How to Become an Illustrator in Kansas City, Missouri

The city of Kansas City, Missouri is home to the headquarters of many major corporations like Sprint-Nextel, H&R Block, Russel Stover Candies and (most famously) Hallmark Cards.  Kansas City businesses maintain an ongoing demand for talented local graphic artists (especially illustrators) to create corporate logos, characterizations, textile patterns, high tech diagrams and other innovative designs.

Kansas City Schools and Training Programs for Illustrators

Kansas City, Missouri is home to many colleges, Universities and private fine arts studios featuring lessons, workshops and professional programs in commercial illustration.  Aspiring Kansas City commercial illustrators attending local colleges often study communications design and computer science in addition to visual arts.  Kansas City colleges with fine arts departments include Vatterott College, Kansas City Art Institute, Metropolitan Community College and University of Missouri. 

Nowadays, Kansas City artists routinely acquire graphic arts skills and professional degrees online.  Successful accredited online art colleges include National University, Post University, Full Sail University, Stratford Career Institute, University of Phoenix, DeVry, The Art Institutes and ITT Tech.  Conveniently enough, various virtual colleges also provide physical campuses and local testing centers.  University of Phoenix, ITT Tech and DeVry all maintain Kansas City locations

Working as an Illustrator in Kansas City, Missouri

Corporations in Kansas City, Missouri face an ongoing demand for professional illustrators.  Among them are product manufacturers, game programmers, design schools, IT corporations and book authors.  Some Kansas City graphic artists create commercial illustrations for leading local graphic design firms like Artisan-Graphic-Design, Catchword-Graphics, Creatrix, Graphic-Gardens and Thread-Graphics, not to mention Hallmark.  Exceedingly precise local illustrators sometimes work for Kansas City engineering corporations like Burns-&-McDonnell, Geotechnical-Services, Harding, HDR-Engineering and Shafer-Kline-Warren, among others.  

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average reported annual income for illustrators employed full time at businesses in Kansas City, Missouri is roughly $22,260, with a reported mean hourly rate of about $10.70.  Kansas City businesses employ about fifty full time professional illustrators.  These figures do not apply to local freelance professionals. 

Skills of a Professional Illustrator

Above all, professional illustrators have a distinct talent for detailed, highly recognizable hand-drawn images.  Beyond that, the best professional illustration artists produce artwork that generates emotion.  Illustrators usually produce original work “from scratch,” without prefab templates or stock images.  Most illustrators are fully familiar with digital illustration software programs.  Among the most popular of these are Diagram Designer, Adobe InDesign, Adobe Dimensions, Quark Xpress and Simply 3D.