Info on Working as an Illustrator in Augusta, Georgia

Best known for hosting the Masters Golf Tournament each spring, Augusta is Georgia's second largest city, home to nearly 200,000 people, with another 350,000 in the surrounding metro area.  Major corporations with headquarters in Augusta include Georgia Health Sciences University, T-Mobile, John Deere and NutraSweet.  Generally speaking, companies need things like logos, visual instructions, text illustrations, characterizations and catchy advertising.  Thus, artists in Augusta enjoy numerous job opportunities as commercial illustrators.

Augusta Schools and Training Programs for Illustrators

Several accredited colleges in Augusta, Georgia, not to mention uncountable private art academies, offer classes and degree courses for local aspiring illustrators.  Augusta colleges with excellent visual arts departments include Augusta State University and Augusta Technical College.  Augusta art students studying commercial illustration typically major in fine arts or graphic media design. 

Despite the many well-established local art schools at your service, more and more Augusta artists are improving their skills and earning degrees by way of online educational programs.  Popular accredited online colleges of art and design include Full Sail University, University of Phoenix, National University, The Art Institutes, ITT Tech and DeVry.  Many successful online schools also feature local campuses.  University of Phoenix has a campus in Augusta.

Working as an Illustrator in Augusta, Georgia

Companies that hire professional illustration artists include brand manufacturers, IT corporations, animation studios, law enforcement agencies and news syndicates.  Creative Augusta illustrators often find employment at local graphic design companies like Lace Graphics Design & Photo, Third Designs, Blu-Mountain Expressions, Royal Vision Graphics and Artistic Ink, for instance.  Technical illustrators sometimes work for top Augusta engineering firms like Accessone Technologies, 2KM Architects, Alan Venable Architects, Advanced Covert Technology and Alektrocon, among others. 

Professional illustrators employed full time at companies in the city of Augusta, Georgia report an average annual salary of about $41,130, with a reported mean hourly rate of around $19.75.  Augusta corporations employ approximately 250 full time professional graphic designers (includes digital artists as well as illustrators).  These figures do not reflect the unreported incomes of local freelance professionals.  

Skills of a Professional Illustrator

Recreational illustrators are competent artists who draw and color with artistic flair, often with a favorite medium, subject and style.  On the other hand (no pun intended), professional illustrators consistently create innovative artwork in a variety of styles and media, using traditional drawing methods such as cross-hatching, shading, stippling, contouring and scaling.  Professional illustrators are also fully familiar and insanely competent with at least a few digital illustration software programs.  Among today's popular favorites are Real Draw Pro, Corel Draw, Micorsoft Expression Design, ACD Canvas, Adobe Illustrator and quite a few others.