Surface Pattern Design Jobs: Which Path is Right for You?

Thinking about a career in surface pattern design but not sure which path is right for you?

In this post, I explain each type of job, what it entails, and some factors that might make it a fit for you. I’m only discussing surface pattern jobs where someone else is creating the end product for your art. If you’re not interested in sourcing and producing your own products to sell through online shops and wholesale, these are the most popular career options for you.

I’m giving you the rundown of each job below, but you’ll definitely want to watch this video for a detailed discussion of each job, its typical duties, and if it’s right for you.

?? CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE SURFACE PATTERN DESIGN JOBS REFERENCE GUIDE & GET MY SUGGESTIONS FOR NEXT STEPS. ??

1. In-House Company Designer?

Most big brands have an in-house design team. These designers create or purchase art for products, working within seasonal trend and color guidelines. They are salaried employees.

DESIGN DUTIES CAN INCLUDE:

• Production Work, Design Work, Trend Research (peep the video above for more details on what this really amounts to)

HOW DO YOU KNOW IF IN-HOUSE WORK IS FOR YOU?

YOU LIVE NEAR A COMPANY THAT DESIGNS PRODUCTS

While some companies may work remotely, design work tends to make heavy use of professional-grade printers, presentation boards, software -- so living within commuting distance of a company is usually necessary. In the US, New York and LA have a ton of options. But those aren’t your only options. There are likely companies near you that do private label work that you may not even know about because the industry is VAST.???

YOU’RE NEWER AND WANT TO LEARN THE INDUSTRY

I cannot recommend working in-house enough if you’ve never designed for product before. It’s truly an education. And while it’s not 100% necessary to do, if at all possible, having a corporate job for a few years before going solo is an excellent way to learn about things you’d never discover otherwise.?

YOU WANT TO SEE YOUR WORK IN STORES, BUT YOU UNDERSTAND THAT YOU WON’T BE RECOGNIZED FOR YOUR WORK

When you work as a salaried employee for a company that produces products, chances are your work will make it to store shelves. And that’s one of the most gratifying parts of any surface pattern designer’s job. That said, in almost all cases, all work you create as an employee is not owned by you, it’s owned by the company you work for and distributed under the company’s name.?

YOU NEED THE TYPE OF SECURITY THAT CORPORATE BENEFITS AND FULL-TIME INCOME INCLUDES

There’s no doubt that security is a huge pro to working as a salaried employee. While the job may get repetitive after a while, those regular paychecks are a great way to predict your financial future. And, benefits like subsidized health care and paid time off are things every freelancer wishes they enjoyed.??

YOU DON’T HAVE A SET STYLE OR YOU’RE SKILLED IN A LOT OF AREAS

Flexibility is the name of the game when you work in-house. Unless your company is known for a very signature look (i.e. Lilly Pulitzer) you’ll be asked to design for a range of products with a range of styles, so the ability to create designs in various styles is a must-have skill set. (Michael Zindell and I talked about this more in my recent blog How to Get Noticed as a Surface Pattern Designer: Design Director's Advice.)

2. Freelance Designer

You might hear a freelance surface pattern designer referred to as a contract designer or work for hire designer. There are a number of names for this type of work. When companies don’t have a design team that’s big enough to meet their need for art or have projects that require specific styles of art, they hire designers on a contract basis. Any art produced in this role is usually owned by the company.

DESIGN DUTIES CAN INCLUDE:

• Production Work, Design Work, Trend Research. Very similar to that of an in-house designer.?

HOW DO YOU KNOW IF FREELANCE DESIGN IS FOR YOU?

YOU WANT TO SEE YOUR WORK IN STORES, BUT DON'T CARE ABOUT FAME AND FORTUNE

Similar to an in-house designer, a contract or freelance designer creates art for companies under the company name and often doesn’t retain the rights to their art. Copyright retention is always a negotiable aspect of the job, but many companies solely work with designers who are willing to create art for the company’s use only.?

YOU'RE CONFIDENT IN YOUR SKILLS

An in-house designer needs to have a portfolio that will get them through the interview stage. As a freelancer, it can be hard to determine when exactly your skills are up to par and you’re ready to look for freelance design work. My advice would be to objectively look at the market. Can you find examples of artwork on products in retail stores that are at the same skill level as your current portfolio? If so, you’re more than ready!?

