Info on Working as an Illustrator in New Orleans, Louisiana

The city of New Orleans, Louisiana is known for its thriving arts culture.  Numerous local visual artists, especially those with a talent for illustration, consistently find employment among the city's nearly 45,000 commercial businesses.  Commercial illustrators draw everything from animated art to zoology charts and many other business-related visual creations.

New Orleans Schools and Training Programs for Illustrators

New Orleans is home to several design colleges and uncountable private art studios offering classes and degree programs in commercial illustration.  Aspiring local illustrators typically major in visual arts or communications design.  Highly respected New Orleans graphic art schools include University of New Orleans, Xavier University, Loyola University, Tulane University and Delgado Community College.

Nevertheless, New Orleans artists of growing proportions continue to earn professional degrees online.  Popular accredited online schools of fine arts include National University, Post University, Full Sail University, Stratford Career Institute, DeVry, University of Phoenix, The Art Institutes and ITT Tech.  Conveniently, quite a few accredited online schools also provide local campuses and other resource facilities. 
 
Working as an Illustrator in New Orleans, Louisiana

Talented local illustrators in New Orleans, Louisiana mainly do freelance work for businesses like product manufacturers, mobile service providers, programmers, greeting card companies and art schools.  Some local artists create commercial illustrations for graphic design firms like Advanced-Document-Management-Solutions, Champion-Graphics, Diversified-Specialty-Printing, Signs-Now and Zehno, for instance.

Other New Orleans artists draw technical diagrams for local engineering firms like C.H.-Fenstermaker, Innovation Group, Lambert Engineers, Morphy-Makofsky and Schrenk-&-Peterson, among others.  Some illustration artists design anatomy charts for medical illustration companies like Horn-Medical, Franklin-Medical-Services or Medical-Systems-Associates. 

Recent reports from the Bureau of Labor Statistics indicate that professional illustrators employed full time in the city of New Orleans, Louisiana claim an average annual monetary compensation of about $41,650, with a reported mean hourly rate of about $20.00.  These figures do not apply to local freelance illustrators. 

Skills of a Professional Illustrator

Professional illustration artists are versatile creative specialists whose job it is to draw detailed, specific, recognizable images.  The “average” professional illustrator is able to work in a broad range of styles and subjects.  Depending on personal style, talented illustrators might be technical draftsmen, caricaturists, comic book artists or textile print designers, all with unique, quirky flair.  Most illustrators are fully familiar with illustration software applications as well as with traditional drawing implements.  Popular professional illustration design software programs include Toon Boom Digital Pro, Arts-Letters, e-Picture Pro, 3D Studio Max and Autodesk Sketchbook.