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Analyzing the past is vital to understanding how a person develops over time. This applies to both personal and career decisions. Music fans get upset because their favorite bands start making music in a different genre. After all, old trends are outgrowing. Photographers are playing with exposure, which would have seemed strange ten years ago for any fashion magazine. They choose bolder angles, and models choose daring poses.

Recognizing how the world is changing and has changed is also an important characteristic of artists. Adapting to the new reality and keeping up with progress is a part of the process of success. Over the past ten years, the world has changed significantly, and it has become more technologically advanced, so what opportunities has this opened up for artists? Let’s figure out how it was before, what helps art to change now, and in what way.

What has Influenced Art?

The Internet

The majority of changes that have occurred to the internet can be attributed to the internet. Social networks have turned art not only into food for thought but also into a business. Now, in order to sell your work, you don’t have to look for specific sites — the number of likes and reposts also lead to success.

The internet has given us not only the opportunity to express ourselves but also to become recognizable in a couple of clicks. The algorithms have become so debugged that they allow others to see your work by themselves, promoting it without spending much time and resources.

Patreon was created, telling us: “You are cool! And if people like you, they will buy what you create.” In the past, it was necessary to undergo professional training, get into a prestigious academy, and even have external training to earn a reputation and sell their artwork. Now everything has become much easier — do it if you want, and do not depend on anyone. As Bill Gates said: “If your business is not on the Internet, then you are not in business.”

The Environment

The whole world, with its rules, ecology, and climate, is changing rapidly. It is challenging to manage and control it and cope with reflecting on all the changes that a person does not have time to keep up with.

Artworks are greatly influenced by the changes in our environment, especially the negative ones. They fuel artists to start thinking creatively and solve complex tasks through art.

Art allows artists to create a stand on current events that creates a safe space for each other . One of the leading artists who raise environmental issues is Olafur Eliasson. He creates installations using light, air, temperature, and water.

New Ethics

Recently, people have revised a lot of ideas about various ethical practices, gender, race relations, issues of religion, and politics. Of course, such topics were relevant for American countercultural movements back in the 1960s — 1970s. Gradually, society absorbed them, and they became part of the ideological mainstream.

In part, the new ethics restrict the freedom of speech and expression, sometimes pushing the quality of the artwork into the background. It also puts the ethics and progressiveness of its creator or performer first. But its great importance lies in the representation of what has been silent for a long time and what has not attracted attention.

Thanks to the fact that we broadcast more LGBTQ+ characters, different bodies, figure features, skin tones, genders, sexuality, and beliefs, we become more tolerant of each other and discover new things in ourselves.

Fashion is Cyclical: What Trends are Coming Back?

Painting

Many artists are returning to painting on canvases, walls, and various objects! Surely such a revival will see growth in a society that questions the highly mechanized nature of everyday life. The aesthetics of the Golden Age are firmly entrenched in modern trends and new works of art, inspiring not only experienced artists but also young beginners.

Maximalism

The aesthetics of excess is a reaction to minimalism. The predecessor to this idea was once Andy Warhol, whose idea of a hybrid of incompatible things triumphed over a “clean” and neat picture. More artists and brands now adhere to bright colors and complex patterns, continuing to look for complex shapes.

Most Common Artistic Professions in the Past

Curator of an Art Gallery

Curators participate in purchasing or borrowing works of art, decide how to exhibit them, write explanatory materials for visitors, conduct conversations with students and the public, keep records of works, and work with restorers to ensure that works of art remain in good condition. And they can also conduct relevant academic research. For this, an appropriate degree is often needed — for example, in art history.

University or Art School Teacher

You can teach at an art school or an advanced training institute. A typical path of admission is to obtain a degree in the field of art, followed by a teacher qualification.

When working on either of the two, you don’t only give lectures to students but also help them conduct their research and do practical projects: from studying the works of a particular artist to finding ways in which art can help improve social or health problems.

Studying art, design, or art history at university is a typical first step.

