Best Cities for Motion Graphics Designers

You’re a motion graphics designer looking to start a career. One of the first questions you have to answer is where you want to live and work. You may want to stay where you are, especially if you’re living in a major city that affords opportunity to motion graphics artists, in other words, if you live on the New York/Los Angeles axis. On the other hand, you may want to escape those overpopulated rat races and seek out a city that offers a better balance between quality of work and quality of life. The good news is that such cities do exist, and you can make a well-paid and successful career in motion graphics in any one of a number of cities. While the young and curious may still want to experience the country’s greatest metropolises, others may well prefer a less fast-paced place to live.

What is a Motion Graphics Designer?

Motion graphics shouldn’t be confused with character animation (such as you see in classic Disney movies.) Motion graphics are, rather, graphic design elements to which animators give the illusion of life. Although motion graphics existed before the 1950s, that decade is when the field came into its own, originally through the medium of animated main-title sequences for motion pictures.

The openings of Billy Wilder’s The Seven-Year Itch (1955) and Alfred Hitchcock’s North by Northwest (1959) are prime examples of the groundbreaking sequences that set the tone for the movie to come. Both are the work of this type of animation’s key pioneer, Saul Bass. The two opening sequences combine kinetic typography, graphic devices, and drawn images. The result is opening credits that grab the audience’s attention. Bass’ tour de force was the six-minute end credit sequence for Michael Todd’s Around the World in Eighty Days (1956), which provides an entire synopsis of the movie in the form of kinetic sketches while the names of the actors with cameo roles in the film go by. It remains the ne plus ultra of end credits.

As far as the ne plus ultra of motion graphics at the start of a movie is concerned, the palm probably goes to the original Star Wars movie (recte: A New Hope.) The celebrated crawl that runs from the bottom of the screen to an imagined vanishing point in the middle of the screen was designed by Dan Perri, although the technique that held audiences spellbound for a minute and a half in 1977 actually dates back to the 1930s and both the Flash Gordon serials and Cecil B. De Mille’s Union Pacific, in which the disappearing crawl is superimposed on a pair of railway tracks.

In 1977, George Lucas had no choice but to lay the titles out on the floor and run the camera over them. With the subsequent advent of computer animation, such processes could be done virtually at the click of a mouse (and, in fact, the original Star Wars titles were redone using the new technology for later releases.) The ability to create computer-generated images with programs such as Adobe After Effects has completely transformed the motion graphics design industry. Creators now have a virtually unlimited toolbox at their disposal, and the days of awkwardly moving the camera to create the illusion of moving titles are long gone. Whereas the bounds of the possible were the problem faced by Motion Graphics Designers in the days of Saul Bass, the problem today is one of not doing too much and making sure the technology doesn’t become an end in itself. (A good example of doing an enormous amount with the available technology while still creating something satisfying and intelligible is the main title sequences for HBO’s Game of Thrones.)

Behind these little visual miracles sits the Motion Graphics Designer, who exists at the junction of graphic design and animation. To be good at this job, you need the graphic designer’s eye and sense of the visually attractive as well as the ability to operate the software software such as Adobe After Effects. The Motion Graphics Designer is responsible for both the vision and the execution, which are two very different processes, one that often requires traditional artists’ media, and one that calls for a computer. As a result, you’re unlikely to get bored being a Motion Graphics Designer.

What Makes a City Good for Motion Graphics Designers?

Motion graphics designers are artists. That means you have needs from the place in which you live that people with less creative vocations don’t necessarily have. People in creative professions need to recharge their batteries in ways that inspire their imaginations. You’ll want to factor that in when you start looking for places to live and work.

