Art Director Salary and Wage Information
| Wage Rate | Low (<10%) | Median (50%) | High (>90%) |
| Hourly Wage | $21.40 | $39.90 | $81.50 |
| Annual Wage | $44,500 | $83,000 | $169,400 |
- "Low (<10%)" indicates that 10% of workers earned less and 90% earned more.
- "Median (50%)" indicates that 50% of workers earned less and 50% earned more.
- "High (>90%)" indicates that 90% of workers earned less and 10% earned more.
- "N/A" indicates that data in not available
*The annual salary and wage data presented above represents U.S, Based workers with full-time employment and year-round schedules.
Additional Information
Art Directors create presentation approaches and design concepts for visual communications media. They typically oversee a team of designers, artists, and copy writers, ensuring that a piece of media is created according to certain criteria and standards of quality. They are responsible for deciding how to best communicate an idea or concept in a visual format, which includes choosing the various elements (such as fonts, photographs, art, and more) to include in the final product.As of 2012, the median annual wage for art directors was $80,900. The lowest ten percent of art directs earned less than $44,000 a year, while the top ten percent earned more than $163,000 a year.
For the top five industries where art directors are employed, the median annual salaries were as follows:
| Motion picture and video | $105,000 |
| Specialized design | $90,200 |
| Advertising, PR, etc. | $85,400 |
| Manufacturing | $68,200 |
| Periodicals, books, newspaper, and publishers | $67,200 |