (or they did pre-Covid anyway when we were all still in the office)

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u/jeddrockwell 9d ago

Edit: Sorry I just realized you were responding to the Mad Men question lol.

-If you’re suggesting that a senior AD in NYC could make less than 100k, someone is getting screwed.-

FWIW I’m a senior designer in Seattle making around 90. Not UX, boring old marketing/advertising, not at an agency but yes corporate.

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u/probathrowawayacc 9d ago

I’m not suggesting, I’m telling lol. That is my personal experience as a Senior AD. But this was also my first job and first promotion out of college, so I’d say it was a success. I was there for two years and have since gained the experience to move on to a competitor agency in a more exciting field where the pay better matches the title.

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u/jeddrockwell 9d ago

Your first role out of college was a “senior” role? That doesn’t add up. Seems like they lured you in with a false title (but perhaps great pay for entry level). You would be hard pressed to find a legit AD role here without at least 5 years of experience, probably more (7-8).

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u/probathrowawayacc 9d ago

You misread my comment, or I worded it poorly. I started as an AD right out of college and was then over time promoted to senior AD at that same first job.

And there was no luring me with a false title… what I’ve come to learn is that job titles aren’t universal in agency settings. One place I interned at started you out as an associate AD, then AD, Senior AD, and then on to ACD and so on. Another agency started at junior designer and had several levels above that. My previous employer on the other hand starts you as an AD, then Senior AD, art supervisor, group art supervisor, VP titles, and then CD levels. The bottom line when leveraging a job is really your portfolio and your experience in the creative business.

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u/jeddrockwell 9d ago

For sure and yeah I can see that. And fwiw I knew at least one person who came out of my design school(!) straight into an AD role but I think she bs’d her way into it and didn’t last. It sounds like you are not a designer(?), and obviously don’t have to be for some AD roles, so maybe that’s the difference maker. As I’m sure you know some ADs are designers, some writers, some come up through photography or styling… and perhaps there’s a regional aspect, too.

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u/djoliverm 9d ago

Art Director in house at a tech company! Background in Advertising agencies.

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u/BringMeAHigherLunch 9d ago

Also a designer for a large company, not a manager/director yet but I’m at $80k which is the most I’ve ever made in my field. I always thought my earnings cap would be $60k as a designer, so thank god for corporate!

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u/MadelineShelby 9d ago

Just left corporate for fintech and making almost the same! Couldn’t stand the corporate politics

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u/djoliverm 9d ago

See if you can make the jump to a tech company. Once you do it's crazy how many recruiters reach out trying to place you at other tech companies or startups. I do live in the Bay Area so it's much more common/easy to surpass $100K+ around here.

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u/BringMeAHigherLunch 9d ago

I actually live in Maine, so for the job market here I lucked out. Plus I have no intention of moving and I’m making enough to live very comfortably. $100k would be nice someday, there’s upward mobility with my company so I don’t expect to stay at $80k forever.

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u/jyc23 9d ago

If you branch out to Ux design there are a lot of well paying jobs.

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u/bubbales27 9d ago

Me too!

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u/i-am-a-yam 9d ago

Can I expect a pay bump when I make the move from agency life to in-house?

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u/haveasuperday 9d ago

I got a significant increase, but it totally depends on your existing situation. For me the biggest difference was actual benefits and time off. Quality of life is way higher in a larger company versus an agency, at least for me. Much more laid back and you don't feel the pressure quite the same

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u/kzupan 9d ago

Weird question but do AD still hire outside the agency for design? I was thinking of reaching out to some in my area but I’m not sure the best process. Right now I do a lot of brand design but I’ve been itching to do more labels/product design.

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u/South-Builder6237 9d ago

It largely depends. It depends on the size of the agency of course and the work involved, what their specialty is, what the budget of the client is...etc.

Most big enough companies (And I would assume they're at a big one because of their salary) have their own in-house team to handle design work and have several designers, all with their own specialties and talents. Most bigger agencies that get large contracts and jobs will contract out work because of the timeframe and amount of work involved, especially if it involves anything in film/video/animation/3D/photography because the amount of work and specialization that is involved.

Not to give you a shitty answer, but it really just depends.

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u/Specialist-Menu-2188 9d ago

Problem with in house is the echo chamber. No one is thinking differently than all the brand managers and people around them. Whenever you see a rebrand it’s usually outside agency leveraged to help. They’ll make brand guidelines for the in house team to follow so they don’t revert to their old habits.