You’re going to have many of the same mundane concerns that everyone in the workforce has. Job opportunities and high salaries are some of the obvious things you’re going to want to seek out, but bear in mind that the cities that offer the biggest salaries aren’t necessarily those that will afford you the best standard of living. There’s a lot that goes into the choice of an ideal city, and, especially with the high cost and enormous hassle of moving, you’re going to want to get it right the first time. Although, if a gypsy lifestyle appeals to you, you can always do that as a freelancer who works from Mount Kilimanjaro one day and Mount Everest the next. (Yes, they both have internet service, although, as yet, not at the mountain’s summits.)

Job Opportunities

Since you want to create motion graphics as a career, your primary concern in choosing a place to live is going to be the quantity of jobs available in your chosen field. When it comes to the sheer number of jobs, you’re going to have trouble beating Los Angeles and New York, although you should immediately consider the intensity of the competition for the plentiful jobs in these cities. 

An important statistic to take into account here is the location quotient, a number that compares the number of people employed in a given sector in a given place as compared to the national average.

• A location quotient higher than 1 indicates that motion graphics designers are employed at a rate higher than the national average. 
• The statistic measures the density of the working motion graphics population, and, accordingly, you’re going to want to gravitate towards places with higher location quotients since they’ll offer you more opportunity per pound than other cities. 
• The highest location quotient for motion graphics designers in the country is in the District of Columbia (it comes out to 1.98), not a place that many people would equate with enormous opportunity in the field. 
• It’s not the only indicator of job opportunities in a given locality, but it’s an important one to consider.

A further factor you’ll want to take into consideration is the room for advancement in your profession in a given city. Yes, obviously, you should first get hired before you start thinking about getting promoted, but you also want to be in a place in which you can advance in your career. You probably don’t want to ask an interviewer what your chances of getting promoted are at a given company, but you can ask how big the motion graphics department is, what the departmental structure is, and what kinds of supervisors you’ll encounter.

Obviously, freelancers don’t have to worry about promotions, but they do have to worry about promoting their talents to pools of potential clients. Although you probably won’t be able to start out as a freelancer without some experience working under someone’s supervision, if the freelance lifestyle appeals to you, you’ll want to keep your eye out for places where you’ll be able to hook clients when the time comes.

High Salaries

Probably the first thing you’ll think of when it comes to looking for a place to work is the size of the salary you can expect to make there. You’re not going into motion graphics design as a hobby, and, since you’re doing it for money, you’re going to want to make as much money as you can while you’re at it. That’s not being hopelessly venal; it’s the fundamental principle of work in a capitalist society. There may be other factors at play that might lead you not to sell yourself off to the highest bidder, but there’s no denying the fact that more money is better than less.

Where that principle comes into question is when you start to evaluate the Bang for Your Buck principle: larger salaries are almost certainly to be found in places like Los Angeles, New York, Seattle and San Francisco, but those are all places with a prohibitively high cost of living. A smaller salary in a city with a lower cost of living will often give you a better quality of life, although you will, admittedly, be living in a smaller city that has less to offer in the way of excitement than one of the cities mentioned above. There’s much to recommend places off the most beaten paths, including easier and less complicated living, although you should do the math to make sure that you will indeed come out ahead if you accept a smaller salary in a with a lower cost of living.

Strong Motion Graphics Designer Community

You may want to be an island unto yourself, but a lot of people working in creative fields benefit considerably from imaginative cross-pollination and seek out opportunities to meet with, work with, and exchange ideas with other people in the motion graphics field. If you’re the only motion graphics designer for hundreds of miles, this obviously isn’t going to be an option, but there are many cities in which there are enough motion designers to form a community that comes together either with periodic meet-ups or by connecting through the likes of Slack to exchange ideas, technical advice, and often just the time of day. Many motion graphics designers place the presence of such a community high on their list of factors to consider when choosing a place to live.

Vibrant Local Art Scene

Being creative people, motion graphics designers benefit from living in an artistic milieu. Good museums are filled with great creative ideas to which you can turn for inspiration or just to recharge your batteries. The same is true for all the other art scenes that can be found in a given city: if music is important to you, what are the opportunities for hearing live music, be it in clubs or a concert hall? If you care more about theater, what are the possibilities for attending live performances of plays, opera or ballet? You might even want to research bookstores, cafes, and other places creative people gather. The more plentiful these opportunities are, the richer your experience living in that city will be. 

