The advertising assistant art director salary ranges between $40,000 and $90,000 a year with the median income being $67,000 a year in the United States. The size of the company you are employed with can dramatically changes the income. These figures do not include benefits such as insurance, 401k or profit sharing. Not all employers offer such benefits.
Advertising assistant art directors are also known as junior art directors. To work within an advertising art department you must work smoothly with others in a team setting. In order to understand the assistant art director position you must understand the art directors position, being this is the position you will be assisting. An advertising art director works underneath the department head or creative director. They must also work within a budget along with the creative director in order to stay within the advertising campaign budget. In smaller agencies the art director may manage some accounts. The advertising art director takes conceptual ideas from the creative director and puts them into a finished layout. Once the ideas are approved the assistant art director also works closely with production to see the project through to completion. Work within the advertising art department is often delegated from the art director to the assistant art director.
In order to become an assistant art director it is important to have strong computer skills, be organized, driven, creative and team player. An assistant art director will need to obtain an education in the field, and work experience typically upwards of two years is needed, a portfolio or “book” is also required in order to obtain a position. Your book consists of previous advertising campaigns you have worked on. This shows your creative skills for creating advertising. The assistant art director position is a stepping stone in order to obtain experience for the art director and creative director positions within the advertising industry. To obtain the higher on the assistant art directors’ pay scale one must develop many years of experience.