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u/South-Builder6237 9d ago

I would have to strongly disagree with you on this. For starters, hiring an outside agency to do all the leg work that they then can take credit for doesn't even make sense in more ways than one, financially speaking being a huge part of that. Now, as stated before, contracting out work is most definitely a part of a lot of the job as there are various kinda of clients and huge companies that need top of the line and all kinds of work done. But for a lot of the light to medium stuff, agencies (even big ones) rely on their in house talent. They just make sure to hire very talented people who know exactly what they're doing, have the the necessary experience and also have multiple designers. Hell, even some of the most well known agencies/firms in the world only have a few designers because they are very good at what they do.

Again, contracting out work is common for a lot of agencies and not all companies/agencies work the same or have the same structure, but a huge chunk of that goes to production work and back end stuff versus the actual designing aspect which any respectable agency will have on lockdown.

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u/cantaloupecanelope 9d ago

For a major rebrand? I’ve never seen that done solely in-house by an ad agency and I’ve been doing this for over a decade. I’ve seen the agency consult the branding house, sure, but designing ads and experiences is very different than creating an entire brand language, and anyone who is doing both for the same salary would be foolish. Unless you’re talking about campaign style guides, and not comprehensive brand guidelines?

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u/jeddrockwell 9d ago

Idk where you are located but there are definitely agencies that do both and everything else there is (packaging, UX, web). I wouldn’t assume that the designers at those companies are making the same salary.

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u/cantaloupecanelope 9d ago

I don’t think we’re talking about the same thing, branding vs tangibles. I’m talking like, Pentagram and Siegel+Gale vs Huge or Ogilvy. The former doing the rule books, and the latter doing the roll outs

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u/South-Builder6237 9d ago

I maybe have misunderstood from the get-go here, because there is a difference between a design agency and an ad agency.

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u/cantaloupecanelope 9d ago

Try looking at branding houses or in-house studios rather than advertising. I’m a designer too, and most of my packaging and product work has happened outside of ad agencies. They have to have a solid relationship with the client to get that kind of project, and if they do it’ll go to their production studio

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u/kzupan 9d ago

Ok that’s a solid idea. I’ve been branding a lot of smaller businesses (mainly solopeneurs) who haven’t really had the budgets to do fully designed products (picking bottles to label stock) and usually want a creative way to use Avery labels lol not really what I imagine when I show them the strategy and mood boards so the designs usually get compromised.

Otherwise I only really get one product a year and the rest end up being wedding photographers - which is fine but it would be nice to have a little less monotonous clients.

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u/cantaloupecanelope 9d ago

That’s awesome! It’s a great time to make the leap to bigger brand names while so much is remote, too. Just make sure you have both photos of the final products and the mechanical for the label on your site. (If you’re not clear on mechanicals, watch a quick YT video on print production, it’s way simpler than it sounds.) Apologies if I’m ma’amsplaining, I love this work and I’m always excited to hear when other people do too.

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u/kzupan 9d ago

No worries at all haha I have no idea what that means but I really appreciate it! I’ve been too scared to really put myself out there so I’m hoping I can easily break the six figure mark if I put a little more effort into it. I’ve barely made it to that point the last year and I’m on track to make it this year but sometimes it’s hard when you follow other designers online that are pushing out courses and “coaching” offerings and going on how much they take in. I don’t really have any interest in that stuff but I just like designing with a good podcast going in the background- I really like solving people’s problems in a beautiful and tangible way.

My next foray is trying to learn to make more passive income by creating fonts and mock-ups for other designers so it still is expanding my skill sets but also can boost my portfolio a bit more.

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u/justlooking128 9d ago

My mom worked as a secretary at an ad agency when I was a kid. She’d take me to work sometimes and leave me hanging out in the art dpt. It was in the 80s when everything was done by hand. It was awesome to watch them draw and put together ads. I’d spend a lot of time in the photography darkroom, too. Looking back, those guys were saints for babysitting a 9yo at work. But man I loved it.

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u/Clawpawsomeish 9d ago

How did you get there? Im interested in the art field but i have no clue on how to progress

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u/Zaob 9d ago

Not OP but I do essentially the same. Get started as a graphic designer and then be better at it than the other graphic designers, and don’t be afraid to job shop

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u/Clawpawsomeish 7d ago

Okie thank you!

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u/yusbishyus 9d ago

ONE OF US

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u/trugrif 9d ago

I was an art director at a small agency, big town. Became the creative director then left and started my own small (just me, I was tired of managing people) marketing design firm. Salary went from $70K to $130k, as a business owner the salary bounced around. I found my sweet spot and great clients and was happy enough. Retiring soon.