Quality of Life

This is probably the most ephemeral of categories considered here, but it can also be the most important. All of the above factors play into the general quality of life, but that also involves such unartistic things as crime rates, traffic density and urban green space.

• If you have a dog, are there good places to walk it?
• What about sports, either those you practice or those you watch? If you’re used to living in a big professional sports market, you may have trouble adjusting to a smaller city with just a double-A baseball team.
• And what of the weather? While no place has absolutely perfect weather, you may or may not want to face cold winters and the hassles that go with them, or you may insist on at least the possibility of a white Christmas. And what’s the humidity like in summer?
• If you like to shop, a good nearby mall is going to be a necessity, as is the presence of the chain food store that sells the dark chocolate peanut butter cups to which you’re slightly addicted. 
• Speaking of food, what about restaurants, whether you’re a gastronomic sophisticate or whether you just need to be close to a Wingstop?

All of these factors come together to make a city one in which you’ll thrive or in which you’ll be unspeakably miserable for the rest of your earthly days. Seriously, though, you should definitely make a list of the livability factors that are most important to you (aim for ten rather than three) and research what the cities you’re considering have to offer. Everyone has a different deal-breaker when it comes to all these miscellaneous factors. You should know what yours is and then not compromise on it.

Top Cities for Motion Graphics Designers

Los Angeles

There is no way to escape putting Los Angeles on the list of major cities for motion graphics designers. While there are countless drawbacks to living in a city that the angels abandoned some time ago, it still remains the epicenter of film and television production and is home to a thriving advertising sector as well. In other words, there are more opportunities for motion graphics designers in Los Angeles than in probably any other city in the world. On the other hand, that means that there are more people looking for motion graphics design jobs in Southern California than anywhere else. The salary numbers for the area are high, but they come with a very, very high cost of living (living expenses are roughly double the national average, not least of all because of the prohibitive cost of housing.) There are other concerns about living in Los Angeles, but it does afford a vibrant cultural scene with plenty to do after dark. It may not be the place to which you want to retire, but, if you’re young and starting out, the attractions of the Southland might well outweigh the drawbacks.

Atlanta

Atlanta is a more recent entrant into the field of cities that welcome motion graphics designers. It has a thriving film and television production sector of its own, which translates to motion design jobs, and a cost of living not appreciably higher than the national average. You’ll find meetups and a big Slack community of colleagues with whom you can exchange ideas. You’ll also find the Ponce City Market for all manner of food and shopping, a world-class aquarium, a famous botanical garden, a catholic assortment of museums, a developing street art scene, a renowned urban tree canopy, and, oddly, more than fifteen roller skating rinks.

Austin

Austin is not just a world-famous live music hub, it’s also home to a thriving tech scene that makes for opportunities for motion graphics designers. The city has a cost of living that approximates the national average, and is considered the safest of Texas’ large municipalities. It’s also home to the “Keep Austin Weird” campaign, which seeks to preserve the city’s oddball character in the face of the tech invasion and gentrification. Among the weirder things the city has to offer is one of the largest urban bat colonies in North America, a haunted hotel (The Driskill) that serves bloody marys topped with bacon, shrimp and even a slider, turtle racing, the Cathedral of Junk and the Hippie Hollow nude beach.

