Graphic design is one of the most in-demand design jobs out there. You’ll find an opening in just about every industry.
In fashion, graphic designers can do various work, such as marketing materials, print designs, packaging design, and so much more.
While most of my 15+ year career in the industry was as a “fashion designer,” I did quite a bit of fashion graphic design as well.
But since I am just one person, I surveyed over a hundred fashion professionals and freelancers in different roles, including fashion graphic designers, to make this article more accurate and share others’ experiences.
I’ll tell you everything I’ve learned through my own experience and what I learned from my survey with other professionals – from their day to day work and responsibilities. And if you’re interested in becoming one, I’ll share a guide on how to get started (including how much money you can earn!).
What Does a Fashion Graphic Designer Do?
Fashion graphic designers create images and designs that you see on clothing, websites, social media, and advertisements. They work closely with the design team, including fashion designers and marketers to make sure everything looks on brand and appealing to customers.
A fashion graphic designer’s scope of work may differ depending on the brand they’re working for, but here are their key roles:
- Creating Visual Brand Identities: Fashion graphic designers develop visual elements that define a brand, including logo design, color schemes, and typography.
- Designing Marketing Materials: Marketing materials such as banners, posters, brochures, and promotional materials. These may be used in both digital and print media to promote fashion collections, sales, and events.
- Designing Apparel Graphics: Creating prints, patterns, and other fashion graphics for clothing and accessories.
- Designing Apparel Trims: Creating custom branded accessories like buttons, zipper pulls, hang tags, and labels, incorporating the brand’s logo or custom shapes and marks.
- Digital Content Creation: Digital content for websites and social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, etc. This may include designing website layouts, social media posts, email newsletters, and online advertisements.
- Product Packaging and Labeling: Design product packaging and labels that reflect the brand’s identity and meet the product’s technical specifications.
- Trend Analysis and Research: Just like fashion apparel designers, fashion graphic designers need to stay updated with fashion trends and reflect this in their work.
It sounds like a lot! And it can be. Depending on the size of the brand, a fashion graphic designer’s role may be more specific or more broad. In a smaller brand, you’ll likely do alllll these things. But in a bigger brand, there could be multiple fashion graphic designers, each responsible for a smaller subset of more closely related tasks.
Nida Zulfiqar is an example of the latter with a more specific role. Nida is a Freelance Surface Pattern Designer who focuses on creating full repeat patterns for home and apparel fabrics. You can check out Nida’s work on Instagram.
A fashion graphic designer and a textile or surface pattern designer may have crossover in their roles. Depending on the brand or person, it could be the same job duties with just a different title. You can learn more about what a textile designer does in my Ultimate Guide to Becoming A Textile Designer.
Graphic Designer vs Fashion Designer
It’s not uncommon to see a designer doing both jobs when working for a fashion brand or a freelance client – but these two roles are entirely different.
Fashion graphic designers create visuals for fashion brands – which can include logos, website layouts, marketing materials, and garment prints. Their role is to make appealing and cohesive brand visuals that may be used online or printed on packaging or garments.
On the other hand, fashion designers design clothing and accessories – they focus on the style, silhouette, fabric, and functionality. They create garments that will be produced by manufacturers.
Fashion graphic designers and fashion designers work together closely. For example, while a fashion designer / technical fashion designer creates the garment specs for a t-shirt, a fashion graphic designer may create an AOP (All-Over Print) for it.
Fashion graphic designers and fashion designers may also collaborate on other projects such as marketing materials, packaging, labels, and trims – making sure that the products reflect the visual identity of the brand and also meet the technical specifications needed.
Aileen Holmes, a Freelance Graphic Designer from New York, shares how she works with a team when creating her designs.
“Admin/emails and marketing/outreach take a lot of time. When I actually get to the fun stuff, I work with a fashion designer and art director to get the vision of the line, collecting assets, and do a rough layout of graphics to ensure balance of art types (i.e. large character, small character, multi-character, verbiage-focused). Then I focus on AOPs (all over prints a.k.a. repeat patterns/textile designs).
When everything looks good, I send it out for a first round of reviews. The next day would be revisions and new graphics if some were rejected. Rinse and repeat until final approval. Some jobs would entail tech packs, but most of the time the art is handed off to the screen printing separators to prepare for printing.”
Check out Aileen’s website here.
How Do You Get a Job as a Fashion Graphic Designer?
1. Gain Experience in Graphic Design
Practical experience matters the most to become a fashion graphic designer. While a degree provides a foundation, real-world opportunities like internships, freelancing, and even having some personal projects are essential.
Your experience doesn’t always have to be directly in fashion, like Linda Briggs, who started out by hand painting floral designs before she transitioned to apparel (then to a freelance role).
“My first job was hand painting florals at a studio in New York in 2000. Then back in the U.K. I learned Photoshop and Illustrator and landed a role designing kids t-shirt graphics. Then many graphics roles – swimwear, nightwear, lingerie, bedding, finally babywear for a major retailer. However I got made redundant from this job. My kids were young so I decided to try freelance and got lucky with this graphics role.”
You can check Linda’s website here.
Many companies also offer graphic design internships, but if it’s hard for you to find one, creating personal projects is always an option.
2. Learn Graphic Design Software
Become proficient in graphic design software such as Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, and InDesign. Learning these tools is a must as they are industry standards and essential for fashion graphic designers.
