How to Pivot Your Career from a Graphic Designer to Creative Director
Are you a graphic designer considering a career shift into a creative director role?
Keep reading — this blog is for you.
“Creative Director” sometimes feels like an elite position, only achievable for nepo-babies living in Manhattan high-rise lofts.
I’m here to tell you that isn’t true.
First of all, if you want something and believe in yourself, anything is possible. There are abundant opportunities available, and with the right perspective and focus, the universe always delivers.
I challenge you to let go of harmful preconceived notions that you may hold about growing your creative career.
You don’t need a specific series of job titles or earned degrees to become a creative director. In fact, indirect career paths teach valuable lessons and develop diverse transferable skills.
Your experience and attitude are the most important attributes during a career transition.
Take Michelle, for example. She landed her dream creative leadership role at Microsoft and credits an attitude shift as part of the process. “I just had NO confidence in so many areas. Once I started trusting myself, things started to fall into place.”
Secondly, your background as a graphic designer is an incredible foundation for a career as a creative director.
How being a graphic designer sets you up for success as a creative director
Like any leadership position, soft skills are crucial for a successful creative director candidate.
Yes, specific hard skills benefit a creative director, but understanding how to motivate people, collaborate, and execute a creative vision sets a candidate apart from the crowd.
Good news for you! As a graphic designer, you’ve developed an impressive professional creative toolkit of soft and hard skills, all essential to further your career.
These are the skills you will want to highlight on your graphic designer-to-creative director resume.
You have kick-ass communication skills: Graphic design is ultimately a form of communication. You translate information into visually compelling designs that are easily understood. Plus, you have to communicate clearly with your team and clients.
Resume keyword: Client Communication
You understand client goals: To successfully execute a design project, you must be adept at uncovering and understanding your client’s goals. Every creative professional is gifted at sifting through client comments and ideas to pinpoint their true project needs. This becomes even more important as a creative director. Whether working in-house or at an agency, creative directors are tasked with breaking down creative briefs for their teams to ensure client needs are met.
Resume keyword: Solving Creative Briefs
You understand the target audience: Every design serves a specific purpose for a targeted group of people. Great design is tailored to the needs and desires of the audience, further supporting client goals. Whether a brand logo meant to attract potential customers, a menu designed to be easily read, or a paid advertisement campaign, a graphic designer must know deeply who their design will engage with.
Resume keyword: Trend + Market Research
You manage projects like a pro: Creative projects have many moving parts, collaborators, and deadlines. Whether you think of yourself this way, most graphic designers are also project managers. You have to be able to identify priorities, establish deadlines, and keep everything on track. This skill set is especially valuable for a creative director, because you’ll be managing your team’s project tasks on top of your own.
Resume keyword: Creative Project Management
Maybe this goes without saying, but you’re creative AF: You’ve developed efficient techniques for brainstorming, and more impressively, you can identify strong ideas over weak ones. As a creative director, you’ll need to be able to motivate your team, and encourage idea generation and execution.
Resume keyword: Creative Strategy + Concepting
You make important decisions: The design process includes numerous decisions: color palette, layout, imagery, font, graphics, and more. You’ve become adept at making choices that result in a kick-ass final project deliverable. The importance and impact of your decisions will grow as you step into your creative director role.
Resume keyword: Data-driven Decision Making
You’re collaborative: Creative professionals work with various client types and project scopes across departments. This means collaborative skills are important to ensure the final designs are on time and within scope while maintaining healthy work relationships. As a creative director, you’ll elevate your collaboration skills to include constructive criticism and feedback to direct and motivate your team.
Resume keyword: Cross-functional Collaboration
See? You can make this career shift from graphic designer to creative director…
Even if you’re doubting yourself right now, I challenge you to remember that any good leader continuously develops and hones their toolkit to be the best version of themselves.
Adopt that mindset. This next step is simply part of your larger journey.
Now that you’re motivated and encouraged to apply for your dream career, it’s time to develop a modern resume that not only showcases your passion, differentiators, and accomplishments but strategically positions you for creative director roles.
Keep reading to learn how to pursue and achieve your dream creative director career.
How to land your dream creative director position
1. Identify why you want to become a creative director. Understanding the “why” behind this desired career change will provide you with a clear vision of how to land a role you’re excited about.
What is attracting you to this type of role?
A great way to dive deeper into the “why” is to identify 3-5 job listings you’re interested in. What are the commonalities?
2. Understand your career impacts and contributions. Consider the roles and projects that make up your career thus far. Dive deeper than your daily tasks and responsibilities, it’s important to focus on the impact of your actions. The ability to describe how your work benefitted your employer or client will make your resume outstanding.
Did you receive awards or recognition?
What major projects did you work on?
3. Develop a personal brand. A successful career change or job search is based on marketing your accomplishments, values, and capabilities. Personal brand development requires reflection and an understanding of who you are and where you want to go, which helps you attract opportunities that resonate with you.
What are your values?
What do you want to be known for?
What’s your superpower? (What do you do better than most people?)
How do your friends describe you?
Why is personal branding so friggin’ important?
By developing a thoughtful and cohesive personal brand that authentically represents you, your confidence will skyrocket. You'll be excited to put yourself out there and do the difficult work of showing up for your career goals. You’ll be proud to share your resume, show off your website, and apply for "reach" opportunities. By knowing what you’re worth, you’ll be empowered to ask for more, and open yourself up to new enriching opportunities.
Craft your personal brand with my strategic questionnaire, designed to prompt you to dig deeper and identify what makes you so effin awesome. Access here.
4. Tap into your network. We achieve more when we welcome support, which is especially important when applying for high-level roles. If you’re like me, you strongly dislike networking. The good news is, your network is already much larger and stronger than you realize.
Consider your peers, coworkers (past and present), friends, family, and those you admire and engage with online. With platforms like LinkedIn, it’s much easier to connect meaningfully with people you’ve never met before!
Publicly share your goals, resume, and website. Not only is this a form of manifestation, but folks can’t help you if they don’t understand what you’re trying to achieve.
5. Go for it! There is no “perfect time” to apply for a new role. Sure, you need to have a strategy for success but be sure not to allow limiting beliefs or doubt hinder your progress. Through this high-vibe preparation, you’ll become more confident, strengthen your network, and attract aligned opportunities. Trust me, you will be feeling gooooood, and when your vibe is high, that’s actually the perfect time to make moves!
Are you ready to level up your career from graphic designer to creative director?
Schedule your free 15-minute kickoff call to see how I can help guide you through this challenging, but exciting, process.