5 Smart Career Choices for Creative Individuals

 

What is creativity? Simply put, it’s the ability to create something valuable, and everyone uses this skill in their own unique ways every day.

There has long been a stigma that a creative career will leave you in the poor house. While it’s true that your chosen career path has a huge effect on your earning potential, many industries prize individuals with creativity for their ability to innovate and solve problems in ways no one else could think of.

Technology has been great for creative people, providing them with an outlet to express that creativity and use it to secure work. Jobs that heavily utilize creativity could involve developing this skill during training or through formal education. Here are five exciting career paths that are ideal for creative types.

Game Designer

As a game designer, you’ll be part of a team that develops video games, and you could end up creating a game’s characters, levels, animations and more. This type of job could require coding skills in multiple programming languages.

It’s not all building video games, though. You’ll likely also need to document what’s going on with the game at every stage to keep the video game publisher happy.

A game designer position requires you to have the creativity to build new worlds that gamers enjoy. This may involve getting together with your team for creative brainstorming sessions, selling investors on your ideas, and then going through the development process.

This industry is growing at a rapid pace as the demand for new games keeps increasing. There’s plenty of room for growth as a game designer, and along the way, you’ll have the satisfaction of seeing your vision for a game come to life.

Marketing Strategist

Marketing strategy involves evaluating certain data sets, such as group statistics, economic trends and available advertising methods, to determine how a company can best achieve its goals. Sometimes the goal may be to sell as many units of a product as possible, others it could be to build a base of email subscribers.

Your day would consist of researching your company’s target market and its current marketing goals. You need to be able to find the best way for a company to reach those goals, based on what it offers and the market it’s targeting.

Adaptability is key here because your tasks could be much different from one day to the next. You may spend a couple days conducting surveys and observing consumers, then work on designing promotional materials the rest of the week. Using the information available to you to develop the right marketing strategy, all while staying in budget, will put your creative skills to the test.

Photographer

As a photographer, you’re using your camera to capture specific moments of time. There are all kinds of companies that need professional photographers, including ad agencies, fashion houses, magazines, and newspapers. You could also work with private clients, such as prospective actors in need of headshots.

There’s more to being a photographer than just buying an expensive camera. With all the professional photographers out there, competition is fierce. You need knowledge of your craft and a strong work ethic to succeed in this industry.

One of the first keys to photography is understanding light and how it affects what you’re photographing. When you’ve developed your photographic eye, you’ll need to find the right techniques in your arsenal to provide the best representation of your subject.

You may do this by adjusting shading, angles, and lines to create a better photograph. You’ll also need to choose the right lens for the job, and then touch up photographs with digital editing. The job requires that you use both your artistic vision and technical skills.

Designer

Designers take designs from concepts into something tangible that a business or client can use. Businesses in every industry you could name hire designers to bring their ideas to life. As such, there are quite a few different types of design positions available, including graphic design, fashion design, web design and interior design, to name just a few.

If you get into graphic design, you would be finding visual ways to communicate a company’s message promotionally. You’ll be handling everything from color and typography to the packaging and displays themselves.

Product design is another popular career in this industry. Most product designers start by creating sketches or models of the product idea and then adjust them after the company performs market research. As a product designer, you’d be turning a product idea into a prototype and a prototype into a marketable product.

Copywriter

When you’re a copywriter, you write text for businesses and private clients. Ad agencies always have copywriters, but there are plenty of other companies that also hire full-time copywriters. The goal is to get the reader’s attention with a memorable message.

A copywriting project starts with talking to the client to understand what he needs. To create the right message, you need to know the tone the client wants, his industry and the intended use of the text.

Copywriters need to adjust the tone of the text to fit the specific project. Some will require a humorous tone, while others will need a more professional approach.

You could end up writing content that appears on commercials, websites, billboards and much more. Many copywriters work as freelancers, but you could also land an in-house job at an ad agency to write scripts for commercial campaigns.

 

Creativity can be a valuable asset in a variety of industries. If you can approach things in a unique way, then you should look for a position that takes advantage of that.

The five careers listed above are a few excellent options to make the most of your creativity. No matter what you want to do, you just need to find out how your talents can provide value to companies or private clients.

 

Author Bio

Heather is a freelance writer in love with all things tech. She is a coffee snob who loves her job. When she’s not working, Heather likes to capture life’s little moments with her camera. You can reach Heather via Twitter.