Career Chemistry: Best Jobs for Artistic People

By Marty Nemko

Posted 7/19/07

 

Many people enjoy decorating their home, orchestrating a wardrobe, or tending a colorful garden. But for some folks, creative inclinations are much more than hobbies. True artistic types prefer jobs where they can do creative, expressive work rather than structured tasks. They think of themselves as nonconformist, artsy, and often disorganized. As part of our guide to career chemistry, we've highlighted these top career picks for people with the artistic temperament:

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Landscape architect. With just a bachelor's degree, you can be designing resorts, industrial parks, and rich people's backyards. And today's hottest religion is environmentalism, so many landscape architects work in fields like coastal habitat restoration.
 
Literature or arts teacher. Teaching is one of the few bastions of job security for artistic types. Job availability is expected to be better in colleges than in K-12 schools. In addition to art talent and teaching ability, a knack for dealing with unruly students comes in handy.


Graphic designer
Here's the catch: You must be an artist who accepts the reality that the best shot at making a living in your field is to design ads, magazine pages, and websites. And keep in mind that even though computers are now the predominant tools of the trade — and they can do wonders—excellent freehand drawing skills are still essential.
 
Director
Most director gigs are far from the Hollywood studios. Plays, movies, commercials, instructional and promotional videos, and TV shows—including local, cable, and satellite TV productions—all need directors. So do direct-to-Web videos, like many on YouTube. And relatively few people have the right mix of skills. A director must be able to manage a complex project with diverse and often temperamental casts and crew members. The job also requires an artistic and literary bent, along with knowledge of sets, lighting, sound, costumes, music, and choreography.

Producer. Most productions need, well, a producer. This entrepreneur comes up with the idea, raises the money, hires the director, makes or approves key hiring decisions, and makes the business decisions throughout the production.
 
Interior designer. Partway between an interior decorator and an architect, interior designers figure out how to make a space functional and beautiful. While they may suggest finishes for floors, walls, and windows, they're as likely to recommend where to knock down a wall (without the building collapsing). A bachelor's degree should suffice, as long as it's from a program accredited by the American Society of Interior Designers.
 
Editor. Most editors do much more than processcopy. They also choose which stories to pursue, select writers, and occasionally attain the wordsmith's holy grail—writing about the things that really interest them, knowing it will get published. The job market will probably be best for Web editors with expertise in both video and text.

Perfumer. What do laundry products, candles, lotions, and colognes have in common? Their fragrance was created by a perfumer. Most members of this small but enjoyable profession learn via an apprenticeship, such as Procter & Gamble's. Jobs aren't terribly plentiful, but it's great work if you can get it.

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