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u/ooh_a_phoenix 9d ago

Art director cocaine inspector at an ad agency.

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u/oyrenp 9d ago

My previous career. I never raked in that much, but also I was in my early twenties.

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u/SweetOrca 9d ago

Might I ask in what country/part of the world?

Where I am in Europe the average is around 55-60k for CDs and I was told not to aspire to shutting above 15-20k for the first four years (trainee AD)

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u/Psychological_Gift21 9d ago

Come to NYC, averages are much much higher. If you can find a job here that hires remotely you could be set

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u/jeddrockwell 9d ago

Or Seattle.

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u/Zaob 9d ago

I live in MS but work remotely for a company in NY. Pay MS income taxes on a NY salary. It’s incredible

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u/here4thePho 9d ago

this is my absolute dream of a career. I am happy for you. im in billboards, but maybe one day.

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u/geniusgfx 9d ago

So I’ve been doing freelance graphic design as a side business while I’m in the military. In the event i decide to retire early or finish in 11 years to retirement, what useful information can you provide me for working in art.

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u/kzupan 9d ago

What kind of design do you like to do? I suggest giving yourself a brief and creating a portfolio of work you love to do and start posting your progress and learnings. One thing I’ve found is agencies and clients tend to gravitate more towards portfolios that actually talk about their thinking alongside the design. I found a good niche for myself with women solopeneurs but you could niche is other ways:

  • your style (sometimes designers have a distinct style and sometimes they are good at translating what the client needs and can be versatile)
  • the type of work you do (products, web design, branding, marketing)
  • your clients (picking an industry like breweries, photographers, tech)
  • templates or custom. Some people like quick turnarounds and some people want something completely out of the box.

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u/geniusgfx 9d ago

So with me being in the military I get to travel a lot. So I started to use that to my advantage by working with local businesses for branding, logos, slowly branching into video as well.

A large bulk of my work is working with musicians (local indie and managed to get a few industry clients but nothing life changing)

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u/kzupan 9d ago

That’s great! It should give you a lot of freedom to jump around and see what type of client or industry feels best to you. I’m in branding personally and I really love it but lately it’s been almost all photographers so I think I’m going to run some ads or start talking about product based businesses more on social and see what comes in.

My main thing is to look into offering full branding packages rather than a logo. Often times it takes just as much research and your clients leave with a more rounded out offering (for example my package started at $1k and now I do branding and a 5 page website for $8k) I took some online courses to help me position myself better and I like creating a whole design system for a brand. Just generally takes a little longer but if you can find 1-2 clients a month at that rate it’s a pretty good income!

You might resonate with The Futur on YouTube. I follow a lot of women designers personally and a lot are slowly diving more into their woo woo side haha so you might not connect with their courses as much. Chris Do is pretty action driven and focused so I hope this helps!

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u/geniusgfx 9d ago

Chris do motivated me to rise my prices. I feel like I’m currently stuck with clients I know have smaller budgets. I tell them I’m not cheap but I know it I changed my target audience I can charge a lot more. I’m just waiting/working on creating that opportunity.

I would love see the other designers you recommended.

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u/kzupan 9d ago

So don’t get too caught up with online courses and try and stick to a handful of designers turned educators else it really will eat into your profits lmao I speak from past experience (I bought WAY TOO MANY COURSES) but I think the course creator I’ve gotten some of the most concrete advice from is Melissa Yeager in terms of setting up a good process and deliverables for clients. She isn’t like Chris Do pricing levels but she has a solid workflow that has helped me a lot

In terms of creating your own briefs and exploring your style I loveeeee Meg Lewis. She’s the host of Dribbbles podcast called Overtime but she has an incredibly simple but super unique style. She’s super upbeat and weird so I just like her as a person to be inspired by.

If you want to dive more into squarespace and custom CSS then Rache from the SquareStylist has a really good course that dives into creating really unique sites on SS.

Davey and Krista of The Palm Shop have a really good SEO course called The Inquiry System (it’s really for photographers that I’ve used for my own site and clients)

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u/kath012345 9d ago

Thank you so much for your comments above! So currently I work as a website designer at a major SAAS company (we build websites as a value add service on top of the software for our small biz clients). It’s a production environment and we work primarily off templates for way cheaper than what the average freelancer charges. So I know process, creative brief, the third party website builder tool, SEO, etc… all pretty well at this point and am thinking of doing freelance on the side. So I’m curious, how do you find business? I know you said you work with a lot of photographers but did you get that started via networking? Facebook ads? It’s the lead generation part that always throws me off. Thank you!