If there’s still a big skill disconnect between your art and what’s being sold in stores, keep practicing. Give yourself assignments in your chosen product category.?Here’s an example: “Design a set of four throw pillows for an outdoor living collection for World Market”. Then go over to World Market’s website and see how you can emulate the look or come up with something new. This will help you build your portfolio and get you ready for freelance work.

YOU'RE WILLING TO BE IN IT FOR THE LONG HAUL

Building up a steady client base on freelance work takes time. It can take two to three years to build a steady income. When I transitioned into freelance work from in-house, I thought it might be as simple as finding three or four clients that wanted help every season — and I’d be set forever. But of course, it wasn’t that easy. Clients’ needs fluctuate, finding clients that need regular work and have a healthy budget can be tricky, and maintaining those relationships over the long term is essential to keeping a client roster stacked. Know that it can take a while to build up to steady work.

YOU'RE WILLING TO SELL YOURSELF

There’s just no way around it. As a designer who is not on a full-time payroll, you have to learn to confidently pitch your services to potential clients. Many artists wish it was as simple as putting work on Instagram consistently and attracting clients with your witty captions, but very few people succeed in that way. If you’ve never sent an email or DM to a company to pitch yourself, it can seem daunting. But I promise it gets easier as you do it more often.?If you’re struggling with this, sign up to join my free Masterclass: Find Your First Surface Pattern Design Client: Three Ways to Jump Start Your Career. I’ll be sharing all my best tips and techniques for finding freelance work and you won’t want to miss it!

YOU ENJOY CLIENT BRIEFS AND INTERACTION, HAVING THE GUIDANCE OF AN ART DIRECTOR?

As a freelancer, you get all types of client briefs and trend boards to provide you with direction. And while you want to submit a quality design the first time around, if your art doesn’t quite hit the mark, you’ll have an art director to suggest edits. That type of support can be welcomed if you’re more used to art licensing (more on that just below), where art direction is 90% self-guided. It can be nice to have someone give you some feedback and help guide your designs.

3. Licensed Artist

Licensing is when a company uses an artist’s designs for a set amount of time for a set product line. The company pays an artist for their work based on royalties (a percentage of sales.) This art is still owned by the artist.

DESIGN DUTIES CAN INCLUDE:

• Design Work (mostly), Production Work, Trend Research

WONDERING IF LICENSING IS FOR YOU? HERE ARE SOME INDICATORS:

YOU WANT TO SEE YOUR WORK IN STORES, AND YOU WANT EVERYONE TO KNOW IT’S YOUR WORK

Finally, you have the opportunity to plaster your name all over your art! If you’re looking for name recognition, licensing is the avenue for you! While not every licensed product makes a huge deal over the artist (sometimes you just get a small copyright notice on the back) in most licensing deals, you are named somewhere. SO. BALLER. ??

YOU'VE GOT A RELATIVELY SET STYLE*?

It’s traditional wisdom that having a defined style is a benefit in licensing. In theory, if your style is recognizably you and that style is on-trend, manufacturers will come to you for that style. A great example of this is Jessi Raulet of EttaVee, who has a super colorful brushstroke painterly style that is very recognizable. If you’re a manufacturer who creates water bottles and you see this fabulous art on notebooks and check the name, you might then contact Jessi to license her art for your water bottles. *You don’t?have?to have a set style but in licensing, it seems to be a faster route to success.

YOU'RE WILLING TO BE IN IT FOR THE LONG HAUL

Finding licensing work isn’t necessarily more difficult than finding freelance client work. In fact, it may be easier in some regards, but it requires infinitely more patience. Because unlike freelancing, in most cases in the current licensing climate, you don’t get ANY payments until after the artwork has been chosen, contracts signed, product has been set up for manufacturing, produced, and shipped to retailers.?

Even then, depending on your contract, it could be up to three more months before your first royalty check comes in. So, if you sign six licensing contracts in 2021 (congrats!), it may be as long as 2023 until payment comes in. BANANAS, amirite?

YOU ARE A DESIGN SELF-STARTER AND ALWAYS HAVE A MILLION IDEAS THAT YOU CAN’T WAIT TO EXECUTE

You’re that artist who can’t wait to find some free time to experiment with new art supplies and you’ve got a running list of theme ideas you can’t wait to design illustrations and patterns around. (BTW, if this is you, get yourself into my masterclass so I can help you find your first surface pattern design client like yesterday!) You don’t need the guidance of an art director because you like to do it your way and it’s so fab when you do! Or if you’re like me, you like a break from creative briefs of freelance work to do whatever you want on occasion.?

