Design salary survey

Folio: The Magazine for Magazine Management, Annual, 1995 by Jean Marie Angelo, Rachel Drucker

In a year that has seen salaries stagnate across the industry, there's some good news for the creative-design team. Many of the creative directors, art directors and associate art directors responding to FOLIO:'s first annual design department salary survey tell us that although their staff sizes have been reduced, their freelance budgets have been cut and their workloads have increased, they've at least seen some more money in the last 12 months.

In fact, designers fare better than the production, ad sales and editorial personnel surveyed for prior issues, whose 1993 salaries on average were flat. Designers at least report modest gains.

On average, the top design executives--the creative directors--report an average salary increase of 4.8 percent for 1993. The average compensation for this group is $45,596. The art directors--those reporting to the creative directors--report a salary increase of 4.7 percent, to an average of $38,729. Associate art directors report their salaries are up 11.5 percent this year, coming to an average of $36,709.

The design department professionals who resonded to our survey also report some dramatic changes in their work routines. Desktop publishing has obviously been the biggest difference, allowing magazines to bring more prepress tasks in-house, but requiring designers to learn new software programs--often without official training, according to respondents. But the sluggish economy has altered the landscape too. Some design professionals say that their production staffs have been eliminated, leaving the designers with more production details to chase than ever before.

"We brought color separations inhouse," says an art director in the Northeast, who laments that she received only a meager raise in 1993. "I do color correction that probably saves the company $100,000 annually."

"My workload has increased three-fold," says another art director on a business title. "To be honest, I'd just as soon have a larger personnel budget than a higher salary, although I wouldn't mind a raise."

Methodology

FOLIO:'s first salary survey for designers and art directors was mailed to 1,198 design professionals with two mailing efforts. Three hundred forty design professionals responded to the survey, yielding an overall response rate of 28.4 percent. Of those who responded, 331 supplied sufficient data for tabulation.

Some respondents gave expected salary and bonus ranges. In those instances, the mean was used for tabulation. Half of those who received the questionnaire work for consumer magazines; the other half work for trade publications. Thirty-five percent of the sample in each category work for magazines with circulations of 100,000 or more.

The results have been weighted to reflect the circulation percentages and the percentage of business and consumer personnel who received the survey. The results were tabulated by Accu-Tab, Bayside, New York.

CREATIVE DIRECTOR

THE CREATIVE DIRECTOR is the top creative executive responsible for the magazine's editorial art and design and layout concepts. This person is the final decision-maker for a publication's day-to-day editorial art and design work. All art department personnel report to the person in this post.

Average Salaries

($000) (Percent change from last year.)

Lowest salary reported for creative director: $19,200; highest salary: $130,000.

[CHART OMITTED]

Bigger is better and consumer pays best

SALARY BY CIRCULATION SIZE

          $37,207
  Up to
49,999
           $38,150
            $41,908
50,000-
999,999
             $44,009
               $50,089
100,000
or more
                      $64,247

Creative directors on consumer titles fare better overall than their business counterparts. On average, the salary for a creative director of a consumer magazine is 16 percent higher than the salary paid to a director at a business title.

Older directors, those who manage larger staffs, and those who handle the added responsibility of weekly or biweekly publications, are generally paid best. Ironically, though, producing more pages doesn't always bring more money. On average, creative directors who produce 1,500 or more editorial pages per year report an average salary that is 7.6 percent lower than what those who produce 1,000 to 1,499 pages earn.

FOLIO: used responses from 108 creative directors to tabulate these results.

                                           Average    Average
                                 Average   Business   Consumer
BY AGE
Up to 29                         $38,385   $33,298    $43,969
30-39                             45,304    41,517     48,080
40-49                             45,921    45,887     45,947
50 or older                       63,160    46,773     84,548
BY NUMBER OF MAGAZINES WORKED ON
One                              $43,984   $38,491    $47,452
More than one                     46,429    43,128     49,409
BY NUMBER OF EMPLOYEES SUPERVISED
None/one                         $37,685   $34,168    $40,402
2-4                               45,848    45,913     45,797
More than 4                       56,328    44,235     66,902
BY CIRCULATION
Up to 49,999                     $37,665   $37,207    $38,150
50,000-99,999                     43,107    41,908     44,009
100,000 or more                   58,925    50,089     64,247
BY FREQUENCY
Weekly/biweekly                  $49,892       (*)        (*)
Monthly                           47,370   $42,162    $54,458
Other                             42,078    37,997     43,236
BY EDITORIAL PAGES PRODUCED ANNUALLY
Up to 499                        $39,352   $41,022    $38,830
500-999                           44,604    41,524     50,086
1,000-1,499                       53,284       (*)     56,114
1,500 or more                     49,530    40,871     57,565