Commercial Arts | Courses & Colleges for Commercial Arts

Commercial art refers to art that has an obvious commercial purpose. Commercial artists are those who create paintings, drawing, sculptures, murals and designs – sometimes by traditional methods and nowadays by computer aided design – with the
sole purpose of conveying a commercial message. They use a powerful visual media for influencing the people, mostly so that they would buy a product. In the present world of advertising and marketing, the importance of commercial art has increased
manifold. This is because visual message is being used most commonly to advertise any product. Televisions, billboards, book jackets, computer websites etc all are using commercial art with increasing frequency. New techniques like graphic
designing, photography and animated arts are also being used commercially. You can see the displays of commercial arts all around you. Book jackets, window displays, catalogues and billboards are indispensible forum of advertisements and all use
this type of marketing oriented art.

Career possibilities in commercial art

If you are creative with a flair for marketing, there are various career options for you in commercial art. These are as follows:

• You can work in advertisement firms. These are the biggest employers of commercial artists.
• You can work as a freelance artist. In that capacity you may be asked to design catalogues, book jackets, advertisement magazines cinema slides etc.
• Photography and graphic or web based designing are the new career opportunities for commercial artists.
• You can work as a consultant for fashion houses, art studios, interior decorators, publishing houses etc.
• You can specialize as a drafter. A drafter is a person who takes the outlines laid out by engineers and turns them into drawings, depending on the technical specifications.
• You can choose to pursue a more academic career and teach commercial art in the various institutes.

Approximate salary at the entry level

The approximate salary varies depending on the industry which is employing you and the level of your talent. Fashion houses, large advertisement firms and publishing conglomerates start with very handsome pay packets. A talented artist can earn
quite well even working as a freelance professional. There is ample scope of advancement depending on your artistic talent and marketing acumen.

Pre qualifications required to join the course

If you want to pursue a career in commercial art, you will have to cross the following stages:

• Complete your +2 level in any stream. You should have computer as one of your subjects. Since commercial artists deal with marketing, a basic knowledge of economics can also be helpful.
• Various institutes offer undergraduate courses in commercial arts. They are for three years and you can join these courses.
• If you have completed an undergraduate degree in such subjects as fine arts, graphics design, animation etc, you can also do a short certificate course in commercial art.
• Creativity, artistic talent and a flair for marketing are essential requirements to succeed in the field of commercial art.

Best places in India to study the course

The top institutes of India where you can study commercial art are as follows:

1. International polytechnic for women, New Delhi
2. Vishwakarma Creative I college, Pune
3. Pixel dimension, Mumbai
4. National Institute of Fine Arts, Delhi
5. Zee Institute of Creative Art, Kochi
6. Virtuoso Palette Art School, Bangalore
7. DAV College, Kanpur

Best places in the world to study the course

You can study commercial art in following institutes of the world:

1. New York University
2. Fordham University
3. Lewis University
4. Drake University
5. Rochester Institute of Technology
6. Dominican University
7. Miami University