Architect

Architects design buildings, and landscape architects design the environment — parks or urban spaces. Unlike designers who mostly engage in decorative design, architects are fully responsible for the project.

The range of their duties and area of responsibility is much broader. They not only come up with an idea and make estimates but most often personally manages all processes.

Fashion designer

A fashion designer conceives an artistic image, selects the necessary materials, and proceeds to the direct embodiment of the idea in a specific costume.

Fashion designing can be mastered in artistic and technical secondary and higher educational institutions. A fashion designer needs to be aware of the main trends in the development of world fashion; it is necessary to closely monitor the emergence of new technologies, fabrics, and materials.

Media, Cinema, and Theater

There are many vacancies that allow you to make good use of your artistic abilities. You could work in publishing or advertising as a web designer, graphic designer, or photographer.

Works related to art in television, cinema, or theater include a set designer, costume designer, makeup artist, lighting technician, and lighting designer/director. There are also roles on television and cinema as cameraman, cameraman, and film/video editor.

Emerging Professions and Changes in the Market

Special Effects Artist

A special effects artist works with visual content using certain technologies. This specialist either combines special effects with real shooting or entirely creates scenes using computer graphics.

Depending on the project the artist is involved in, he can work alone or in a team. The tasks of a digital artist include excellent command of 3D graphics and animation to create VFX effects.

Game designer

The main task of game design is to provide a fantastic user experience. The high-quality game design makes players enjoy the process and enter the game more often, despite a bad mood, lack of sleep, or work deadlines.

The game designer’s hand touches everything that can affect the gaming experience. In large game development companies, narrow specialists perform different workpieces — game designers-balancers, game designers of features, game designers of systems, and level designers. Some sort of an internal division likened to “clans.”

Digital Artist

Digital art is a modern art direction that requires more skills and abilities than the profession of an ordinary artist. It is necessary to adapt to the peculiarities of the technique and the interface of the graphic editor and get used to the tools.

When dealing with digital art, you can combine different styles and techniques. This direction is now taught in many educational institutions. Plus, there are many courses that you can study remotely.

You can find video tutorials on YouTube, as well as attend workshops. And you can learn to become a digital artist at any age. Traditional artists need brushes, paints, and canvases; with digital art, you only need to buy a graphic tablet and a software package.

It is possible to change the stages of drawing and proportions and cancel the action on technical assets — these are significant advantages in work.

Font Designer

To do this, you must love letters. You will need to study, develop, and improve their plasticity, and understand how different forms interact.

Knowing the history of fonts and understanding which font is required for a particular project is one of the most important tasks of a font designer.

As a font designer, you need to gradually form your collection of fonts with examples of how they can be used and are used in real projects. A font designer can be a researcher who analyzes, develops, and popularizes a specific approach and area of knowledge.

Font designers can produce fonts and put them up for sale in the public domain or create fonts for projects they are working on. Oftentimes, font designers also work as typographers and typesetters.

Social Media Designer

A social media designer creates a visual concept of a profile, commercial account, group, page, or community. He is hired to develop the company’s unique style, distinguish the product from analogs, and bypass competitors.

The designer of a social network is a superman: illustrator, colorist, copywriter, SMM, and PR man. Not necessarily all of the things mentioned above, of course. It depends on the number of skills the designer has. It often happens that one designer combines all these requirements and so works alone.

However, not every designer is also a copywriting specialist or a PR guru; many companies have different people working on SMM tasks together.

Final Thoughts on Artistic Careers

Do you feel the difference between how it was and how it is now? Digitization is firmly settled in our lives and careers. Media theorists see in the history of the development of communication tools a reflection of how ways of thinking have changed: from sensory cognition of the four-dimensional world to the creation of a digital model of reality and the person himself existing in it.

But the transition to online has brought a lot of advantages! Art has become more visible for people of any age, employment type, and residence place. More young buyers appeared, and active work with online platforms began. New digital projects, including educational ones, have been launched.