YOU’RE WILLING TO MARKET YOURSELF

No getting around this one, as a licensed artist *even if you have an agent*?you need to be able to clearly highlight your skillset to licensing partners and show them new work regularly?

YOU’RE OK WITH GETTING DEEP WITH CONTRACTS OR GETTING AN AGENT

Make no mistake, you need contracts in ALL of these jobs. DO NOT start creating art that you intend to get paid for without one. That said, when freelancing, you usually only need to negotiate contracts at the start of a working relationship with a client. Which, if you can find those repeat clients, is less frequent than in licensing when you work with lots of new companies all the time and need a contract for all of them.?

I’m not the most successful licensed artist and I have about 30 active contracts and a variety of “presenting work” type contracts. The choice is totally personal and depends on what your priorities are. But for me, I started licensing by signing with an agency and have chosen to pass the contract end of it off to them. Curious as to what the benefits and drawbacks are of having an agent? Check out my video on the subject.?

4. Studio Designer

This could be an in-house or remote position. Studios have large collections of art that product-based companies can purchase for their own usage. Neither the individual artist nor the design studios retain the rights to the artwork. In-house and freelance are different in that in-house work is salaried and freelance is typically based on commission upon selling, so it is technically spec work. I debate the pros and cons of this aspect of studio design work in my Earning for Design Studios course. I don’t typically recommend spec work in general, but this is an exception where there are a lot of factors working for you.

DESIGN DUTIES CAN INCLUDE:

• Design Work (mostly), Production Work

HOW DO YOU KNOW THIS IS THE RIGHT PATH FOR YOU?

YOU WANT TO SEE YOUR WORK IN STORES, BUT DON'T CARE ABOUT FAME AND FORTUNE

Back to that old chestnut. It’s true that most of the beautiful products out there aren’t going to have your name on them. Licensing is the only avenue for that recognition and in so many cases we see in stores, bigger name licensed brands, like Martha Stewart Bedding, are not designed by the name on the product. They are designed by people like you and me, who have an excellent surface pattern skill set. When you design for studios, it depends on your contract, but you may be under a non-disclosure agreement and might not even be able to mention it if your art makes it to stores after it’s bought.?

YOU'RE CONFIDENT IN YOUR SKILLS

To sell your work, it’s got to be marketable. Right? Pretty straightforward here.?

YOU'RE NOT INTERESTED IN CONSTANTLY PROMOTING YOUR OWN WORK

You like to do the designs, get your cut and move on.?Once you partner with a studio, they take your work and sell it to their clients. You don’t have to worry about that part, which is one of my favorite parts of designing for studios.?

YOU ENJOY GETTING TREND DIRECTION AND WORKING IN A NUMBER OF STYLES, HAVING THE GUIDANCE OF AN ART DIRECTOR

Similarly to freelance, studios often have trend direction, need a variety of styles in their collection and may give you art direction as you submit your work.

YOU’RE OKAY WITH ONE-AND-DONE ART CREATION

The reason most people love art licensing is that there is a potential for your artwork to live on. You can license the same art on multiple products for the rest of your life because you’re really just ‘renting’ the art out to manufacturers. With all the other jobs I’ve discussed, you’re creating work that is then used (or sometimes, not used) by the companies you’re designing for, and you can’t use them for other purposes.

Working for a studio, you’ll create art that is hopefully sold, and you won’t retain the rights. There is a lot of discussion about this is the art and surface pattern world — that work-for-hire and selling your copyright to your art isn’t beneficial to the artist. Well, I’d say it is not AS beneficial maybe, but I look it at it a different way. Yes, it would be great if I had work that just licensed over and over and paid all my bills. But the McDonald’s logo designer didn’t get to sell the golden arches to 15 other companies and get a nickel every time it’s used on a burger wrapper. As a surface pattern designer, you are creating work for products and your art is your service or product. So you have to be comfortable creating it, getting paid for it, and moving on.

5. Print on Demand (POD) and Microstock Artists

POD or “print on demand” are companies where you can upload your artwork and set up a shop front. Consumers can then directly purchase art that’s printed on products by the platform. Popular examples of this are Redbubble, Spoonflower, Society6 and Minted. But there are approximately one million POD companies out there, so there are lots of opportunities.

