Do Illustrators Need A Degree?

The second most asked question I get asked, after ‘can you draw me like one of your French girls’ is ‘where did you study?’…

Which sums up how much emphasis people put on the requirement of having a degree and on how much credit your uni gets for your current skills or career.

I didn’t actually study illustration, which always seems to shock people!

So I just wanna write a lil blog post about what a degree actually does for artists, because there’s a lot of mystery behind it, everyone thinks a degree is a requirement for you to then get into that field.

And that’s not the case!

Did what I learn at university help with my career? Nope. Do I regret going to university? Absolutely not.

I’m not going to sit here with a blanket statement and say creative degrees are useless because that’s not true, but when you’re venturing into the creative industries, it very much depends on what direction you’re wanting to go in whether a degree is needed.

The one and only time my degree’s come up was when I applied for my first job after graduation (apart from working in my dads friends fish and chippie, nepo baby whaaat) It was a social media internship and one of the requirements was a BA degree, it didn’t matter what it was in.

I walked into that interview with my 2k followers thinking I was the hot shit. Social media? Oh I know it well babes. A big part of why I got that job was because of my own (limited) experience with social media, would I still have gotten that job if I didn’t meet the degree requirement, I dunno!

That job (barely) paid my rent after I moved to London, so outside of the 9-5 I could focus on my art (and tbh mostly during the 9-5… a degree requirement for a job in London paying £14k a year is a joke) and I took what I learnt doing that job social media wise and applied it to my own art account which helped grow my reach and following.

But that’s the only time my degree has come up, did Louis Vuitton ask me where I studied, did Dior ask for my grade? Did my agent wanna see my certificate? Nope.

When you’re a freelance artist, it’s your work that matters not the journey it’s taken for you to get there. You could have a 1:1 in illustration but if you’ve got a crap portfolio, you won’t get work. Vice versa, if you got a 3rd but have an amazing portfolio, you will get work.

So when you’re a freelance artist, the degree don’t matter.

And this is what I meant by it depends on what direction you want to go in whether a degree is necessary. As you saw, even a poorly paid internship has an initial requirement of a degree.

So if you’re wanting to get a full-time role in the creative industry, a degree might be a necessity, even just as a prerequisite to get your foot in the door.

It’s unlikely to keep coming up throughout your career, but to get that initial job out of uni it might be needed. As the jobs are competitive and someone with a degree will likely get selected over someone without one, just because at the very beginning of your career there’s not a whole lot separating each candidate.

So it’s worth considering what kind of career you want, freelance or employed.

The myth I want to dispel is that a degree is the natural step in the process of getting a job, the same way apprentices or internships are in other industries.

Degrees aren’t your ticket to getting a job.

When graduating you don’t receive your diploma in your left hand and a job contract In your right.

Universities are completely separate from the companies you’re going to work for, some universities might have connections and things but completing your degree doesn’t mean a guaranteed job offer. Most of us when we leave uni are just left to do whatever, there isn’t, or at least there wasn’t when I was studying, a huge amount of post grad info, you’re left to just find your own way.

So everyone around the country who graduates in your field is released into the industry and it’s like Hunger Games but less violence and more student debt. It’s up to you to scramble and find your way, your degree can’t even be used as a shield or a sword… or whatever would work with this Hunger Games analogy.

As I said earlier I do not regret doing my degree, and you might be sitting here thinking ‘well, if a degree doesn’t matter, why didn’t you just save money and focus on your portfolio and getting work?’

And that’s because in my mind creative degrees are useful in other ways. I had 3 years to explore my craft and hone my skills whilst having a safety net. If I did an experiment and my teacher didn’t like it, was I gonna be kicked out of halls the next day? No. Was my rent still paid? Barely, but yes.

I studied fashion photography at university, it wasn’t until the end of year one I realised photography wasn’t my bag, and I don’t know if I would have come to that realisation as quickly if I had been more focused on taking jobs to pay my bills.

The artist I was at the start of my degree compared to the end was completely different.

At uni nothing I created had the pressure of having to pay my rent, so it freed up a lot of my time and energy to post on insta, email blogs, brands, magazines, and tbh that did impact my degree work because I was late or last minute a few times with projects, but that work I did outside of my degree work did far more for my career.

The benefits of doing a creative degree can be huge, you focus on honing your craft and skills, meet likeminded people, people who will be venturing into the same industry as you, have resources you wouldn’t have access to usually.

These are all benefits, but none are the expected ‘got me a job’.

Because you’re still going to have to do the work, your degree isn’t a golden ticket. If you want to be employed, you’ll still have to apply, write cover letters, and do interviews like everyone else.

And if you want to be a freelance creative, you’re still going to have to figure out how to get work, pay taxes, invoice people, promote yourself, because all of this wasn’t covered, at least not in my degree (which is why I created the business course).

The only people that have asked me where or what I studied were the general public who were intrigued at how I got into this position. Almost like they can neatly sort it away, ah he studied illustration, now he is an illustrator. But creative careers are very rarely that straight forward.

There isn’t that linear progression like there is with other roles, I studied photography, ended up doing illustration, I graduated, worked at a fish and chip shop, then got a role in social media, then became a marketing manager then did art direction then became a full time artist, it’s a convoluted journey!

I’m going back and forth a lot on here but I just wanted to write an honest outlook on what a degree actually does. So people can make an informed decision, rather than feel pressured into doing a degree because that’s the route expected of them.

It’s a personal decision and it differs person to person. Could I have made quicker progress in my career and learnt more going straight into freelancing at 18? Maybe!

Did I come out of university having a better understanding of where I saw myself, my work and my career? Absolutely.

Has having a degree been essential to my illustration career? Absolutely not.

My class in University had 24 people in it, out of that I think 5 are still doing photography. I think that says a lot about being forced to choose your career path at 18. A huge bit of stress for younger people is making sure they choose the right degree and I just want to say that your degree doesn’t define you or the rest of your career.

I can only speak from a creative career perspective but a lot of skills are transferable and I would approach university as a place to develop your overall skills and creativity without worrying too much about the title of your degree fitting perfectly in with your future job role.

There isn’t a one size fits all rule with studying, especially in the creative industries. People get their start in all different ways, it just pays to get an understanding of the opportunities and options you have and always remember, university isn’t the sole path!