This was one of the top tips that the fashion graphic designers we interviewed said in our survey.
“Learn Photoshop and Illustrator thoroughly, and keep upskilling in them. These 2 are the bread and butter of design in the digital world. Learn other Adobe softwares like After-Effects and InDesign.” – Vanshika Gupta, Fashion Graphic Designer
“Learn Illustrator and master those curves and points. You’ll be very happy when you draw your silhouettes and be able to shape them the way you feel it’s the best fit.” – Christina Ward, Freelance Print Designer
3. Build a Graphic Design Portfolio
Develop a portfolio showcasing a variety of your work – this may include logos, marketing materials, digital content, and garment prints. If possible, focus your projects on fashion-related designs to build a portfolio specific to the industry.
You can also join websites like Behance or Dribbble to showcase your work and connect with potential clients or employers.
If you’re not sure what to put in your portfolio, then you can check my Ultimate Guide to Creating Your Fashion Portfolio.
And if you’re in need of some inspo, here are 13 Fashion Design Portfolio Examples (that resulted in PAID work). That list includes this fun (and profitable!) textile design portfolio by Andressa Iop, a freelance kidswear apparel and textile designer.
How Much Money Does a Fashion Graphic Designer Make?
According to Glassdoor and Zip Recruiter, fashion graphic designers working in the USA can earn around $40,000 to $66,000 annually (including cash bonuses) and charge an average hourly rate of $27. These figures can go up or down depending on the company, area, and also your skills and experience.
But there’s so much more opportunity (and earning potential) in fashion graphic design outside of corporate work.
For reference, the fashion graphic designers we surveyed earn around $23 – $100 doing freelance work.
Among them is Ferdinand Onandia, a Freelance Graphic Designer who works on apparel and other merchandise. Ferdinand has over 20 years of experience in the apparel licensing industry, and now earns $100 an hour working freelance.
Atara Himmel, a New York based graphic designer specializing in brand design (whom I’ve personally hired and RECOMMEND) got a $1500 retainer just for a single client.
While you can charge by the hour or land retainers, some also charge per pattern, like Diane Pascual, a Surface Pattern Designer who charges $300 per design.
If you’re unsure how much to charge, here are 3 ways to calculate your rates (and a bunch more pricing examples from real-life freelancers in fashion).
Working Freelance as a Fashion Graphic Designer
Even in freelancing, graphic design is still one of the most in-demand jobs in the design industry. This, of course, includes fashion.
Working freelance means you can choose your projects, set your rates, and control your creative process (while working at home!).
But of course, there are challenges too. Dealing with client negotiations and managing finances is now part of your job description. Plus, finding consistent work requires networking skills and self-promotion.
If you want some insider insights, in this podcast ep with Surface Pattern Designer and Pattern Maker Vanessa Dawson, we share practical tips for freelancers who want to reach out to clients (and get responses) – along with other helpful practices on navigating freelancing platforms like Upwork.
We also had some interesting stories from our survey, so I want to share a few from freelance graphic designers.
Christina Ward, a Freelance Print Designer shares how she transitioned from an assistant designer to a freelance graphic designer.
“I was an assistant designer that involved too much paperwork and sample tracking and I just started to experiment with Photoshop and scanning b/w flat sketches to fill them with prints and textures, embroidery, you name it. Really started to get into it, so [I] was looking for a job like that. It got me a job [called] graphic designer for children’s clothing 😊. Awful place it was but I learnt AI and mastered the brazier curves and all that manipulation with the curves/points”
After gaining experience working corporate, Christina now works freelance and charges $45-55 an hour for her services. When asked about her day to day as a freelancer:
“[My day-to-day involves] working closely with Designers and Sales to accomplish prints and silhouettes that are in demand by the customer. Or there could be days when just working on production art, solving challenges of complex prints that need appropriate color reduction + make it look beautiful and salable with limited colors. 😊
Creating hang tags/labels for the brand for each season. That’s why I love CAD design because it is very versatile, you don’t just do one type of work Eg. Creating just prints.”
You can connect with Christina here.
There’s also Kirsty Milloy, a Freelance Fashion Print Designer from Italy. In her story, she shares how she manages work and life as a freelancer and mom.
“I work from my home studio so after a coffee and breakfast I’m checking emails to see if any client’s have come back with amendments or if there is new’s from the fashion print studio. No, sigh, I haven’t sold any prints while I was sleeping, so back to work.”
“I’m working on illustrations for a kidswear client so I get to painting while listening to podcasts. I remember to take videos and photos while I’m working so I have future content for social media. It’s a tight deadline so I’m focused until it’s time to pick up my kids from school.”
Kirsty started out as a junior in a fashion manufacturer when she saw an opening in the graphic design department. Her love for drawing, color, and patterns pushed her to pursue the role and ultimately work as a freelancer after gaining experience in corporate work.
Now, Kirst gets paid around $3,200 per project while having time to balance her work and mom duties.
And when asked about her top tips working as a freelance fashion graphic designer:
“1. Do passion projects. Set briefs for yourself as it’s a great way to boost your portfolio.
2. Ask for help. People are very willing to give you advice and tips, you just have to be willing to DM or email and ask.
3. Don’t wait for inspiration to strike. Build systems into your design process so you don’t feel overwhelmed.”
Get in touch with Kirsty through her LinkedIn.
If you want the full step-by-step process, get started with my free guide to freelancing in fashion.
