You may like to dance, sing or draw as a hobby. But you might not believe you can turn it into a lifelong career.
The truth is, many kids love to do creative things. Then life kicks in, and a lot of those same kids end up abandoning their creative path so they can do a job they or their family considers more stable.
However, being creative doesn’t just have to be a hobby or a passing phase. It can be a solid way to make a living. With the right training and mindset, you can turn what you truly love to do into a job that pays.
Here are some creative careers to consider if you want to avoid being locked into a 9 to 5 job.
Dancer
Your family probably has some videos of you leaping around a room or moving your body to some upbeat music. Sure, those make cute videos that can be sprung upon you on your wedding day, or they can become a small part of your dance story.
One of the keys to pursuing dance as a career is by enrolling in a dance school early. This will pair you with an experienced teacher that can hone your natural skills as well as present opportunities for you to perform in front of a live audience. If you get over stage fright at an early age, it probably won’t be a big barrier in the future.
There are likely many dance schools in your area if you do a quick search, and you can also turn to these dance experts. Dancing is one of the most fulfilling creative careers because it involves using your movement as a way of creative expression. (Dancing is also a great way to stay in shape while you work.)
Photographer
Almost everyone these days has a smartphone and fancies themselves a photographer for taking a pic of a sunset. But that doesn’t mean that everyone is a photographer.
Being a professional photographer isn’t just casually snapping photos at a family reunion. Photographers live and breathe photography in all forms. If you find yourself seeing pictures wherever you go or you’re always carrying a camera to capture the unexpected, then your career path might be calling out to you.
There are many different types of photography you can specialize in, from weddings to portraits to documentary. Or you could blend different genres together to challenge yourself and stay engaged.
Writer
Perhaps you have a blog to talk about your daily observations or even politics. However, it doesn’t just have to be something you do in your spare time. Writers, particularly copywriters, can make a good living employed with a company or as a freelancer.
Many companies need a creative copywriter for their blogs, websites, and social media. Aside from ad writing, you could also focus on the long-game and write novels to pitch to publishers as an author. Or perhaps you love television and movies. In that case, you can try a career as a screenwriter to create scripts to be acted out.
App Developer
Not all creative career paths involve painting or writing. You can blend your love for being creative with your knowledge of coding to create something that’s sellable.
App developers may focus solely on creating the user interface or the back-end functioning—or both. Whatever the case, app developers are in high demand by companies, so if you’ve got the skills, you likely won’t have too much trouble finding an open position.
Art/Creative Director
Perhaps you have great creative ideas and work well with people but don’t necessarily want to draw or design all day. In this case, an art director may be a creative career for you.
Art directors are team leads responsible for planning the creative components of everything from an ad campaign to a magazine publication. They make sure all of the elements come together, the quality of work maintains a high standard and the project is delivered on time.
In some cases, art directors can also dive right in and handle some of the production themselves.
Designer
If you’ve ever been impressed by an ad in a magazine or billboard or on a website, then you may secretly want to be a designer for a living. Graphic designers come up with all of the visual elements of an advertisement or publication to help make it attractive while also getting the core messages across.
There are many other forms of design you could consider pursuing. For example, you could be a package designer to turn more heads in the supermarket, or you could be the next great fashion designer if you have a love for style. Interior designers use their creativity to improve homes while set designers create fantasy worlds for the stage.
Do you love playing video games? Well, there’s more than a 1 in 2 chance in the U.S. that you do. If so, then you might be surprised that video game designer is a thing. A designer of this type creates plots, fictitious scenes and electronic characters for mobile and console games.
Editors
You might not think of this as a creative job, but it takes a creative mind to gather all of the raw material and shape into a finished product that blows peoples’ minds.
You could be a book editor to help an author stay on plot and avoid any grammatical pitfalls. Or, you could be a film editor that splices together videos into a documentary or commercial. In this role, you might also be responsible for adding sound in the right places or even choosing the camera angles before filming.
Creative Careers: More Possible Than You Think
If you have an artist living inside of you, don’t deny them by working at a job that doesn’t provide creative fulfillment. With the right skills and the right mindset, you can turn things you thought would always be just hobbies into well-paying, creative careers you can be proud of.
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