Microstock sites are platforms where you upload your art and companies or individuals by the digital artwork to use on their own products. Examples include Shutterstock, Creative Market, and Dreamstime.?

For both POD and Microstock sites, artists mainly retain the rights to their artwork, and they earn a small commission each time their work is purchased. There are definitely different strategies for success on POD vs Microstock platforms, but I’m grouping them as one because essentially the format is the same: upload work and get paid.?

WHAT ARE SOME INDICATORS THAT THIS IS RIGHT FOR YOU?

DESIGN DUTIES CAN INCLUDE:

• Design Work (mainly), Production & File Management Work

YOU’RE NOT INTO GATEKEEPERS

Look I get it, you want to be earning money with your art YESTERDAY. And finding work in surface pattern, if you hadn’t noticed a theme, generally takes patience. That’s why so many designers start with POD and Microstock sites. Both types of companies often have a low barrier to entry — often it’s just as hard as uploading your art and starting an account. Or it may entail uploading your work to be reviewed and voted on, like what’s required for Minted’s design contests.?

YOU’RE PROLIFIC AND CONSISTENT AF

Here’s the thing, the commissions are SMALL. Print on demand is better than Microstock sites, but literally last month Shutterstock lowered their commission rate from 25 cents per use to ONE SINGLE PENNY. So yea, I don’t know a ton of people who make the bulk of their money from either of these types of sites, but having lots of available work seems to be a common theme for those who have found success.?

YOU’VE GOT AN AUDIENCE AND CAN DRIVE TRAFFIC TO YOUR ART

Another common theme for success is having your own audience that you can send to purchase your work on fabrics, wall art prints or digital downloads. That low barrier of entry is a double-edged sword because the markets are flooded with shops from every would-be designer. So to see steady success, you need consistency and fans who are interested enough in what you do to click through and buy from your collection. Otherwise, you’re at the mercy of each site’s search engine and that’s likely not enough.?

YOU’RE SELF-MOTIVATED AND DON’T NEED ART DIRECTOR GUIDANCE FOR A GREAT DESIGN

As your store grows, you may start to get requests but expect to mainly be thinking of and executing your designs with no real external feedback for a while. Even analytics and sales won’t be a strong indicator at first because of course, it takes time to get traction, even with the best designs.?

PATIENCE, AGAIN

Sensing a theme here? Look, I’m NOT at all known for my patience. True story, one time my manager gave me a yearly review that cited my patience and I legit hung it on the refrigerator, highlighting the patience part. I was 30 years old, not in kindergarten. This was an incredible accomplishment for me.?

So I get it, I want everyone to be profitable last month. And not just profitable like making three pennies a day *cough* Shutterstock *cough*, profitable like you don’t need a side job to support your pattern design job. But definitely this route is a slow go if you don’t already have an audience for your work.??

SO MANY GREAT OPTIONS. WHERE DO YOU START?

I hope doing a bit of a deep dive into all of the surface pattern design job options provides you with some clarity. The reality is, it’s more than likely that you’ll be doing a combination of these options at any one time. When I worked in-house, I also did some freelancing in my time off. Once I left in-house work, I started with finding freelance work and studio work, added in licensed work, and have tried some elements of POD and microstock throughout the years.?

If all this has you feeling SO OVERWHELMED because how are you going to find work in even one of these ways, never mind five different ways? Do not shut off your computer and walk into moving traffic right now. I promise I can help you. Take a deep breath. The truth is success in all of these opportunities starts with only a few things.?Help is here! I’m offering up two free resources for you below…

The Surface Pattern Design Jobs Reference Guide

Here’s the first one: I created a quick and easy-reference guide to all five surface patterns design jobs — just for you! Download your copy and you’ll also receive ideas for next steps and suggestions on how to break it all down.?

Click here to grab your free guide now.

Free Masterclass: Find Your First Surface Pattern Design Client: Three Ways to Jump Start Your Freelance Career

And the second resource - a free masterclass. Learn my top 3 tips for getting freelance surface pattern design work, from my 8 years of experience as a professional freelance designer.

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This article was originally published on ElizabethSilver.com - Surface Pattern Design Jobs: Which Path is Right for You?