How To Become An Ad Designer: What It Is and Career Path

What is an ad designer and how to become one

Updated January 8, 2025

3 min read

The average ad designer salary is $88,202. The most common degree is a bachelor's degree degree with an graphic design major. It usually takes 6-12 months of experience to become an ad designer. Ad designers with a Certified Advertising Specialist (CAS) certification earn more money. Between 2018 and 2028, the career is expected to grow 3% and produce 6,800 job opportunities across the U.S.

ScoreAd DesignerUS Average

Salary

6.9

Avg. Salary $88,202

Avg. Salary $59,228

Stability Level

4.2

Growth Rate 3%

Growth Rate 0.3%

Diversity

4.5

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 0.37%

Asian 10.42%

Black or African American 3.42%

Hispanic or Latino 10.63%

Unknown 4.99%

White 70.17%

Gender

female 53.79%

male 46.21%

Age - 37

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 3.00%

Asian 7.00%

Black or African American 14.00%

Hispanic or Latino 19.00%

White 57.00%

Gender

female 47.00%

male 53.00%

Age - 37

Stress Level

4.2

Stress level is moderate

7.1 - high

Complexity Level

8.5

Complexity Level is advanced

7 - challenging

Work Life Balance

3.9

Work Life balance is poor

6.4 - fair

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Key steps to become an ad designer

Explore ad designer education requirements

Most common ad designer degrees

Bachelor's

64.8 %

Associate

23.8 %

Master's

4.1 %

Start to develop specific ad designer skills

Skills	Percentages
Animation	22.75%
Adobe Photoshop	13.51%
Print Advertisements	9.55%
Graphic Design	7.93%
Adobe Illustrator	7.47%

Complete relevant ad designer training and internships

Accountants spend an average of 1-3 months on post-employment, on-the-job training. New ad designers learn the skills and techniques required for their job and employer during this time. The chart below shows how long it takes to gain competency as an ad designer based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data and data from real ad designer resumes.

Research ad designer duties and responsibilities

Manage purchase orders, estimates, invoices, and all financial bookkeeping in QuickBooks software, including quarterly sales tax.
Email PDF'd files for customer proofs.
Train other employees to create pages using QuarkXpress.
Design company websites using HTML, XHTML, and DHTML.

Prepare your ad designer resume

When your background is strong enough, you can start writing your ad designer resume.

You can use Zippia's AI resume builder to make the resume writing process easier while also making sure that you include key information that hiring managers expect to see on an ad designer resume. You'll find resume tips and examples of skills, responsibilities, and summaries, all provided by Zippi, your career sidekick.

Choose From 10+ Customizable Ad Designer Resume templates

Build a professional Ad Designer resume in minutes. Browse through our resume examples to identify the best way to word your resume. Then choose from 10+ resume templates to create your Ad Designer resume.