Motion Graphics Designer Salary:

What the Bureau of Labor Statistics groups as Special Effects Artists and Animators earned a median salary in 2023 of just under $100,000 per annum. That’s the median, which means that there are as many people in the category who made less than $100,000 as there are who made more than that. The range from the bottom 10% to the top 10% runs from $57,000 to $170,000. Motion graphics designer job growth for the decade 2022-2032 is pegged at 8%. Obviously, a number of factors will affect how much you actually make, and you can’t just walk in the door of an advertising agency and demand $170,000 as your starting annual salary. On the other hand, you should be able to start out at a salary level that will put more than just bagged cereal and instant ramen on your table.

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 Affects Your Pay as a Motion Graphics Designer

As seen above, the range for a Motion Graphics Designer (or, in the terms used by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Special Effects Artists and Animators) can vary substantially. A number of factors, some of them obvious, some of them less so, will affect how much you make, including education and experience, but also where you’re working and what extra skills you bring to the table.

Education

As a general rule, the route to a career in motion graphics leads through a bachelor’s degree, generally in computer graphics (a BS) or graphic design (a BA, BFA or BS, depending on the balance a program strikes between working in traditional media and new technologies.) A four-year degree is the easiest way to learn what you need to know to get hired in the field, although it will also mean taking a number of classes that, in an effort to provide you with a well-rounded education, have nothing to do with your chosen field.

Another option, if you want to become a motion graphics designer without a degree, is a non-degree certificate program that will teach you the skills you need at a lightning pace and minus the required courses that are part and parcel of a college degree. Thus, you’ll learn to use After Effects, but you won’t have to write a five-page paper on Go Tell it to the Mountain. Many people today are opting for this route, as it’s far more economically viable than four years in college, and it can get you onto the job market in months rather than years. Admittedly, you may not pull in the same starting salary that someone with a bachelor’s degree might, but you’ll be hireable because your certificate program attests to the fact that you possess the skills that are needed in the field.

Experience

While education is an important factor in getting a job and can affect the salary at which you start out, perhaps the most important factor for breaking into the motion graphics field is experience. This is the eternal conundrum faced by people starting out in a career: how can you get experience if no one will hire you without experience? The solution to the puzzle can come in the form of unpaid internships or volunteer work. Neither is going to make you rich, and you may end up having to live on bagged cereal and instant ramen after all, but you’ll be gaining experience that’s invaluable, not only for the job market, but also for honing your skills and developing the all-important portfolio that will eventually be essential to getting you hired.

You can also take a shot at landing a few small freelance gigs. If you’re good at hustling, you might get your favorite pizzeria to hire you to create a dancing pizza graphic, for example. And, if you’re not good at hustling, getting in the practice won’t hurt you, especially if your intention is to freelance one day.

Industry

Large corporations with sizable motion graphics departments tend to pay more generously than small businesses, although there are always exceptions. Trillion-dollar companies pay more than smaller businesses because they can afford to be generous. If you work for such a company, you’ll be working on larger teams, as opposed to smaller businesses that pay less but possibly will leave you to your own devices, which is something you might appreciate. Freelancing, particularly if you’re good at hustling, can end up paying somewhere between these two extremes, although, especially starting out, you’ll find yourself accepting modest fees for your work. The freedom of freelancing generally comes with a price, that price being the bottom line on your edition of QuickBooks Solopreneur.

Location

Whoever said it first (there is some controversy on the topic), location location location has long been a byword for success in the real estate business. It applies to most other businesses as well, in that you’re sure to make a larger salary in a megalopolis than in a moderate-sized city. While the numbers for a Motion Graphics Designer in California may look mouth-wateringly high, with a mean wage of over $133,000, you have to factor that against the prohibitively high cost of living in the state. You’ll make less in the South and the Midwest, but you’re also going to be spending a lot less on a gallon of milk, let alone a gallon of gas. You might well be able to look forward to a higher standard of living away from the West Coast and the Northeast, even though you’ll be making less.

Specialization

How much you make is also going to be a factor of the skills you have and how they apply to a given position. You can safely assume that anyone working in the field of motion graphics design is going to be able to work with After Effects. Expertise with something like Blender, Cinema 4D, or Unreal Engine (if you want to work in game design) will definitely add value to your candidacy for a position that calls for these skills. Essentially, the more you know, the better your resume is going to look and the more you’ll eventually make

Pay Range for Motion Graphics Designers

According to Glassdoor Discover Salaries, the median national salary for graphics designers (excluding bonuses, which can run as high as $14,000) runs to just about $75,000, which sits in the middle of a range from $66,000 to $109,000. The median salary for freelancers is actually higher than that, at approximately $81,000, sitting in a range from $67.000 to $99,000. In Los Angeles (where, not surprisingly, more Motion Graphics Designers are employed than elsewhere), the mean salary for special effects artists and animators is over $135,000, while in Minnesota, their mean annual salary comes out to $66,000. The difference is enormous, but, then, so is the cost of living. That in Minneapolis is 1% lower than the national average, which doesn’t sound that low until you look at the figures for Los Angeles, where the cost of living is a staggering 51% higher than the national average. 

Highest-Earning Job Titles for Motion Graphics Designers

As might be expected, the word “senior” in a job description generally corresponds to larger salaries. Motion Designers are, as a rule, well paid too, while roles like In-House Graphic Designer and Graphic Design Lead pull in more modest salaries. You can reason that the latter job titles don’t correspond to a fully motion graphics position, and the way of the world currently makes for higher salaries in tech or tech-adjacent jobs as opposed to those using traditional media such as pencils and typewriters.

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.