Nashville

America’s fabled Music City, Nashville, has marched into the twenty-first century with a growing tech sector and a nurturing startup ecosystem in place, both of which spell opportunity for motion graphics designers. There is also a film production industry that is rapidly developing, and that offers further opportunities. Crime is low, outdoor recreation is plentiful, and Tennessee has no individual state income tax, which is one reason why the cost of living is actually lower than the national average. The city hosts a growing community of people in creative professions, along with museums, galleries and theaters aplenty. Nashville is also the birthplace of hot (as in spicy) fried chicken, as well as being the home of Donut Distillery, a quirky doughnut shop with a liquor license that serves whiskey flights to wash down their Dreamsicle doughnuts. Nashville also offers facilities for ziplining (preferably not after the whiskey flight), hot air ballooning, and, not to be forgotten, honky-tonk karaoke nights throughout the city.

Vancouver, British Columbia

You’ll have to figure out how to get a permit to work north of the 49th parallel, but Hollywood North has much to offer a motion graphics designer. That includes a thriving film and TV production industry, one of the world’s leading animation hubs, and a booming tech sector that grew an enormous 69% in the five years between 2017 and 2022. The cost of living is admittedly high, and the temperate rainforest climate is, well, rainy (but with warm winters by Canadian standards.) As for its physical situation, the city offers a juxtaposition of a breathtaking cityscape with breathtaking snow-capped mountains to the north. The city offers outstanding dining options, one of the great urban greenspaces in North America in Stanley Park, galleries (especially of Indigenous art), a developing street art scene, museums, and much in the way of the performing arts. There are far worse, less sustainability-oriented and less livable cities than this southwest corner of the True North.

How to Find a Motion Graphics Designer Job

Finding a job in the motion graphics field is, to a certain extent, like finding any other. You’re going to have to look at the pons asinorum of job seeking today, Indeed, simply because of the volume of jobs (and scams) to be seen on that platform. Indeed searches can be discouraging indeed, but you’ll have to put up with them, and you may come up trumps after all. Just remember to submit a carefully tailored resume with each application and hope it gets past the application tracking system (ATS) that any employer advertising on Indeed is going to use, simply because of the sheer number of applications their postings attract. You might also consider LinkedIn (since you’ll need to have a LinkedIn profile regardless), although it’s generally not considered the best resource for mograph jobs.

In addition to that rather grim forecast (and, in all honesty, people do find jobs on Indeed), there are sites devoted to either creative talent in general, or to motion graphics professionals in particular. These are definitely worth researching, and include Behance (no relation to the pop singer), Motionographer, and the job boards hosted by the School of Motion. Among these, Behance offers you a chance to exhibit your portfolio for all to see. You’ll be facing less but stiffer competition on these sites, but you’ll also find postings to which you’ll be better suited than some of the more general ones to be found on Indeed.

Learn the Skills to Become a Motion Graphics Designer at Noble Desktop

If you’ve decided that you want to make a career designing motion graphics, you’re going to need training, most particularly in the program that’s going to sit at the heart of your professional labors, Adobe After Effects. Noble Desktop, a well-known design and IT school based in New York City, can help you to become a motion graphics designer without a degree. Noble can teach you what you need to know with its Motion Graphics Certificate program, which includes instruction in After Effects, its sister video editing program Premiere Pro, and the 3D modeling program Cinema 4D. You’ll also have ample time and support to devote to the development of your professional portfolio. There is an even more thorough option, the Video Editing and Motion Graphics Certificate program, which includes everything in the Motion Graphics Certificate program, but is augmented by classroom modules in Adobe Audition, Adobe Photoshop, and state-of-the-art instruction in AI for Video & Motion Graphics. (The AI class is available separately, too.)

Both certificate programs include a number of 1-to-1 sessions with an experienced mentor who can assist you with everything from classroom matters to laying down a battle plan for the job market. You’ll also get a free retake option, be able to consult recordings of every classroom session, and receive fully live and fully hands-on instruction that will have you learning by doing rather than just sitting there like a lump trying to make sense out of video tutorials. You’ll be the recipient of Noble Desktop’s proprietary classroom materials and workbooks, which will be yours to keep for future reference. You’ll also earn a New York State-licensed certificate for your labors at the end of the course, which you can exhibit on your all-important LinkedIn profile.