Tips on Becoming an Illustrator in New York City

New York City is one of the best places in America to find high paying work in the field of graphic design.  New York City supports more than 350,000 corporations and private companies in need of commercial graphic artists, especially those with a genuine talent for illustration.

New York City Schools and Training Programs for Illustrators

New York City has more design colleges, Universities and independent art studios than any other city in the nation.  Aspiring local illustrators have ample access to a full range of classes, workshops and degree courses in commercial graphics.  New York City colleges with fine arts divisions include Marymount Manhattan College, Fashion Institute of Technology, Pace University, School of Visual Arts, The New School and several dozen more. 

Other New York City artists obtain technical skills and degrees online.  Prosperous accredited online graphic arts colleges include the Academy of Art University, Post University, DeVry, Full Sail University, Stratford Career Institute, University of Phoenix, The Art Institutes and ITT Tech.  Particularly popular are the online schools that provide supplemental local campuses.  The Art Institute has a New York City campus.  DeVry has three New York City area locations, two in Manhattan and one in Queens.

Working as an Illustrator in New York City

Numerous New York City commercial illustrators create conceptual artwork for local graphic design companies like ACA Graphics, Unimac Graphics and Xtreme Graphics in Manhattan, Micah Graphics in Brooklyn and Adron Graphics in Jamaica (Queens).  Other local illustrators draw technical visuals for major engineering firms like Fay-Spofford-&-Thorndike, Feld-Kaminetsky-&-Cohen, Arora-&-Associates, BAC-Killam and Lilker-Consulting-Engineers, among others.  Precision illustrators are sometimes employed by medical illustration services such as Sabuda-Illustration and Artworks-Illustration in Manhattan or Medical-and-Scientific-Illustration on Staten Island.  Other New York City corporations that hire illustrators include educational media producers, mobile service providers, toy companies, advertising agencies and web consultants. 

The estimated average annual income for a full time professional illustrator in the Nassau-Suffolk metro area is roughly $37,440, with a reported mean hourly wage of around $18.00.      The aforementioned statistical area employs roughly ninety full time illustrators, not including local freelancers.

Skills of a Professional Illustrator

Professional illustrators are visual artists whose job it is to translate written or verbalized concepts into universally recognizable visual form.  They are known for their stylistic versatility, able to adjust their method and styles to accommodate each new project.  Illustrators are typically proficient with all traditional drawing methods as well as with digital illustration design software like Corel Draw, Diagram Designer, Adobe Dimensions, Freehand and Inkscape.