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u/kzupan 9d ago

Honestly it’s mainly posting in a lot of Facebook groups. I mainly work in Showit (which already is kinda niches in for photographers) so when we launch a site we put up a post “welcoming them to the showit family” or if they already were on the platform we show a before and after.

I haven’t even tried Facebook ads yet but it really only takes a handful of great experiences for them to recommend you to their friends. Fortunately the photography world is pretty close knit so good reviews help! When you’re getting started I recommend always sending a follow up review questionnaire on what went good and what would need improvement then asking them to leave a review on both a Facebook business page for your biz and a google review as those help your SEO quite a bit.

You could also give a kickback like any referral that books earns you 3 months of SEO or a set of canva graphics for free (I personally hate canva but it’s the only place where I can set up my clients social media templates that they seem to understand ugh)

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u/kzupan 9d ago

To add to this it’s really dependent on where your target clients hang out - so try local business meetups, post your work on dribbble, or Instagram depending on the type of clients you like to work with. It’s always a good idea to ask them how they found you or if they could share the website launch in a few groups they are in (online or offline)

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u/kath012345 9d ago

Thank you so much!! Appreciate it

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u/StefTD 9d ago

Where? I got paid average for my region and was way below that... Damn

1

u/ThinkIdeal 9d ago

Omg, I’m trying to make the switch into this field. (I’m currently a CPA). Any suggestions?

1

u/Zaob 9d ago

It’s a great field to switch to, because all you really need is a portfolio rather than a degree. Entry-level graphic designers don’t make much $$$ depending on talent and location but using it as a stepping stone to art director or creative director can be lucrative within a few years.

1

u/ThinkIdeal 9d ago

Yes, I’m mentally preparing for the pay cut I’ll have to take if I get the opportunity to make the jump. Unfortunately, since the fields are so different, it’s hard for me to network and get my work out there. The most I do is have an art account on Insta, but need to aggresively start looking

1

u/rustytoe 9d ago

Go in-house at a larger company's (corp) in-house agency - typically can make at least that. The hours aren't nearly as death too. Source: I'm an "account manager" at a corporate in-house agency making 6 figures. Most of the ADs and peeps around me too.

1

u/o4kfox 9d ago

Oh hey checking in here, UX lead / ACD

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u/2AspirinL8TR 9d ago

I used to work for an Agency that had a ton of Target work … those were $700 a day for me back then

1

u/SC2Sycophant 9d ago

I’m an in-house creative ‘developer?’ - basically I work for a company and handle all of their creative development from video to print ads and digital graphics, would you mind if I PM’d you some questions about some stuff? I just want to talk to someone else who’s in this on the corporate side of things.

1

u/redrivergorge 9d ago

Same here (sorta). I wear a lot of hats at the agency I'm at. Alongside traditional and digital design I also do quite a bit of web development, photography and video production. I'm doing so much shit at any given time, I've given up on figuring out what my title is. I often just refer to myself as the utility infielder.

1

u/PinkFckingCupcakes 9d ago

I have a BA and majored in painting/drawing, would I ever have a shot with an ad agency or only if I have a background in graphic design?

1

u/fusionman51 9d ago

Got my degree in this field but more emphasis on account services due to being great with ideas and better at team building and talking to clients. Turns out after my 6 month internship, I disliked it and wished I stayed on creative side the last 2 years of college.

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u/Sedy_D 9d ago

Then why are ads still so bad and boring?

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u/crunkasaurus_ 9d ago

You are not making 100k unless you're an ACD or above.

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u/[deleted] 9d ago

[deleted]

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u/jeddrockwell 9d ago

Idk if that’s the market there but that sucks! I live in Seattle and as a senior designer (< AD) I make about 90. No UX work or anything like that, marketing, and yes in-house corporate but I know for a fact agencies can pay as much or more here. Senior AD at 80 in NYC is mind blowing to me. Yes, Seattle is the “new Silicon Valley” or whatever but I believe cost of living in NYC is still higher.

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u/jeddrockwell 9d ago

Idk if that’s the market there but that sucks! I live in Seattle and as a senior designer (< AD) I make about 90. No UX work or anything like that, marketing, and yes in-house corporate but I know for a fact agencies can pay as much or more here. Senior AD at 80 in NYC is mind blowing to me. Yes, Seattle is the “new Silicon Valley” or whatever but I believe cost of living in NYC is still higher.

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u/yourfallguy 8d ago

That’s just not true. ADs routinely make more than 100k at well known agencies.